Today in History
Today is Sunday, Feb. 10, the 41st day of 2019. There are 324 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Feb. 10, 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.
On this date:
- In 1840, Britain's Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
- In 1841, Upper Canada and Lower Canada were proclaimed united under an Act of Union passed by the British Parliament.
- In 1863, showman P.T. Barnum staged the wedding of General Tom Thumb and Mercy Lavinia Warren—both little persons—in New York City.
- In 1936, Nazi Germany's Reichstag passed a law investing the Gestapo secret police with absolute authority, exempt from any legal review.
- In 1949, Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" opened at Broadway's Morosco Theater with Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman.
- In 1959, a major tornado tore through the St. Louis area, killing 21 people and causing heavy damage.
- In 1967, the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was ratified as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.
- In 1968, U.S. figure skater Peggy Fleming, 19, won America's only gold medal of the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France, in the ladies' singles event. (Gabriele Seyfert of East Germany earned the silver medal, Hana Maskova of Czechoslovakia, the bronze.)
- In 1981, eight people were killed when a fire set by a busboy broke out at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino.
- In 1992, boxer Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant. (Tyson served three years in prison.) Author Alex Haley died in Seattle at age 70.
- In 2004, the White House, trying to end doubts about President George W. Bush's Vietnam-era military service, released documents it said proved he had met his requirements in the Texas Air National Guard. Democrat John Kerry won the Virginia and Tennessee primaries.
- In 2005, playwright Arthur Miller died in Roxbury, Connecticut, at age 89 on the 56th anniversary of the Broadway opening of "Death of a Salesman."
Today's Birthdays: Actor Robert Wagner is 89. Rock musician Don Wilson (The Ventures) is 86. Singer Jimmy Merchant (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers) is 79. Rock musician Bob Spalding (The Ventures) is 72. Olympic gold-medal swimmer Mark Spitz is 69. Walt Disney Co. chairman and chief executive Robert Iger is 68.
Thought for Today: "Morality is moral only when it is voluntary."—Lincoln Steffens, American journalist (1866-1936).
—The Associated Press
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