DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Sunday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2023. There are 335 days left in the year. On this date in:
1917: The U.S. Congress passed, over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, an act severely curtailing Asian immigration.
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 Uboat in the Irish Sea with the loss of more than 200 people.
1922: The first edition of Reader’s Digest was published.
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.
1971: Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell stepped onto the surface of the moon in the first of two lunar excursions.
1973: Services were held at Arlington National Cemetery for U.S. Army Col. William B. Nolde, the last official American combat casualty before the Vietnam cease-fire took effect.
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.)
1993: President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, granting workers up to 12 weeks unpaid leave for family emergencies.
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.)
2008: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop; he was believed to be about 90.
2014: CVS Caremark announced it would pull cigarettes and other tobacco products from its stores.
2020: The Senate voted to acquit President Donald 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.
Singer Al Kooper (Blood, Sweat and Tears) is 79. Actor-director-comedian Christopher Guest is 75. Actor Tom Wilkinson (“Selma”) is 75. Actor-comedian Tim Meadows (“Saturday Night Live”) is 62. Actor Jennifer Jason Leigh is 61. Actor Laura Linney is 59. Bassist Duff Mckagan of Velvet Revolver (and Guns N’ Roses) is 59. Singer Bobby Brown is 54. Country singer Sara Evans is 52. Country singer Tyler Farr is 39. Keyboardist Mark Shusterman of Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats is 38. Actor Darren Criss (“Glee”) is 36. Actor Henry Golding (“Crazy Rich Asians”) is 36. Keyboardist Kyle Simmons of Bastille is 35.