TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS THURSDAY, FEB. 1, the 32nd day of 2018. There are 333 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1943, during World War II, one of America’s most highly decorated military units, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made up almost exclusively of Japanese Americans, was authorized.
In 1790, the U.S. Supreme Court convened for the first time in New York. (However, since only three of the six justices were present, the court recessed until the next day.)
In 1893, inventor Thomas Edison completed work on the world’s first motion picture studio, his “Black Maria,” in West Orange, N.J. The opera “Manon Lescaut,” by Giacomo Puccini, premiered in Turin, Italy.
In 1922, in one of Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries, movie director William Desmond Taylor was shot to death in his Los Angeles home; the killing has never been solved.
In 1942, during World War II, the Voice of America broadcast its first program to Europe, relaying it through the facilities of the British Broadcasting Corp. in London.
In 1946, Norwegian statesman Trygve Lie was chosen to be the first secretarygeneral of the United Nations.
In 1959, men in Switzerland rejected giving women the right to vote by a more than 2-1 referendum margin. (Swiss women gained the right to vote in 1971.)
In 1960, four black college students began a sit-in protest at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they’d been refused service.
In 1968, during the Vietnam War, South Vietnam’s police chief (Nguyen Ngoc Loan) executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head in a scene captured by news photographers. Richard M. Nixon announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. In 1979, Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini received a tumultuous welcome in Tehran as he ended nearly 15 years of exile.
In 1988, actress Heather O’Rourke, co-star of the 1982 movie “Poltergeist,” died in San Diego at age 12.
In 1993, Gary Bettman took office as the National Hockey League’s first commissioner, succeeding the NHL’s final president, Gil Stein.
In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, killing all seven of its crew members: commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; payload commander Michael Anderson; mission specialists Kalpana Chawla, David Brown and Laurel Clark; and payload specialist Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli in space.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor Stuart Whitman is 90. Folk singer Bob Shane (The Kingston Trio) is 84. Singers Don Everly and Ray Sawyer (Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show), and actor Garrett Morris are 81. Bluegrass singer Del McCoury is 79. TV personality-singer Joy Philbin is 77. Comedian-actordirector Terry Jones is 76. Political commentator Fred Barnes is 75. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., is 74. Rock musician Mike Campbell (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) is 68. Blues singermusician Sonny Landreth is 67. Actorwriter-producer Bill Mumy is 64. Rock singer Exene Cervenka is 62. Actor Linus Roache is 54. Princess Stephanie of Monaco, country musician Dwayne Dupuy (Ricochet) and actress Sherilyn Fenn are 53. Lisa Marie Presley and comedian-actor Pauly Shore are 50. Actor Brian Krause, jazz musician Joshua Redman and rock musician Patrick Wilson (Weezer) are 49. Actor Michael C. Hall and rock musician Ron Welty are 47. Rapper Big Boi (Outkast) is 43. Roots rocker Jason Isbell and country singer Julie Roberts are 39. Actor Jarrett Lennon is 36. Rock singermusician Andrew VanWyngarden is 35. TV personality Lauren Conrad is 32. Actress-singer Heather Morris, and actress and MMA fighter Ronda Rousey are 31. Rock singer Harry Styles (One Direction) is 24.