TODAY IN HISTORY

1473

Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland.

1807

Former Vice President Aaron Burr, accused of treason, was arrested in the Mississippi Territory, in present-day Alabama. (Burr was acquitted at trial.)

1878

Thomas Edison received a U.S. patent for “an improvement in phonograph or speaking machines.”

1942

During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which paved the way for the relocation and internment of people of Japanese ancestry, including U.s.-born citizens.

1945

Operation Detachment began during World War II as some 30,000 U.S. Marines began landing on Iwo Jima, where they commenced a successful month-long battle to seize control of the island from Japanese forces.

1959

An agreement was signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting Cyprus its independence.

1976

President Gerald R. Ford, calling the issuing of the internment order for people of Japanese ancestry in 1942 “a sad day in American history,” signed a proclamation formally confirming its termination.

1985

The British soap opera “Eastenders” debuted on BBC Television.

1986

The U.S. Senate approved, 83-11, the Genocide Convention, an international treaty outlawing “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” nearly 37 years after the pact was first submitted for ratification.

1997

Deng Xiaoping (dung shahoh-ping), the last of China’s major Communist revolutionaries, died at age 92.

2003

An Iranian military plane carrying 275members of the elite Revolutionary Guards crashed in southeastern Iran, killing all on board.

2017

Three former elite U.S. gymnasts, including 2000 Olympian Jamie Dantzscher, appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to say they were sexually abused by Dr. Larry Nassar, a volunteer team physician for USA Gymnastics. (Nassar would be sentenced to decades in prison after hundreds of girls and women said he sexually abused them under the guise of medical treatment.)