Today is Monday, Feb. 22, the 53rd day of 2016. There are 313 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1495 – French forces under King Charles VIII enter Naples in Italy.
1630 – English settlers in America discover how to make popcorn.
1759 – French abandon siege of Madras, India, on arrival of British fleet.
1819 – Spain cedes Florida to the United States.
1828 – Peace of Turkmanchai by which Persia cedes part of Armenia, including Yerevan, to Russia.
1848 – Revolt erupts in Paris due to failure of Louis Philippe’s reign.
1862 – Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as president of the secessionist Confederate States of America.
1879 – Frank Winfield Woolworth opens a 5-cent store in Utica, New York.
1924 – Calvin Coolidge delivers the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.
1942 – Tribesmen in the Philippines wipe out a Japanese regiment during World War II.
1945 – U.S. Third Army crosses Saar River south of Saarburg, Germany, in World War II.
1964 – Ghana becomes one-party Socialist state.
1966 – Uganda’s Prime Minister Milton Obote orders five cabinet members arrested and assumes full power.
1972 – Qatar’s heir apparent, Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, overthrows oil state’s emir Sheik Ahmed in bloodless coup.
1975 – Military government of Ethiopia announces that 2,300 guerrillas have been killed in fighting in Eritrea.
1980 – In a stunning upset, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeats the Soviets at Lake Placid, New York, 4-to-3.
1986 – Philippines armed forces break with the government of President Ferdinand E. Marcos, precipitating his downfall.
1990 – Last Stalin statue topples in Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator.
1991 – U.S. President George H. W. Bush demands that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein begin unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait or risk ground war with allied forces.
1994 – U.S. authorities say that the CIA’s former top Soviet spycatcher Aldrich Hazen Ames actually spied for the Soviet Union. He is later sentenced to life in prison.
1996 – Russia and the head of the International Monetary Fund reach a deal for a loan of more than $10 billion.
1997 – Fleeing fighting, 30,000 refugees from Rwanda and Burundi leave their refugee camp in eastern Zaire.
1998 – Tamil separatist rebel gunboats attack a 12-ship convoy carrying soldiers to northern Sri Lanka, killing up to 80 people.
2002 – Angolan officials say government troops killed Jonas Savimbi, leader of the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), in a gun battle between soldiers and members of the rebel group.
2006 – Insurgents disguised as police trigger bombs inside one of Iraq’s most famous Shiite shrines, destroying its golden dome and triggering reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques.
2007 – The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency announces findings that Iran has expanded its uranium enrichment program instead of complying with a U.N. Security Council ultimatum to freeze it, clearing the way for harsher sanctions against Tehran.
2011 – Two Iranian warships sail from the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, the first such trip in at least three decades, eliciting Israeli charges that Tehran is seeking to dominate the Middle East.
2012 – Syrian gunners pound an opposition stronghold in a barrage that kills a veteran American-born correspondent and a French photojournalist — two of 74 deaths reported that day in the country.
2013 – Egypt’s president sets parliamentary elections to begin in April — a decision that an opposition leader denounces as a “recipe for disaster” because of the continuing turmoil in the country.
2014 – President Viktor Yanukovich flees the capital and heads for eastern Ukraine.
2015 — France has deployed an aircraft carrier in the Gulf to strengthen its military operation against Islamic State extremists in Iraq and work more closely with the U.S.-led coalition.
Today’s Birthdays:
George Washington, first U.S. president (1732-1799); Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860); Frederick Chopin, Polish composer (1810-
1849); John Mills, British actor (1908-2005); Jonathan Demme, U.S. director (1944–); Drew Barrymore, U.S. actress (1975–); James Blunt, British singer (1977–).
Thought For Today:
Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish — Anne Bradstreet, American poet (1612-1672).
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
