In Thy name they rejoice all the day, And by Thy righteousness they are exalted.



Psalm 86:16 

0444: Death of St. Cyril of Alexandria

0720: Death of Umar II

1088: Death of Muiredach MacRory (Marianus Scotus), Abbot of Ratisbon

1098: Ridwan fails to relieve the Crusader's Siege of Antioch

1119: Coronation of Pope Calixtus II in France

1292: First Scottish Parliament assembles at Scone

1401: Burning of a Mr. Sawtre as a Lollard heretic

1458: Marriage of Mathias I, King of Hungary, to Catherine of Bohemia

1507: Pereira discovers Santa Appolionia Island, later named Reunion...and the Dodo bird

1555: Burning of Dr. Rowland Taylor as an heretic

1555: John Hooper, deprived Bishop of Gloucester, burnt for heresy

1567: Murder of Lord Henry Darley, husband of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots

1588: The Duke of Medina-Sidonia appointed to head the Spanish Armada

1619: Burning of Lucilio Vanini, aka "Giulio Cesare," freethinker

1799: The USS Constellation captures the French frigate Insurgente off the coast of Wisconsin.

1877: U.S. Weather Service is founded.

1825: After no presidential candidate won the necessary majority, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams the sixth president of the United States.

1861: Tennessee votes against secession.

1861: The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America elected Jefferson Davis president and Alexander H. Stephens vice president.

1870: The US Weather Bureau was established.

1893: Verdi's final opera premiered at La Scala. "Falstaff" was a big success.

1895: The first college basketball game was played as Minnesota State School of Agriculture defeated the "Porkers" of Hamline College, 9-3.

1897: This was not one of Debussy's best days when his wife found a love letter in his pocket that made it clear he was having an affair. The ensuing fight, which featured his wife threatening to shoot herself, got into the papers and harmed Debussy professionally for awhile.

1902: Doctor Doyen of Paris, performs a successful operation on Siamese twins from the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

1904: Japanese troops land near Seoul, Korea, after disabling two Russian cruisers.

1906: Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first black writer in the United States to support himself by writing, died in Dayton, Ohio.

1909: The first forestry school was incorporated at Kent, Ohio.

1914: Entertainer and author Gypsy Rose Lee (Rose Louise Hovick) ( Seattle, Washington). Her autobiography, "Gypsy," was made into a Broadway musical and a motion picture. She died in 1970.

1909: France agrees to recognize German economic interests in Morocco in exchange for political supremacy.

1922: The U.S. Congress establishes the World War Foreign Debt Commission.

1923: Dobrolet, the Soviet state airline, was formed. It was renamed Aeroflot in 1932.

1932: America entered the 2-man bobsled competition for the first time at the Olympic Winter Games held at Lake Placid, New York.

1933: The Oxford Union Society at Oxford University debated, then approved, 275-to-153, a motion stating "this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country," a stand that was widely denounced by other Britons.

1942: Chiang Kai-shek meets with Sir Stafford Cripps, the British viceroy in India. Detachment 101 harried the Japanese in Burma and provided close support for regular Allied forces.

1943: The Russians take back Kursk 15 months after it fell to the Nazis.

1942: The US Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War Two.

1942: Daylight-saving "War Time" went into effect in the United States, with clocks turned one hour forward.

1943: The World War Two battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an American victory over Japanese forces.

1946: Stalin announces the new five-year plan for the U.S.S.R., calling for production boosts of 50 percent.

1950: In a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy, R-WI, charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists.

1951: Actress Greta Garbo gets U.S. citizenship.

1950: Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., charged the State Department was infested with communists.

1953: The French destroy six Viet Minh war factories hidden in the jungles of Vietnam.

1962: An agreement was signed to make Jamaica an independent nation within the British Commonwealth later in the year.

1963: The first Boeing 727 took off. It became the world's most popular way to fly. A total of 1,832 aircraft was built before production stopped in 1984.

1964: The U.S. embassy in Moscow is stoned by Chinese and Vietnamese students.

1964: An estimated 73 million viewers tuned in as the Beatles made their first live American television appearance, on "The Ed Sullivan Show." They were paid $2,400.00. 50,000 requests came in for 728 available seats.

1969: The Boeing 747 flew its inaugural flight ushering in the age of the jumbo jet.

1971: An earthquake measuring 6.6 struck the San Fernando Valley in California, killing 58 people. Property damage reached $900 million.

