This Week in History

February 9

1825: After no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president.
1895: William G. Morgan created a game called Mintonette, which soon became referred to as volleyball.
1942: Year-round daylight-saving time was re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy.
1964: The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show before a record TV audience of 73 million viewers.
1965: The first U.S. combat troops were sent to South Vietnam.

February 10

1883: Ontario, Canada’s, first free public library opened in Guelph.
1954: President Dwight Eisenhower warned against U.S. intervention in Vietnam.
1962: U.S. artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) opened his first solo exhibition; it included Look Mickey, which featured his first use of Ben-Day dots, speech balloons and comic book images, all of which he is known for now.
1967: The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified; among other things, it limits a U.S. president to two terms. Born this day: actress Laura Dern (Jurassic Park), and producer/director Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad).
1996: IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov (1963- ) in chess for the first time.

February 11

660 BC: Japan was founded by Emperor Jimmu.
1534: King Henry VIII of England became the supreme head of the Church of England.
1752: Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, was opened by Benjamin Franklin.
1794: The first session of the U.S. Senate opened to the public.
1808: Coal was first used as a fuel for heating homes, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
1916: Anarchist Emma Goldman was arrested for lecturing on birth control in New York City.
1938: BBC Television produced the world’s first science-fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Čapek play R.U.R., that coined the term “robot.”
1939: A Lockheed P-38 Lightning flew from California to New York in seven hours two minutes, averaging about 428 mph.
1953: President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused a clemency appeal for convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, American citizens who supplied the Soviet Union with classified information about the atomic bomb. 1967: A Pennsylvania Railroad employee and his companion fled in fear from a glowing object hovering a few feet above a creek bed near Milford, Ohio.
1978: China lifted its ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
1990: Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa, after 27 years as a political prisoner. In one of the largest upsets in sports history, Buster Douglas, a 40-1 underdog, knocked out Mike Tyson in 10 rounds in Tokyo to win the boxing world heavyweight title.
2010: U.S. pennies with a new “union shield” design on the back were officially released at a ceremony at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Ill.

February 12

1733: Englishman James Oglethorpe founded Georgia, the 13th of the original 13 colonies, and its first city at Savannah.
1825: The Creek Indians, also known as the Muscogee people, gave up the last of their lands in Georgia to the U.S. government with the Treaty of Indian Springs and migrated west to Oklahoma.
1832: Ecuador annexed the Galápagos Islands.
1914: The first stone of the Lincoln Memorial was put into place in Washington, D.C.
1947: A shower of meteorites created several impact craters in Sikhote-Alin in the Soviet Union. The largest crater was 85 feet across.
1954: British food company J. Lyons & Co. used the LEO computer to produce a payroll report, becoming the first time in history that a computer was used in business.
1959: The newly redesigned U.S. penny with the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse side was officially released on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.
1963: Construction began on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Mo.
1968: Born this day: actor Josh Brolin (Men in Black 3, W, Milk); and U.S. hiker Christopher McCandless (Died 1992, Alaskan misadventure and death inspired author Jon Krakauer to write Into the Wild).
1990: Carmen Lawrence became the first female premier in Australian history when she became premier of Western Australia.
1994: Four men broke into the National Gallery of Norway and stole Edvard Munch’s iconic painting, The Scream. (The painting was recovered undamaged on May 7, 1994.)
2000: Charles M. Schulz, creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip, died in Santa Rosa, Calif., age 77.
2001: The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous-Shoemaker spacecraft touched down in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
2009: The U.S. Mint issued the first of four new Lincoln pennies. This one has a log cabin on the back to depict his birth and early childhood. It was issued on the 200th anniversary of the 16th president’s birth at a special ceremony at LaRue County High School in Hodgenville, Ky., Lincoln’s birthplace.

February 13

1961: A 500,000-year-old rock was discovered by Wallace Lane, Virginia Maxey and Mike Mikesell near Olancha, Calif., that appeared to encase a spark plug. The anomalous rock became known as the Coso Geode. It has since been lost.
1981: A series of sewer explosions destroyed more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Ky.
2000: The last original “Peanuts” comic strip ran in newspapers, one day after the strip’s creator, Charles M. Schulz, died.
2004: The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery of the universe’s largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star “Lucy” after The Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
2011: For the first time in more than 100 years, the Umatilla tribe are able to hunt and kill a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by the Hell Gate Treaty of 1855.

February 14

1471: The first hand-made Valentine’s Day card was given.
1849: The first mass-produced Valentine’s Day cards were used.
1876: Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone.
1924: The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
1962: First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy conducted a one-hour, televised tour of the White House.
2005: YouTube was launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source for viral videos.

February 15

1815: President James Madison moved into Octagon House while the White House was being rebuilt after being burned by the British in the War of 1812.
1820: American civil rights leader and women’s suffragist Susan B. Anthony was born in Adams, Mass.
1879: U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
1925: Twenty mushers driving dogsled teams delivered antitoxin to Nome, Alaska, saving the town from a diphtheria epidemic and establishing the historic Iditarod dogsled trail.
1965: The red-and-white maple leaf design was adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the Canadian Red Ensign banner.

ON THIS DAY…
FEBRUARY 9 – FEBRUARY 15

February 9
NATIONAL PIZZA DAY

Before World War II, pizza was little known outside of Italy or Italian immigrant communities. This cheesy disc went from a niche cultural meal to the star of
the show anywhere it turns up!

February 10
NATIONAL
UMBRELLA DAY

February 11
NATIONAL GUITAR DAY
There’s more to the guitar than just the players; there’s fascinating history of an instrument that’s as versatile as any in music. 

February 12
ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY
Did you know that he was born to illiterate parents? Or that he discovered his knack for easy conversation while working in a general store?

February 13
SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

After 17 hard fought matches spanning 18 weeks, the two best football teams in the NFL battle their way to a world championship in the grandest TV
spectacle in America.

February 14
VALENTINES DAY
We are ready to shower our significant others and loved ones with love and tokens of our affection. 

 February 15
NATIONAL GUMDROP DAY
Gumdrops are unique in that they are not only fun to eat but they also make great decorations. People have crafted with gumdrops for years and because they come in so many shapes, sizes, and colors, gumdrops guarantee festive décor.