What Happened This Day In History

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February 6

1778 - The United States gained official recognition from France as the two nations signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance in Paris.

1788 - Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1815 - The state of New Jersey issued the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.

1843 - "The Virginia Minstrels" opened at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City. It was the first minstrel show in America.

1899 - The U.S. Senate ratified a peace treaty between the U.S. and Spain.

1900 - The Holland Senate ratified the 1899 peace conference decree that created in international arbitration court at The Hague.

1900 - U.S. President McKinley appointed W.H. Taft as commissioner to report on the Philippines.

1911 - The first old-age home for pioneers opened in Prescott, AZ.

1926 - The National Football League adopted a rule that made players ineligible for competition until their college class graduated.

1932 - Dog sled racing happened for the first time in Olympic competition.

1933 - The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was declared in effect. The amendment moved the start of presidential, vice-presidential and congressional terms from March to January.

1937 - K. Elizabeth Ohi became the first Japanese woman lawyer when she received her degree from John Marshall Law School in Chicago, IL.

1950 - NBC radio debuted "Dangerous Assignment".

1952 - Britain's King George VI died. His daughter, Elizabeth II, succeeded him.

1956 - St. Patrick Center opened in Kankakee, IL. It was the first circular school building in the United States.

1959 - The U.S., for the first time, successfully test-fired a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile from Cape Canaveral.

1971 - NASA Astronaut Alan B. Shepard used a six-iron that he had brought inside his spacecraft and swung at three golf balls on the surface of the moon.

1972 - Over 500,000 pieces of irate mail arrived at the mail room of CBS-TV, when word leaked out that an edited-for-TV version of the X-rated movie, "The Demand," would be shown.

1985 - The French mineral water company, Perrier, debuted its first new product in 123 years. The new items were water with a twist of lemon, lime or orange.

1987 - President Ronald Reagan turned 76 years old this day and became the oldest U.S. President in history.

1998 - Washington National Airport was renamed for U.S. President Ronald Reagan with the signing of a bill by U.S. President Clinton.

1999 - King Hussein of Jordan transferred full political power to his oldest son the Crown Prince Abdullah.

1999 - Excerpts of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky's videotaped testimony were shown at President Clinton's impeachment trial.

1999 - Heavy fighting resumed along the common border between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

2000 - Russia's acting President Vladimir Putin announced that Russian forces had captured Grozny, Chechnya. The capital city had been under the control of Chechen rebels.

2000 - In Finland, Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen became the first woman to be elected president.

2000 - U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton formally declared that she was a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from the state of New York.

2001 - Ariel Sharon was elected Israeli prime minister.

2002 - A federal judge ordered John Walker Lindh to be held without bail pending trial. Lindh was known as the "American Taliban."

Birthdays

Christopher Marlowe 1564

Aaron Burr 1756

Babe Ruth 1895

Ronald Wilson Reagan (U.S.) 1911

John Lund 1913

Zsa Zsa Gabor 1919

Patrick Macnee 1922

Sixten Jernberg 1929

Rip Torn 1931

Mamie Van Doren 1933

Mike Farrell 1939

Tom Brokaw 1940

Gigi Perreau 1941

Fabian Forte 1943

Gayle Hunnicutt 1943

Michael Tucker 1944

Bob Marley 1945 - Musican (The Wailers, Bob Marley and the Wailers)
Bob Marley Merchandise

Alan Jones (Amen Corner) 1947

Jim Sheridan 1949

Natalie Cole 1950

Jon Walmsley 1956

Kathy Najimy 1957

Robert Townsend 1957

Simon Phillips (Toto) 1957

Barry Miller 1958

Megan Gallagher 1960

Axl Rose (Guns & Roses) 1962

Richie McDonald (Lonestar) 1962

Rick Astley 1966

Tim Brown (Boo Radleys) 1969

Brandon Hammond 1984

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February 10




1763 - The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War. In the treaty France ceded Canada to England.

1840 - Britain's Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha.

1846 - Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began their exodus to the west from Illinois.

1863 - In New York City, two of the world’s most famous midgets, General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren were married.

1863 - The fire extinguisher was patented by Alanson Crane.

1870 - The city of Anaheim was incorporated for the first time.

1870 - The YWCA was founded in New York City.

1879 - The electric arc light was used for the first time.

1897 - "The New York Times" began printing "All the news that's fit to print" on their front page.

1920 - Major league baseball representatives outlawed pitches that involve tampering with the ball.

1923 - Ink paste was manufactured for the first time by the Standard Ink Company.

1925 - The first waterless gas storage tank was placed in service in Michigan City, IN.

1933 - The singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegraph Company of New York City.

1933 - Primo Carnera knocked out Ernie Schaaf in round 13 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Schaaf died as a result of the knockout punch.

1934 - The first imperforated, ungummed sheets of postage stamps were issued by the U.S. Postal Service in New York City.

1935 - The Pennsylvania Railroad began passenger service with its electric locomotive. The engine was 79-1/2 feet long and weighed 230 tons.

1942 - The Normandie, the former French liner, capsized in New York Harbor. The day before the ship had caught fire while it was being fitted for the U.S. Navy.