1971: The "Apollo 14" spacecraft returned to Earth after man's third landing on the moon.

1978: Canada expels 11 Soviets in spying case.

1981: Bill Haley died on this day in Harlingen, Texas. He was 55. Haley recorded with his group, The Comets, what became known as the anthem of rock and roll: "Rock Around the Clock" from the movie, "Blackboard Jungle".

1984: Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov died at age 69, less than 15 months after succeeding Leonid Brezhnev; he was succeeded by Konstantin U. Chernenko.

1985: In his Saturday radio address, President Reagan accused Congress of thwarting his administration's efforts to run the government more economically.

1985: Seoul admits using force against opposition leader Kim Dae Jung.

1987: Former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, who was facing tough questions about his role in the Iran-Contra affair, attempted suicide by swallowing Valium, but survived.

1988: One day after Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced that Soviet troops could start withdrawing from Afghanistan by the following May. U.S. officials welcomed the offer, but urged a swifter timetable for total withdrawal.

1989: President Bush, in his first major speech to Congress, proposed a $1.16 trillion "common sense" budget for fiscal 1990.

1990: The Perrier Group of America Inc. announced it was voluntarily recalling its inventory of mineral water in the United States after tests showed the presence of benzene in a small number of bottles.

1991: Voters in Lithuania overwhelmingly endorsed independence from the Soviet Union in a non-binding plebiscite. 

1991: Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell met with ,military commanders in Saudi Arabia to evaluate a possible ground assault against Iraqi forces.

1992: The government of Algeria declared a state of emergency to quell spreading Muslim fundamentalist unrest.

1992: Magic Johnson returned to professional basketball by playing in the NBA All-Star game. (Johnson was named most valuable player as his team, the Western Conference, defeated the Eastern Conference 153-to-113.)

1993: The general manager of the Metropolitan Opera said he'd "never say never" regarding the possible future use of soprano Kathleen Battle. Joseph Volpe fired Battle after she reportedly was rude to other cast members and failed to show up for rehearsals.

1993: NBC News announced it had settled a defamation lawsuit brought by General Motors over the network's "inappropriate demonstration" of a fiery pickup truck crash on its "Dateline NBC" program.

1994: PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres initialed an agreement on security measures that had been blocking implementation of a peace accord.

1994: NATO delivered an ultimatum to Bosnian Serbs to remove heavy guns encircling Sarajevo, or face air strikes. Hours before the ultimatum was issued, the Bosnian Serbs agreed to withdraw their artillery and mortars.

1995: Former Sen. J. William Fulbright died in Washington at age 89.

1996: In Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, a former member of the city's beach detail shot and killed five former co-workers before killing himself.

1996: A collision of rush-hour commuter trains in Secaucus, New Jersey, claimed the lives of both engineers and a passenger.

1996: The Irish republican Army ended its cease-fire with a truck bombing in London that killed two and injured 37.

1997: Best Products closed the last of its stores, a victim of the diminishing allure of the catalog showroom concept of retailing.

1997: The East beat the West in the NBA All-Star game, 132-to-120.

1998: The Pentagon said it was sending up to 3000 US ground troops to the Persian Gulf region to discourage what one official called "any creative thinking" by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

1998: At the Nagano Games, German Georg Hackl won the men's luge for the third consecutive Olympics. Winter Olympics weather disruptions caused postponements and rescheduling. Games organizers had to rearrange the schedules of thousands of security guards, bus drivers, caterers and ticket collectors.

1998: President Clinton declared much of California a major disaster area as the state's rain-weary residents prepared to get pummeled again by a fresh storm moving in from the Pacific. The announcement opened the door for federal aid to 27 California counties which were hit with flooding, mudslides, evacuations and power outages caused by a string of El Nino-driven storms that began Feb. 2.

1998: Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze survived an ambush. The unidentified ambushers waged an attack against his mototcade with grenades and firearms. Speaking on television shortly after the assassination attempt, the former Soviet foreign minister urged his compatriots to remain calm as troops and armored vehicles moved onto the streets of the capital Tbilisi. 

1999: The Senate began closed-door deliberations in President Clinton's impeachment trial, even though members from both parties acknowledged that the two-thirds margin for conviction could not be attained.

 2000: Hackers stepped up their "denial of service" attacks on popular Internet sites, zeroing in on such targets as ETrade and ZDNet, inconveniencing millions of Web users and unnerving Wall Street. 

2000: Boeing Company engineers and technical workers began a 40-day strike.