DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Friday, Feb. 26, the 57th day of 2021. There are 308 days left in the year.
On this date:
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.
1940: The United States Air Defense Command was created.
1942: “How Green Was My Valley” won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1941, beating out nine other films, including “The Maltese Falcon” and “Citizen Kane.”
1952: Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed its own atomic bomb.
1966: South Korean troops sent to fight in the Vietnam War massacred at least 380 civilians in Go Dai hamlet.
1984: The last U.S. Marines deployed to Beirut as part of an international peacekeeping force withdrew from the Lebanese capital.
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.)
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.
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.
2014: Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a bill pushed by social conservatives that would have allowed people with sincerely held religious beliefs to refuse to serve gays.
2017: At the 89th Academy Awards, “Moonlight,” an LGBT coming of age drama, won three Oscars, including best picture of 2016 (in a startling gaffe, the musical “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the best picture winner before the error was corrected).
2019: 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.
Guitarist Paul Cotton of Poco is 78. Actor Marta Kristen (“Lost in Space”) is 76. Singer Mitch Ryder is 76. Keyboardist Jonathan Cain of Journey is 71. Singer Michael Bolton is 68. Actor
Mark Dacascos (“Hawaii Five-0”) is 57. Actor Jennifer Grant is 55. Bassist
Tim Commerford of Audioslave, Rage Against the Machine is 53. Singer
Erykah Badu is 50. Actor
Maz Jobrani (“Superior Donuts”) is 49. Singer Rico Wade of Society of Soul is 49. Singer
Kyle Norman of Jagged Edge is 46. Actor Greg Rikaart (“The Young and the Restless”) is 44. Drummer Chris Culos of O.A.R. is 42. Singer Corinne Bailey Rae is 42. Singer Nate Ruess of fun. is 39. Latin singer Natalia Lafourcade is 37.
For coverage of Thursday’s Blue Jackets-blackhawks game, visit Bluejacketsxtra.com.