TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1967

The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was ratified as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1840

Britain’s Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

1936

Nazi Germany’s Reichstag passed a law investing the Gestapo secret police with absolute authority, exempt from any legal review.

1949

Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman” opened at Broadway’s Morosco Theater with Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman.

1959

A major tornado tore through the St. Louis area, killing 21 people and causing heavy damage.

1962

The Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.

1968

U.S. figure skater Peggy Fleming, 19, won America’s only gold medal of the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France, in the ladies’ singles event.

1992

Boxer Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant. “Roots” author Alex Haley died in Seattle at age 70.

1997

A civil jury heaped 25million dollars in punitive damages on O.J. Simpson for the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, on top of eight-point-five million dollars in compensatory damages awarded earlier.

2001

The space shuttle Atlantis’ astronauts installed the $1.4 billion Destiny laboratory on the international space station.