EVENTS
- 1847 – The Donner Party is rescued.
- 1878 – Thomas Edison invents the phonograph.
- 1913 – Prizes are now included in Cracker Jacks.
- 1942 – Internment of Japanese Americans began after President Franklin Roosevelt issued an Executive Order requiring those living on the Pacific coast to report for relocation. Over 110,000 persons therefore shut down their businesses, sold off their property, quit school and moved inland to the relocation centers.
- 1945 – World War II: Battle of Iwo Jima
- 1985 – Iberia Airlines Flight 610 crashes. All 148 people on board died in the accident that was blamed on pilot error.
- 1986 – The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.
- 2008 – Fidel Castro steps down as Cuba’s president. Castro was 81 years old at the time and had been in power for 49 years.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1473 – Nicolaus Copernicus (Astronomer)
Nicolaus Copernicus - 1865 – Sven Hedin (Swedish geographer, explorer)
- 1940 – Smokey Robinson (Singer)
- 1953 – Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Argentinian politician, 55th President of Argentina)
- 1955 – Jeff Daniels (Actor)
- 1957 – Falco (Austrian singer-songwriter)
- 1963 – Seal (Singer)
- 1971 – Jeff Kinney (Author/Illusrator)
DEATHS
- 1916 – Ernst Mach (Austrian physicist)
- 1952 – Knut Hamsun (Norwegian writer, Nobel Prize laureate)
Knut Hamsun - 1997 – Deng Xiaoping (Chinese politician, diplomat)
- 2000 – Friedensreich Hundertwasser (Austrian/New Zealand painter, architect, designed the Kuchlbauer Tower, Waldspirale)
- 2001 – Stanley Kramer (American director)
