This day in history
Today is Monday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2024. There are 330 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Tony-winning playwright John Guare is 86. Financial writer Jane Bryant Quinn is 85. Actor David Selby is 83. Football Hall of Famer Roger Staubach is 82. Movie director Michael Mann is 81. Rock singer Al Kooper is 80. Actor Charlotte Rampling is 78. Racing Hall of Famer Darrell Waltrip is 77. Actor Barbara Hershey is 76. Actor Christopher Guest is 76. US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is 65. Actor-comedian Tim Meadows is 63. Actor Jennifer Jason Leigh is 62. Actor Laura Linney is 60. Rock musician Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses is 60. Golf Hall of Famer Jose Maria Olazabal is 58. Actorcomedian Chris Parnell is 57. Rock singer Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors is 56. Singer Bobby Brown is 55. Actor Michael
Sheen is 55. Actor-singer Darren Criss is 37. Actor Henry Golding is 37. Actor Jeremy Sumpter is 35.
▶In 1917, the US Congress passed, over President 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 1922, the first edition of Reader’s Digest was published.
▶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 1973, services were held at Arlington National Cemetery for US Army Colonel William B. Nolde, the last official American combat casualty before the Vietnam cease-fire took effect.
▶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 1993, President 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, Miss., of murdering civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963 and was immediately sentenced to life in prison.
▶In 2012, Eli Manning and the New York Giants one-upped Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, coming back with a last-minute score to win 21-17 in Super Bowl XLVI.
▶In 2014, CVS Caremark announced it would pull cigarettes and other tobacco products from its stores.
▶In 2017, Tom Brady led one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, highlighted by a spectacular Julian Edelman catch that helped lift New England from a 25-point hole against the Atlanta Falcons to the Patriots’ fifth Super Bowl victory, 3428, the first ever in overtime.
▶In 2020, the Senate voted to acquit President Trump, bringing to a close the third presidential trial in American history, though a majority of senators expressed unease with Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine that resulted in the two articles of impeachment. Just one Republican, Mitt Romney of Utah, broke with the GOP and voted to convict.
▶Last year, Beyoncé won her 32nd Grammy to become the most decorated artist in the history of the award.