TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, FEB. 5, the 36th day of 2023. There are 335 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 2020, the Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump, bringing to a close the third presidential trial in American history, though a majority of senators expressed unease with Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine that resulted in the two articles of impeachment. Just one Republican, Mitt Romney of Utah, broke with the GOP and voted to convict.
In 1811, George, Prince of Wales, was named Prince Regent due to the mental illness of his father, Britain’s King George III.
In 1922, the first edition of Reader’s Digest was published.
In 1971, Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell stepped onto the surface of the moon in the first of two lunar excursions.
In 1983, former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie, expelled from Bolivia, was brought to Lyon, France, to stand trial. (He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison — he died in 1991.)
In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, granting workers up to 12 weeks unpaid leave for family emergencies.
In 1994, white separatist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted in Jackson, Mississippi, of murdering civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963, and was immediately sentenced to life in prison. (Beckwith died Jan. 21, 2001, at age 80.)
In 2014, CVS Caremark announced it would pull cigarettes and other tobacco products from its stores.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Football Hall-of-Famer Roger Staubach is 81. Actors Barbara Hershey, Christopher Guest and Tom Wilkinson are 75. Actor-comedian Tim Meadows is 62. Actor Jennifer Jason Leigh is 61. Actor Laura Linney and rock musician Duff McKagan (Guns N’ Roses) are 59. World Golf Hall-of-Famer Jose Maria Olazabal is 57. Actor-comedian Chris Parnell is 56. Rock singer Chris Barron (Spin Doctors) is 55. Singer Bobby Brown and actor Michael Sheen are 54. Actor-singer Darren Criss, and actors Alex Brightman and Henry Golding are 36. Rock musician Kyle Simmons (Bastille) is 35. Actor Jeremy Sumpter is 34.