Today in History -Monday, Feb. 1, 2016

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Today is Monday, Feb. 1, the 32nd day of 2016. There are 334 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

1587 – England’s Queen Elizabeth I signs warrant for execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

1775 – Peasants in Bohemia revolt against servitude.

1881 – First signs of nationalist movement appear in Egypt as military officers stage uprising.

1896 – Crete, inspired by Greece, begins revolution against Turkey.

1899 – U.S. flag is raised over Pacific island of Guam, formerly under Spanish control.

1908 – Portugal’s King Carlos I and Crown Prince are murdered in Lisbon, Manuel II becomes king.

1917 – Germany decides to let its submarines attack merchant ships from neutral nations going to Britain, a move that triggers the United States’ entry into World War I.

1924 – Britain recognizes Communist government of Soviet Union.

1935 – Anglo-German conference is held in London to discuss Germany’s rearmament; Italy sends troops to East Africa.

1946 – Trygve Lie, Norwegian Socialist, is elected United Nations secretary-general.

1959 – Swiss referendum rejects female suffrage in federal elections.

1968 – Central pacific nation of Nauru becomes independent.

1972 – British Embassy in Dublin is bombed as anti-British demonstrations sweep Ireland.

1991 – South African President F.W. de Klerk announces that he will scrap all remaining laws that uphold apartheid.

1992 – U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin sign Camp David declaration stating Russia and United States do not regard each other as potential adversaries, formally ending the Cold War.

1993 – Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin announces he will accept the return of 100 deported Palestinians.

1994 – A French journalist is slain and an Australian colleague is wounded in Algiers’ ancient Casbah district, the first foreign journalists attacked since the start of the Islamic insurgency in 1992.

1995 – Flooded rivers make refugees of almost 250,000 people in the Netherlands.

1996 – President Jacques Chirac announces that France has finished its nuclear testing “once and for all.”

2003 – The U.S. space shuttle Columbia breaks apart as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere at the end of a 16-day scientific mission, killing its seven crew members and scattering debris across Texas and Louisiana states.

2004 – U.S President George W. Bush, under mounting political pressure, plans to sign an executive order to establish a full-blown investigation of U.S. intelligence failures that led to the invasion of Iraq.

2008 – Two female suicide bombers with a history of psychiatric treatment kill almost 100 people at two pet markets in central Baghdad. Iraqi and U.S. officials have said the women may have been unwitting bombers strapped with remote-control explosives.

2011 – A quarter of a million Egyptians stage their biggest protest yet calling on President Hosni Mubarak announces to go but he rejects their demands vowing to die on Egypt’s soil.

2012 – At least 74 people are killed and 248 injured after soccer fans rush the field in the seaside city of Port Said following an upset victory by the home team over Egypt’s top club, setting off clashes and a stampede as riot police largely fail to intervene.

2013 – Hillary Rodham Clinton formerly resigns as U.S. secretary of state, capping a four-year tenure that saw her shatter records for number of countries visited. John Kerry is sworn in to replace her.

2014 — Syrian military helicopters drop barrels packed with explosives in the government’s latest air raids on rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo, killing at least 23 people.

2015 — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe defends his policy toward terrorism as the flat at his official residence flies at half-staff in a mark of mourning for two hostages killed by the Islamic State group.

Today’s Birthdays:

Feodor Chaliapin, Russian opera singer (1873-1938); Victor Herbert, U.S. composer (1859-1924); Clark Gable, U.S. actor (1901-1960); Renata Tebaldi, Italian opera singer (1922-2004); Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, Russian president (1931-2007); Don Everly, U.S. singer w/pop group Everly Brothers (1937–), Sherman Hemsley, U.S. actor (1938–2012), Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ daughter (1968–); Michael C. Hall, U.S. actor (1971–).

Thought For Today:

Marriage always demands the finest arts of insincerity possible between two human beings — Vicki Baum, Austrian-born author (1888-1960).

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