TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – FEB 21
1173 Pope Alexander III canonizes Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury
1595 The Jesuit poet Robert Southwell is hanged for “treason,” being a Catholic.
1631 Michael Romanov, son of the Patriarch of Moscow, is elected Russian Tsar.
1775 As troubles with Great Britain increase, colonists in Massachusetts vote to buy military equipment for 15,000 men.
1842 John J. Greenough patented the sewing machine.
1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish “The Communist Manifesto”
1849 In the Second Sikh War, Sir Hugh Gough’s well placed guns win a victory over a Sikh force twice the size of his at Gujerat on the Chenab River, assuring British control of the Punjab for years to come.
1858 The first electric burglar alarm was installed in Boston, MA.
1878 The world’s first telephone book is issued by the New Haven Connecticut Telephone Company containing the names of its 50 subscribers.
1885 The Washington Monument is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1916 Battle of Verdun, the longest and one of the bloodiest engagements of World War I, began.
1925 The first issue of “The New Yorker” was published.
1940 The Germans begin construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz.
1947 Edwin H. Land publicly demonstrated his instant camera and associated film. Called the Land Camera, , which could produce a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds.
1956 A grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama indicts 115 in a Negro bus boycott.
1958 The peace symbol is designed by Gerald Holtom
1960 Havana places all Cuban industry under direct control of the government.
1965 El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X) is assassinated in front of 400 people.
1972 Richard Nixon arrives in Beijing, China, becoming the first U.S. president to visit a country not diplomatically recognized by the U.S.
1973 Israel Shoots Down Libyan Passenger Plane
1975 Former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 2 1/2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up.
1988 TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart has resigned from his ministry after it was revealed he had been consorting with a prostitute.
This is the third in a series of high profile evangelist scandals including Martin Gorman and Rev Jim Bakker .
2002 It was confirmed that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was dead, allegedly murdered by Islamic militants.
2006 New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans U.S. seaports are to be taken over by the state owned business ( Dubai Ports World ) in the United Arab Emirates.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
