TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

Feb. 18, 2001

Auto racing star Dale Earnhardt Sr. died in a crash at the Daytona 500; he was 49.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1546

Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, died in Eisleben.

1861

Jefferson Davis was sworn in as provisional president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama.

1913

Mexican President Francisco I. Madero and Vice President Jose Maria Pino Suarez were arrested during a military coup.

1930

Photographic evidence of Pluto was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

1943

Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the Chinese leader, addressed members of the Senate and then the House, becoming the first Chinese national to address both houses of the U.S. Congress.

1970

The “Chicago Seven” defendants were found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968Democratic national convention; five were convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968.

1972

The California Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty.

1977

The space shuttle prototype Enterprise, sitting atop a Boeing 747, went on its debut “flight” above Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1983

13people were shot to death at a gambling club in Seattle’s Chinatown in what became known as the Wah Mee Massacre.

1988

Anthony M. Kennedy was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1997

Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery completed their tune-up of the Hubble Space Telescope after 33hours of spacewalking; the Hubble was then released using the shuttle’s crane.