TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1836

The siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas.

1861

President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office, following word of a possible assassination plot in Baltimore.

1870

Mississippi was readmitted to the Union.

1903

President Theodore Roosevelt signed an agreement with Cuba to lease the area around Guantanamo Bay to the United States.

1942

The first shelling of the U.S. mainland during World War II occurred as a Japanese submarine fired on an oil refinery near Santa Barbara, California, causing little damage.

1954

The first mass inoculation of schoolchildren against polio using the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh as some 5,000 students were vaccinated.

1965

Film comedian Stan Laurel, 74, died in Santa Monica, California.

1981

An attempted coup began in Spain as 200 members of the Civil Guard invaded Parliament, taking lawmakers hostage.

1995

The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 4,000 mark for the first time, ending the day at 4,003.33.

1998

42 people were killed, some 2,600 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed, by tornadoes in central Florida.

2007

A Mississippi grand jury refused to bring any new charges in the 1955 slaying of Emmett Till, the Black teenager who was beaten and shot after being accused of whistling at a white woman, declining to indict the woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, for manslaughter.

2006

Japan’s Shizuka Arakawa stunned favorites Sasha Cohen of the United States and Irina Slutskaya of Russia to claim the ladies’ figure skating gold medal at the Turin Winter Olympics.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1868

The U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson by a vote of 126-47 following his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; Johnson was later acquitted by the Senate.

1803

In its Marbury v. Madison decision, the Supreme Court established judicial review of the constitutionality of statutes.

1938

The first nylon bristle toothbrush, manufactured by Dupont under the name “Dr. West’s Miracle Toothbrush,” went on sale.

1942

The SS Struma, a charter ship attempting to carry nearly 800 Jewish refugees from Romania to Britishmandated Palestine, was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea; all but one of the refugees perished.

1961

The Federal Communications Commission authorized the nation’s first fullscale trial of pay television in Hartford, Connecticut.

1988

In a ruling that expanded legal protections for parody and satire, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned a $150,000 award that the Rev. Jerry Falwell had won against Hustler magazine and its publisher, Larry Flynt.

1989

A state funeral was held in Japan for Emperor Hirohito, who had died the month before at age 87.

1996

Cuba downed two small American planes operated by the group Brothers to the Rescue that it claimed were violating Cuban airspace; all four pilots were killed.

2008

Cuba’s parliament named Raul Castro president, ending nearly 50 years of rule by his brother Fidel.

2015

The Justice Department announced that George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in a 2012 confrontation, would not face federal charges.