TODAY IN HISTORY

1533

England’s King Henry VIII secretly married his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who later gave birth to Elizabeth I.

1915

America’s first official transcontinental telephone call took place as Alexander Graham Bell, who was in New York, spoke to his former assistant, Thomas Watson, who was in San Francisco, over a line set up by American Telephone & Telegraph.

1924

The first Winter Olympic Games opened in Chamonix (shah-moh-nee’), France.

1945

Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first community to add fluoride to its public water supply.

1971

Charles Manson and three women followers were convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actor Sharon Tate.

1981

The 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444days arrived in the United States.

1993

Sears announced that it would no longer publish its famous century-old catalog.

1994

Maintaining his innocence, singer Michael Jackson settled a child molestation lawsuit against him; terms were confidential, although the monetary figure was reportedly $22 million.

2020

President Donald Trump’s defense team opened its arguments at his first Senate impeachment trial, casting the effort to remove him from office as a politically motivated attempt to subvert the 2016election and the upcoming 2020contest. Canada, Australia and Malaysia each reported their first cases of the new coronavirus.

2012

The U.S. Department of Education declared that students with disabilities had to be given a fair shot to play on a traditional sports team or have their own leagues. Thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators marched through Washington to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court to protest the landmark decision that legalized abortion.

2017

President Donald Trump arrived at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland; after meeting there with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump threatened to cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinians unless they negotiated peace with Israel. In an interview in Instyle magazine, Oprah Winfrey said she was not interested in a presidential bid, adding that she doesn’t “have the DNA” for a White House run.