TODAY IN HISTORY

1633

Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition, accused of defending Copernican theory that the Earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around. (Galileo was found vehemently suspect of heresy and ended up being sentenced to a form of house arrest.)

1933

The Warsaw Convention, governing airlines’ liability for international carriage of persons, luggage and goods, went into effect.

1939

Justice Louis D. Brandeis retired from the U.S. Supreme Court. (He was succeeded by William O. Douglas.)

1965

During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, an extended bombing campaign against the North Vietnamese.

1972

“Cabaret,” directed by Bob Fosse, based on John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical of the same name, starring Liza Minnelli and Michael York, was released.

1980

The 13th Winter Olympics opened in Lake Placid, New York.

1991

During Operation Desert Storm, allied warplanes destroyed an underground shelter in Baghdad that had been identified as a military command center; Iraqi officials said 500 civilians were killed.

1996

The rock musical “Rent,” by Jonathan Larson, opened off-broadway less than three weeks after Larson’s death.

2000

Charles Schulz’s final “Peanuts” strip ran in Sunday newspapers, the day after the cartoonist died in his sleep at his California home at age 77.

2002

John Walker Lindh pleaded not guilty in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to conspiring to kill Americans and supporting the Taliban and terrorist organizations. (Lindh later pleaded guilty to lesser offenses and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released in September 2019 after serving 17years of that sentence.)

2011

Egypt’s military leaders dissolved parliament, suspended the constitution and promised elections in moves cautiously welcomed by protesters who’d helped topple President Hosni Mubarak.