TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – FEB 22
1349 Jews are expelled from Zurich, Switzerland.
1774 British House of Lords rules authors do not have perpetual copyright
1797 The last invasion of Britain takes place when some 1,400 Frenchmen land at Fishguard in Wales.
1821 Spain sells (east) Florida to United States for $5 million
1825 Russia & Britain establish Alaska-Canada boundary
1847 Battle of Buena Vista US troops beat Mexican army
1862 Jefferson Davis is inaugurated president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. for the second time.
1879 Frank Winfield Woolworth’s ‘nothing over five cents’ shop opens at Utica, New York. It is the first chain store.
1889 Dakotas, Montana & Washington admitted to the union
1902 A fistfight breaks out in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffers a bloody nose for accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.
1935 All plane flights over the White House are barred because they are disturbing President Roosevelt’s sleep.
1942 President Franklin Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur to leave the Philippines.
1948 Arabs bomb attack in Jerusalem, 50 die
1967 25,000 US and South Vietnamese troops launch Operation Junction City against the Viet Cong. Largest US airborne assault since WWII.
1973 Israeli fighter planes shoot down a civilian Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727 killing 108
1980 In a major upset, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets 4–3 at Lake Placid, N.Y.
1983 Hindus kill 3000 Moslems in Assam, India
1984 Britain and the U.S. send warships to the Persian Gulf following an Iranian offensive against Iraq.
2011 185 people are killed during an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **