Today in History - February 5th

By Tim McGuinness Ph.D. on February 5th, 2008

Today is Shrove Tuesday, Feb. 5, the 36th day of 2008. There are 330 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Feb. 5, 1631, the co-founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, and his wife, Mary, arrived in Boston from England.

On this date:

In 1783, Sweden recognized the independence of the United States.

In 1811, George, Prince of Wales, was named the Prince Regent due to the insanity of his father, Britain’s King George III.

In 1887, Verdi’s opera “Otello” premiered at La Scala.

In 1897, the Indiana House of Representatives passed, 67-0, a measure redefining the method for determining the area of a circle, which included altering the value of pi. (The bill died in the Indiana Senate.)

In 1917, Congress passed, over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, an immigration act severely curtailing the influx of Asians.

In 1917, Mexico’s constitution was adopted.

In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt proposed increasing the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court; critics accused Roosevelt of attempting to “pack” the high court.

In 1973, services were held at Arlington National Cemetery for Army Lt. Col. William B. Nolde, the last official American combat casualty before the Vietnam cease-fire.

In 1983, former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie, expelled from Bolivia, was brought to Lyon, France, to stand trial. (He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison — he died in 1991.)

In 1988, the Arizona House impeached Gov. Evan Mecham, setting the stage for his trial in the state Senate, where he was convicted of obstructing justice and misusing funds.

In 1998, Democratic fund-raiser Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie pleaded not guilty in Washington to charges he had raised illegal donations to buy influence in high places. (Trie pleaded guilty in May 1999 to a felony count and a misdemeanor and was sentenced later that year to four months of home detention and three years’ probation.)

In 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell urged the U.N. Security Council to move against Saddam Hussein, saying Iraq had failed to disarm, was harboring terrorists and was hiding behind a “web of lies.” Longtime CBS News radio reporter Larry LeSueur died in Washington at age 93.

In 2007, President Bush unveiled a $2.9 trillion budget, which proposed a big spending increase for the Pentagon while pinching domestic programs.

Also in 2007, NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak was arrested in Orlando, Fla., accused of trying to kidnap a perceived rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot.

Also on February 5th…

1576 - Henry of Navarre converts to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France.

1597 - A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.

1631 - Roger Williams emigrates to Boston.

1778 - South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

1782 - Spanish defeat British forces and capture Minorca.

1818 - Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.

1859 - Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza as the United Principalities.

1885 - King Léopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.

1900 - The United States and the United Kingdom sign treaty for Panama Canal

1917 - The current constitution of Mexico is adopted, establishing a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

1917 - The Congress of the United States passes a law, over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, banning most Asian immigration to the United States.

1918 - Stephen W. Thompson shot down a German airplane. It was the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.

1919 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1924 - The Royal Greenwich Observatory begin broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the “BBC pips”.

1945 - World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.

1946 - The Chondoist Chongu Party is founded in North Korea.

1958 - Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic.

1958 - A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

1962 - French President Charles De Gaulle calls for allowing Algeria to be an independent nation.

1968 - Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh begins.

1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 14 Mission - Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell aboard LM, Antares land on the Moon at Fra Mauro formation.

1972 - Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1974 - John Murtha becomes the first Vietnam War veteran elected to the Congress of the United States.

1988 - Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

1988 - Comic Relief holds the first “Red Nose Day”, which raises £15 million in the United Kingdom for charity.

1994 - Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

1994 - During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina more than 60 people are killed and some 200 wounded as a mortar shell slams into a downtown marketplace in Sarajevo.

1997 - The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.

2004 - Twenty-three Chinese people drown when a group of 35 cockle-pickers are trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay, England. Twenty-one bodies are recovered.

2004 - Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front capture the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion.