TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, FEB. 3, the 34th day of 2023. There are 331 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On Feb. 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for a federal income tax, was ratified.

On this date in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens held a shipboard peace conference off the Virginia coast; the talks deadlocked over the issue of Southern autonomy.

In 1943, during World War II, the U.S. transport ship SS Dorchester, which was carrying troops to Greenland, sank after being hit by a German torpedo in the Labrador Sea; of the more than 900 men aboard, only some 230 survived.

In 1959, rock-and-roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died in a small plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.

In 1988, the U.S. House of Representatives handed President Ronald Reagan a major defeat, rejecting his request for $36.2 million in new aid to the Nicaraguan Contras by a vote of 219-211.

In 1995, the space shuttle Discovery blasted off with a woman, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Eileen Collins, in the pilot’s seat for the first time in NASA history.

In 2020, in closing arguments at President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, Democratic prosecutors urged senators to stop a “runaway presidency” and recognize Trump’s actions in Ukraine as part of a pattern of behavior that would allow him to “cheat” in the 2020 election; Trump’s defenders accused Democrats of trying to undo the 2016 election and said voters should decide Trump’s fate.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Football Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton is 82. Actor Blythe Danner is 80. Football Hall of Famer Bob Griese is 78. Actors Morgan Fairchild and Pamela Franklin are 73. Actor Nathan Lane is 67. Actor Maura Tierney is 58. Reggaeton singer Daddy Yankee is 47. Human rights activist Amal Clooney is 45.