TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 21, the 52nd day of 2023. There are 313 days left in the year. On this date in:

1437: James I, King of Scots, was assassinated; his 6-year-old son succeeded him as James II.

1885: The Washington Monument was dedicated.

1911: Composer Gustav Mahler, despite a fever, conducted the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in what turned out to be his final concert (he died the following May).

1964: The first shipment of U.S. wheat purchased by the Soviet Union arrived in the port of Odessa.

1965: Minister and civil rights activist Malcolm X, 39, was shot to death inside Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom in New York. (Three men identified as members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of murder and imprisoned; all were eventually paroled. The convictions of two of the men were dismissed in November

2021; prosecutors said new evidence had undermined the case against them.)

1972: President Richard M. Nixon began his historic visit to China as he and his wife, Pat, arrived in Beijing.

1973: Israeli fighter planes shot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 over the Sinai Desert, killing all but five of the

113 people on board.

1975: Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 21⁄2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up (each ended up serving 11⁄2 years).

1992: Kristi Yamaguchi of the United States won the gold medal in ladies’ figure skating at the Albertville Olympics; Midori Ito of Japan won the silver, Nancy Kerrigan of the U.S. the bronze. 1995: Chicago adventurer Steve Fossett became the first to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean by balloon, landing in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada.