Today is Sunday, Feb. 21, the 52nd day of 2016. There are 314 days left in the year.
Highlights in history on this date:
1613 – Michael Romanov, son of the patriarch of Moscow, is elected czar of Russia, thus founding the House of Romanov.
1795 – Dutch surrender Ceylon — now Sri Lanka — to British; freedom of worship is established in France.
1838 – American Samuel Morse gives the first public demonstration of the telegraph in New York.
1849 – British forces defeat Sikhs at Gujrat in India.
1866 – Lucy B. Hobbs becomes the first American woman to graduate from dental school, the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in Cincinnati.
1878 – First U.S. telephone directory is issued, by the District Telephone Co. of New Haven, Connecticut.
1885 – U.S. President Chester A. Arthur dedicates the Washington Monument.
1916 – Battle of Verdun in France begins with a massive German artillery bombardment. It is the longest and bloodiest battle of World War I, with more than 1 million killed.
1919 – Bavarian Premier Kurt Risner is assassinated in Munich.1921 – Brig. Reza Khan overthrows Iranian government in military coup and later becomes shah.
1922 – British protectorate in Egypt ends.
1925 – The New Yorker magazine makes its debut.
1934 – French troops combat Berbers in South West Morocco.
1963 – Soviet Union warns United States that an American attack on Cuba would mean world war.
1965 – Former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X is shot and killed by assassins identified as Black Muslims as he was about to address a rally in New York City.
1972 – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon arrives in Beijing for a weeklong visit that paves the road for normalized U.S.-China relations.
1975 – A 32-member U.N. Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva, accuses Israel of violating “basic norms of international law” in Arab territories it occupies.
1986 – South African government opens “whites only” downtown districts of Johannesburg and Durban to all races in the first break with apartheid policy of segregated business areas.
1992 – For the first time since the Communist revolution of 1949, China welcomes foreigners back to its Shanghai stock market.
2001 – More than 1,000 people watch as two women convicted of prostitution are hanged in Kandahar , the headquarters of the Taliban in Afghanistan. ‘
2002 – U.S. and Pakistani officials confirm that Daniel Pearl, correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped a month earlier in Karachi, has been killed by his captors.
2005 – Tens of thousands march through Beirut in the biggest anti-Syrian protest in Lebanese history amid signals that Syria will soon begin withdrawing its troops.
2008 – Nearly 200,000 people demonstrate in downtown Belgrade, Serbia, against Kosovo independence, storming the U.S. Embassy and setting fire to offices and police guardhouses.
2011 – Negotiators for the Philippines government and communist rebels agree in Norway on a road map for continued peace talks aimed at resolving one of Asia’s longest-running conflicts by June 2012.
2012 – Greece gets a second massive financial bailout when its eurozone partners stich together a euro130 billion ($170 billion) rescue meant to avoid a potentially disastrous default and secure the euro currency.
2013 – A car bomb explodes near Syria’s ruling party headquarters in Damascus, killing at least 53 people in one of the bloodiest days in the capital since the uprising began almost two years ago.
2015 — New U.S. defense chief says Obama administration considering slowing U.S. military exit from Afghanistan by keeping larger than planned troop presence this year and next because the newAfghan government is proving to be a more reliable partner.
Today’s Birthdays:
John Henry Newman, English cardinal (1801-1890); Leo Delibes, French composer (1836-1891); W.H. Auden, English poet (1907-1973); Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe (1924–); Kelsey Grammer, U.S. actor (1955–); Mary Chapin Carpenter, U.S. country singer (1958–); Jack Coleman, U.S. actor (1958–); Christopher Atkins, U.S. actor (1961–); Jennifer Love Hewitt, U.S. actress/singer (1979–); Ellen Page, U.S. actress (1987–).
Thought For Today:
You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom — Malcolm X (1925-1965).
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