TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT Feb. 12, 1809

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was born in a log cabin in Hardin (now LaRue) County, Kentucky.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1909

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded.

1914

Groundbreaking took place for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (A year later on this date, the cornerstone was laid.)

1924

George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” premiered in New York.

1940

The radio play “The Adventures of Superman” debuted with Bud Collyer as the Man of Steel.

1959

The redesigned Lincoln penny — with an image of the Lincoln Memorial replacing two ears of wheat on the reverse side — went into circulation.

1963

In 1963, a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 720 broke up during severe turbulence and crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing all 43 people aboard.

1973

Operation Homecoming began as the first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict took place.

1980

The FBI announced that about $5,800 of the $200,000 ransom paid to hijacker “D.B. Cooper” before he parachuted from a Northwest Orient jetliner in 1971 had been found by an 8-year-old boy on a riverbank of the Columbia River in Washington state.