TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS SATURDAY, FEB. 18, the 49th day of 2023. There are 316 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On this date in 2001, auto racing star Dale Earnhardt Sr. died in a crash at the Daytona 500; he was 49. In 1564, Michelangelo died in Rome at age 88. In 1885, Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was published in the U.S. for the first time (after having been published in Britain and Canada). In 1970, the “Chicago Seven” defendants were found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention; five were convicted of violating the AntiRiot Act of 1968 (those convictions were later reversed). In 1984, Italy and the Vatican signed an accord under which Roman Catholicism ceased to be the state religion of Italy. In 1988, Anthony M. Kennedy was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2003, an arson attack involving two South Korean subway trains in the city of Daegu claimed 198 lives. (The arsonist was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2004.)

In 2020, President Donald Trump commuted the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for political corruption; Blagojevich left prison hours later and returned home to Chicago. (Trump also issued pardons or clemency to former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, financier Michael Milken and a long list of others.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Singer Yoko Ono is 90. Singer-songwriter Bobby Hart is 84. Singers Irma Thomas and Herman Santiago (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers) are 82. Actor Jess Walton is 77. Singer Dennis DeYoung is 76. Actor Sinead Cusack is 75. Actor Cybill Shepherd is 73. Singer Randy Crawford is 71. Actor John Travolta is 69. Actor John Pankow is 68. Game show host Vanna White is 66. Actor Jayne Atkinson is 64. Actor Greta Scacchi is 63. Actor Matt Dillon and rock musician Tommy Scott (Space) are 59.