TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, Feb. 19, the 50th day of 2023. There are 315 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history

On Feb. 19, 2008, an ailing Fidel Castro resigned the Cuban presidency after nearly a half-century in power; his brother Raul was later named to succeed him.

On this date

In 1473, astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland.

In 1807, former Vice President Aaron Burr, accused of treason, was arrested in the Mississippi Territory, in presentday Alabama. (Burr was acquitted at trial.)

In 1878, Thomas Edison received a U.S. patent for “an improvement in phonograph or speaking machines.”

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which paved the way for the relocation and internment of people of Japanese ancestry, including U.s.born citizens.

In 1945, Operation Detachment began as some 30,000

Marines began landing on Iwo Jima, where they commenced a successful monthlong battle to seize control of the island from Japanese forces. In 1959, an agreement was signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting Cyprus its independence.

In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford, calling the issuing of the internment order for people of Japanese ancestry in 1942 “a sad day in American history,” signed a proclamation formally confirming its termination. In 1985, the British soap opera “Eastenders” debuted on BBC Television.

In 1986, the U.S. Senate approved, 83-11, the Genocide Convention, an international treaty outlawing “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” nearly 37 years after the pact was first submitted for ratification.

In 1997, Deng Xiaoping, the last of China’s major Communist revolutionaries, died at age 92.

In 2017, three former elite U.S. gymnasts, including 2000 Olympian Jamie Dantzscher, appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to say they were sexually abused by Dr. Larry Nassar, a volunteer team physician for USA Gymnastics. (Nassar would be sentenced to decades in prison after hundreds of girls and women said he sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment.)

Today’s birthdays

Smokey Robinson is 83. Author Amy Tan is 71. Actor Jeff Daniels is 68. Singer-musician Dave Wakeling is 67. Actor Ray Winstone is 66. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is 64. Britain’s Prince Andrew is 63. Tennis Hall of Famer Hana Mandlikova is 61. Singer Seal is 60. Actor Justine Bateman is 57. Actor Benicio Del Toro is

56. Singer-actor Haylie Duff is

38. Actor Millie Bobby Brown is 19.