1949 - "Death of a Salesman" opened at the Morocco Theatre in New York City.

1962 - The Soviet Union exchanged capture American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for the Soviet spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel being held by the U.S.

1967 - The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment required the appointment of a vice-president when that office became vacant and instituted new measures in the event of presidential disability.

1981 - The Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino caught fire. Eight people were killed and 198 were injured.

1989 - Ron Brown became the first African American to head a major U.S. political party when he was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

1990 - South African President F.W. de Klerk announced that black activist Nelson Mandela would be released the next day after 27 years in captivity.

1992 - Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, Miss Black American contestant.

1997 - The U.S. Army suspended its top-ranking enlisted soldier, Army Sgt. Major Gene McKinney following allegations of sexual misconduct. McKinney was convicted of obstruction of justice and acquitted of 18 counts alleging sexual harassment of six military women.

1998 - A man became the first to be convicted of committing a hate crime in cyberspace. The college dropout had e-mailed threats to Asian students.

1998 - Voters in Maine repealed a 1997 gay rights law. Maine was the first state to abandone such legislation.

1999 - Avalanches killed at least 10 people when they roared down the French Alps 30 miles from Geneva.

2005 - North Korea publicly announced for the first time that it had nuclear arms. The country also rejected attempts to restart disarmament talks in the near future saying that it needed the weapons as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

2009 - A Russian and an American satellite collide over Siberia.

Birthdays

Charles Lamb 1775

William Allen White 1868

Boris Pasternak 1890

Jimmy Durante 1893

Maurice Harold Macmillan 1894 - British Prime Minister from 1957-1963

Bertolt Brecht 1898 - Dramatist, poet

Dame Judith Anderson 1898

Lon Chaney, Jr. 1905

Larry Adler 1914

Allie Reynolds 1919

Neva Patterson 1922

Leontyne Price 1927

Jerry Goldsmith 1929

Robert Wagner 1930

James E. West 1931

Don Wilson (The Ventures) 1937

Roberta Flack 1939

Jimmy Merchant (Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers) 1940

Ral Donner 1943

Frances Moore Lapp 1944

Mark Spitz 1950

Greg Norman 1955

Kathleen Beller 1955

Lionel Cartwright 1960

George Stephanopoulos 1961

Cliff Burton 1962 - Musician (Metallica)
Metallica music - Metallica Merchandise

Laura Dern 1967

Dude Mowrey 1972

Elizabeth Banks (Elizabeth Maresal Mitchell) 1974 - Actress

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Today in History
August 7

1782 General George Washington authorizes the award of the Purple Heart for soldiers wounded in combat.
1864 Union troops capture part of Confederate General Jubal Early's army at Moorefield, West Virginia.
1888 Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia receives a patent for the revolving door.
1906 In North Carolina, a mob defies a court order and lynches three African Americans which becomes known as "The Lyerly Murders."
1916 Persia forms an alliance with Britain and Russia.
1922 The Irish Republican Army cuts the cable link between the United States and Europe at Waterville landing station.
1934 In Washington, the U.S. Court of Appeals rules that the govenment can neither confiscate nor ban James Joyce's novel Ulysses.
1936 The United States declares non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War.
1942 The U.S. 1st Marine Division under General A. A. Vandegrift lands on the islands of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon islands. This is the first American amphibious landing of the war.
1944 German forces launch a major counter attack against U.S. forces near Mortain, France.
1964 Congress overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing the president to use unlimited military force to prevent attacks on U.S. forces.
1966 The United States loses seven planes over North Vietnam, the most in the war up to this point.
1971 Apollo 15 returns to Earth. The mission to the moon had marked the first use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle.
1973 A U.S. plane accidentally bombs a Cambodian village, killing 400 civilians.
1976 US Viking 2 spacecraft goes into orbit around Mars.
1981 The Washington (D.C.) Star ceases publication after 128 years.
1984 Japan defeats the United States to win the Olympic Gold in baseball.
1987 Presidents of five Central American nations sign a peace accord in Guatemala.
1990 Operation Desert Shield begins as US troops deploy to Saudi Arabia to discourage Iraq's Saddam Hussein from invading that country as he had Kuwait.
2007 Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks Hank Aaron's record with his 756th home run. Bonds' accomplishments were clouded by allegations of illegal steroid use and lying to a grand jury.

Born on August 7

1876 Mata Hari, [Margaretha G. Macleod] who passed secrets to the Germans in World War I.
1903 Louis Leakey, anthropologist, archeologist and paleontologist, believed Africa was the cradle of mankind.
1904 Ralph Bunche, U.S. diplomat and the first African-American Nobel Prize winner.
1927 Edwin Edwards, governor of Louisiana.
1932 Abebe Bikila, barefoot runner from Ethiopia, winner of the 1960 Olympic marathon.
1942 Garrison Keillor, American humorist and writer, creator of the long-running PBS program A Prairie Home Companion.
1950 Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter ("Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight," "Ain't Living Long Like This") and author (Chinaberry Sidewalks) Rodney Crowell.
1963 Patrick Kennedy, son of President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy; dies 39 hours later.
1966 Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia.
1975 Charlize Theron, model and Academy Award-winning actress (Monster).

That's a lot of information.