ON FEB. 19 ...

In 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus, the founder of modern astronomy, was born in Torun, Poland.

In 1803 Congress voted to accept Ohio’s borders and constitution. (However, Congress did not formally ratify Ohio statehood until 1953.)

In 1807 former Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. (He was subsequently tried for treason and acquitted.)

In 1846 the Texas state government was formally installed in Austin.

In 1878 Thomas Edison received a patent for his phonograph.

In 1881 Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.

In 1940 singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson was born in Detroit.

In 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans as well as Japanese nationals living in the United States.

In 1945, during World War II, some 30,000 U.S. Marines landed on Iwo Jima, where they began a monthlong battle to seize control of the island from Japanese forces.

In 1963 the Soviet Union informed President John Kennedy that it would withdraw “several thousand” of an estimated 17,000 Soviet troops in Cuba.

In 1986 the U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide, 37 years after the pact had first been submitted for ratification.

In 1994 American speedskater Bonnie Blair won the fourth Olympic gold medal of her career as she won the 500-meter race in Lillehammer, Norway.

In 1996 baseball showman Charles O. Finley died in Chicago; he was 77.

In 1997 Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, the last of the nation’s major communist revolutionaries, died in Beijing; he was 92.

In 2002, in Salt Lake City, a win by bobsledders Jill

Bakken and Vonetta Flowers gave the United States 21 medals in the Winter Games; Flowers became the first black athlete ever to strike gold at the Winter Olympics.

In 2004 former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was charged with fraud, insider trading and other crimes in connection with the energy trader’s colossal collapse.

In 2006 Israel halted the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money to the Palestinians after Hamas took control of the Palestinian parliament. Also in 2006 Jimmie Johnson won the Daytona 500.

In 2013 bandits dressed as police officers snatched $50 million in diamonds off a Helvetic Airways plane at Brussels Airport in Belgium. Also in 2013 Marine Corps Gen. John Allen announced his retirement to care for his ailing wife rather than accept a White House nomination to be supreme allied commander at NATO.

In 2017 software engineer Susan Fowler posted on her website a lengthy account of the sexual harassment and company hostility she said she experienced during her time at Uber; CEO Travis Kalanick responded the next day with a supportive tweet, but by June, after a string of other scandals and missteps, he was forced out of the company.