Today is Friday, Feb. 12, the 43rd day of 2016. There are 323 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1554 – Lady Jane Grey, who claimed the throne of England for nine days, is beheaded after being charged with treason.
1577 – Don John of Austria, new Governor of the Netherlands, issues edict to settle civil war.
1610 – France’s King Henry IV signs alliance with German Protestant Union.
1689 – Declaration of Rights in England, in which William and Mary are proclaimed King and Queen for life.
1733 – James Oglethorpe and a group of unemployed and newly freed British debtors land in Savannah, Georgia, as part of England’s colonial expansion plan.
1736 – Nadir Shah becomes King of Persia.
1870 – Women in the Utah Territory gain the right to vote.
1885 – German East Africa Company is chartered.
1895 – Japanese forces score impressive victory at Wei-hai-wei in China.
1899 – Germany buys Pacific islands of Marianas, Carolines and Palau from Spain.
1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded in the U.S.
1912 – Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, abdicates, ending more than 2,000 years of imperial rule.
1915 – The cornerstone for the Lincoln Memorial is laid in Washington.
1924 – George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” premieres in New York City.
1934 – More than 1,000 people are believed killed in clashes between the Austro-Fascist government of Engelbert Dollfuss and leftist workers.
1953 – Britain and Egypt agree to end Anglo-Egyptian rule of Sudan and take steps toward granting self-rule.
1970 – Israeli air raid on scrap metal plant in Egypt kills 70 civilians.
1974 – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Soviet Nobel Prize winner, is arrested at his Moscow apartment and is exiled the following day.
1986 – Andrija Artukovic, 86, is extradited from United States to Yugoslavia to stand trial for war crimes during World War II. He later dies awaiting execution.
1993 – Ousted Mali dictator Moussa Traore and three top aides are sentenced to death for ordering killing of unarmed pro-democracy protesters.
1994 – Norwegian Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” is stolen from a museum in Oslo. It is recovered three months later in a police sting operation.
1998 – Cuba releases “several dozen” prisoners, whose freedom was sought by Pope John Paul II during his January trip to Cuba.
1999 – U.S. President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the Senate in an impeachment trial stemming from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
2002 – Pakistani authorities arrest Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born Islamic militant, as the prime suspect in the January kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, a U.S. reporter for the Wall Street Journal newspaper.
2007 – An Iraqi court sentences Saddam Hussein’s former deputy to death for his role in the killings of Shiites in the Iraqi town of Dujail in 1982. The court ruled that Taha Yassin Ramadan’s earlier sentence of life in prison was too lenient.
2011 – Thousands of Algerians defy government warnings and dodge barricades and riot police to rally in their capital, demanding democratic reforms a day after mass protests toppled Egypt’s autocratic ruler.
2012 — Greece’s parliament approves an austerity and debt-relief bill, crucial for the country to avoid bankruptcy and remain in the eurozone.
2013 — North Korea conducts its third nuclear test, taking a crucial step toward its goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on a missile capable of striking the United States.
2014 — Medical experts say a Salvadoran fisherman who says he drifted at sea for more than a year, surviving on raw fish, turtles and bird blood is in stunningly good health but psychologically fragile.
2015 — The warring sides in eastern Ukraine attempt to bolster their positions ahead of a weekend cease-fire deadline that is part of a peace deal that the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France signed in the Belorussian capital of Minsk.
Today’s Birthdays
Charles Darwin, English scientist (1809-1882); Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president (1809-1865); Franco Zeffirelli, Italian director (1923–); Michael Ironside, Canadian actor (1950–); Christina Ricci U.S. actress (1980–); Josh Brolin, U.S. actor (1968–).
Thought For Today:
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent — Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865).
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