TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, FEB. 17, the 48th day of 2023. There are 317 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1801, the U.S. House of Representatives broke an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson president; Burr became vice president.
In 1815, the United States and Britain exchanged the instruments of ratification for the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812.
In 1863, the International Red Cross was founded in Geneva.
In 1864, during the Civil War, the Union ship USS Housatonic was rammed and sunk in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, by the Confederate hand-cranked submarine HL Hunley in the first naval attack of its kind; the Hunley also sank.
In 1944, during World War II, U.S. forces invaded Eniwetok Atoll, securing the atoll less than a week later.
In 1988, Lt. Col. William Higgins, a Marine Corps officer serving with a United Nations truce monitoring group, was kidnapped in southern Lebanon by Iranian-backed terrorists (he was later slain by his captors).
In 1995, Colin Ferguson was convicted of six counts of murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings (he was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison).
In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden opened a White House summit on countering extremism and radicalization, saying the U.S. needed to ensure that immigrants were fully included in the fabric of American society to prevent violent ideologies from taking root at home.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actorcomedian Barry Humphries (aka “Dame Edna”) is 89. Actor Christina Pickles is 88. Football Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown is 87. Actor Rene Russo is 69. Actor Lou Diamond Phillips is 61. Basketball Hall-of-Famer Michael Jordan, actor-comedian Larry, the Cable Guy, and TV personality Rene Syler are 60. Actor Denise Richards is 52. Rock singer-musician Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) is 51. Actor Jason Ritter is 43. TV personality Paris Hilton and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt are 42. TV host Daphne Oz is 37. Actor Chord Overstreet is 34