Today in history

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 12, the 43rd day of 2019. There are 322 days left in the year. In 1809, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was born in a log cabin in Hardin (now Larue) County, Kentucky. In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded. In 1912, Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, abdicated, marking the end of the Qing Dynasty. In 1924, George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” premiered in New York. In 1959, the redesigned Lincoln penny — with an image of the Lincoln Memorial replacing two ears of wheat on the reverse side — went into circulation. In 1963, a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 720 broke up during severe turbulence and crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing all 43 people aboard. In 1973, Operation Homecoming began as the first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict took place.