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February 28 |
In 1993, a gun battle erupted near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to serve warrants on the Branch
Davidians; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day
standoff began.
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February 27 |
In 1991, President Bush declared that "Kuwait is liberated, Iraq's army
is defeated," and announced that the allies would suspend combat
operations at midnight.
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February 26 |
In 1993, a bomb exploded in the garage of New York's World Trade Center,
killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
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February 25 |
In 1870, Hiram R. Revels, R-Miss., became the first black member of the
United States Senate as he was sworn in to serve out the unexpired term
of Jefferson Davis.
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February 24 |
In 1868, the United States House of Representatives impeached President
Johnson following his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M.
Stanton; Johnson was later acquitted by the Senate.
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February 23 |
In 1954, the first mass inoculation of children against polio with the
Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh.
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February 22 |
In 1980, in a stunning upset, the United States Olympic hockey team
defeated the Soviets at Lake Placid, N.Y., 4-to-3. (The U.S. team went
on to win the gold medal).
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February 21 |
In 1965, former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was shot and killed by
assassins identified as Black Muslims as he was about to address a rally
in New York City; he was 39.
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February 20 |
In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth
as he flew aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.
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February 19 |
In 1945, during World War II, some 30,000 United States Marines landed
on the Western Pacific island of Iwo Jima, where they encountered
ferocious resistance from Japanese forces. The Americans took control of
the strategically important island after a month-long battle.
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February 18 |
In 1861, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederate
States of America in Montgomery, Ala.
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February 17 |
In 1972, President Nixon departed on his historic trip to China.
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February 16 |
In 1923, the burial chamber of King Tutankhamen's recently unearthed
tomb was unsealed in Egypt.
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February 15 |
In 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, killing 260
crew members and escalating tensions with Spain.
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February 14 |
In 1929, the St.
Valentine's Day Massacre took place in a Chicago garage as seven
rivals of Al Capone's gang were gunned down.
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February 13 |
In 1935, a jury
in Flemington, N.J., found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of
first-degree murder in the kidnap-death of the infant son of
Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed.
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February 12 |
In 1973, the first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam
conflict took place.
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February 11 |
In 1945, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Yalta Agreement during World
War II.
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February 10 |
In 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis
Gary Powers for Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United
States.
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February 9 |
In 1943, the
World War II battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific
ended with an American victory over Japanese forces.
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February 8 |
In 1996, in a ceremony at the Library of Congress, President Clinton
signed legislation revamping the telecommunications industry, saying it
would "bring the future to our doorstep."
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February 7 |
In 1984, space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L.
Stewart went on the first untethered spacewalk.
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February 6 |
In 1952, Britain's King George VI died; he was succeeded by his
daughter, Elizabeth II.
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February 5 |
In 1937, President Roosevelt proposed increasing the number of Supreme
Court justices; critics charged Roosevelt was attempting to "pack" the
court.
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February 4 |
In 1974, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley,
Calif., by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
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February 3 |
In 1917, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany,
which had announced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
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February 2 |
In 1943, the remainder of Nazi forces from the Battle of Stalingrad
surrendered in a major victory for the Soviets in World War II.
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February 1 |
In 1960, four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch
counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they'd been refused service.
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