El Dorado News-Times

Today in History

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Today is Wednesday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2020. There are 330 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Feb. 5, 2001, four disciples of Osama bin Laden went on trial in New York in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. (The four were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.)

On this date:

In 1811, George, the Prince of Wales, was named Prince Regent due to the mental illness of his father, Britain's King George III.

In 1917, Mexico's present constituti­on was adopted by the Constituti­onal Convention in Santiago de Queretaro. The U.S. Congress passed, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto, an act severely curtailing Asian immigratio­n.

In 1918, during World War I, the Cunard liner SS Tuscania, which was transporti­ng about 2,000 American troops to Europe, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Irish Sea with the loss of more than 200 people.

In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed increasing the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices; the proposal, which failed in Congress, drew accusation­s that Roosevelt was attempting to "pack" the nation's highest court.

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 1988, the Arizona House impeached Republican Gov. Evan Mecham, setting the stage for his trial in the state Senate, where he was convicted of obstructin­g justice and misusing state funds allegedly funneled to his Pontiac dealership.

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 1999, Former heavyweigh­t boxing champion Mike Tyson was sentenced in Rockville, Maryland to a year in jail for assaulting two motorists following a traffic accident (he ended up serving 3 1/2 months).

In 2002, A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicted John Walker Lindh on 10 charges, alleging he was trained by Osama bin Laden's network and then conspired with the Taliban to kill Americans. (Lindh later pleaded guilty to lesser offenses and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. He was released in May 2019 after serving more than 17 years.)

In 2009, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Ten years ago: Toyota's president, Akio Toyoda, emerged from seclusion to apologize and address criticism that the automaker had mishandled a crisis over sticking gas pedals.

Five years ago: Jordan stepped up its air attacks on Islamic State facilities in Syria and expanded its airstrikes into Iraq for the first time after a captured Jordanian pilot was burned to death by the militant group. At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama called the Islamic State group a "death cult" and condemned those who seek to use religion as a rationale for violence. RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it would sell up to 2,400 stores.

One year ago: In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump called on Washington to end what he called “ridiculous partisan investigat­ion” and cast aside “revenge, resistance and retributio­n;” Trump accepted no blame for the rancorous atmosphere and refused to yield on the hard-line immigratio­n policies that had infuriated Democrats and forced a government shutdown. In the Democratic response, Stacey Abrams, who had lost her bid in Georgia to become America’s first black woman governor, accused Trump of abandoning working Americans and bringing partisan and cultural discord. Chanting for yet another title, hundreds of thousands of fans jammed downtown Boston for a parade celebratin­g the New England Patriots’ sixth Super Bowl victory.

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