TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, Feb. 26.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On Feb. 26, 1993, a truck bomb built by Islamic extremists exploded in the parking garage of the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others. (The bomb failed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower, as the terrorists had hoped; both structures were destroyed in the 9/11 attack eight years later.)
ON THIS DATE
In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei met with a Roman Inquisition official, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who ordered him to abandon the “heretical” concept of heliocentrism, which held that the earth revolved around the sun, instead of the other way around.
In 1904, the United States and Panama proclaimed a treaty under which the U.S. agreed to undertake efforts to build a ship canal across the Panama isthmus.
In 1916, actor-comedian Jackie Gleason was born in Brooklyn, New York.
In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional act establishing Mount McKinley National Park (now Denali National Park) in the Alaska Territory.
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional act establishing Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
In 1929, President Calvin Coolidge signed a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
In 1940, the United States Air Defense Command was created.
In 1952, Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed its own atomic bomb.
In 1966, South Korean troops sent to fight in the Vietnam War massacred at least 380 civilians in Go Dai hamlet.
In 1984, the last U.S. Marines deployed to Beirut as part of an international peacekeeping force withdrew from the Lebanese capital.
In 1994, a jury in San Antonio acquitted 11 followers of David Koresh of murder, rejecting claims they had ambushed federal agents; five were convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
In 1998, a jury in Amarillo, Texas, rejected an $11 million lawsuit brought by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey’s talk show for a price fall after a segment on food safety that included a discussion about mad cow disease.
Ten years ago: New
York Gov. David Paterson announced he wouldn’t seek reelection amid a criminal investigation over his handling of a domestic violence complaint against a top aide. (Investigators found no evidence of witness tampering.)
Five years ago: Internet activists declared victory over the nation’s big cable companies after the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to impose the toughest rules yet on broadband service to prevent companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T from creating paid fast lanes and slowing or blocking web traffic.
One year ago: After making his way from Pyongyang in an armored train, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Vietnam’s capital ahead of a summit with President Donald Trump, who arrived later in the day aboard Air Force One.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
“If you have it and you know you have it, then you have it. If you have it and don’t know you have it, you don’t have it. If you don’t have it but you think you have it, then you have it.” — Jackie Gleason (1916-1987).
— ASSOCIATED PRESS