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 Today's
highlight in history:
On Feb. 26, 1919, Congress established Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
On this date:
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from exile on the Island of Elba.
In 1870, an experimental air-driven subway, the Beach Pneumatic Transit, opened in New York City. (The tunnel was only a block long, and the line had only one car.)
In 1907, Congress created the Dillingham Commission to examine the impact of immigrants on America. (The panel later recommended curtailing immigration from southern and eastern Europe.)
In 1929, President Coolidge signed a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park.
In 1940, the U.S. Air Defense Command was created.
In 1945, a midnight curfew on nightclubs, bars and other places of entertainment was set to go into effect across the nation.
In 1952, Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed its own atomic bomb.
In 1979, a total solar eclipse cast a moving shadow 175 miles wide from Oregon to North Dakota before moving into Canada.
In 1987, the Tower Commission, which probed the Iran-Contra affair, issued its report, which rebuked President Reagan for failing to control his national security staff.
In 1993, a bomb built by Islamic extremists exploded in the parking garage of New York's World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
Ten years ago: A jury in Amarillo, Texas, rejected an $11 million lawsuit brought by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey's talk show for a price fall after a segment on food safety that included a discussion about mad cow disease.
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Five years ago: President Bush, offering new justification for war in Iraq, told a think tank that "ending this direct and growing threat" from Saddam Hussein would pave the way for peace in the Middle East and encourage democracy throughout the Arab world. In a victory for abortion foes, the Supreme Court ruled that federal racketeering and extortion laws had been wrongly used to try to stop blockades, harassment and violent protests outside clinics. A fire at the Greenwood Health Center in Hartford, Conn., killed 16 nursing home patients; a patient charged with setting the blaze was later ruled incompetent to stand trial.
One year ago: Iraq's Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, narrowly escaped death as a blast ripped through a government meeting hall just hours after it had been searched by U.S. teams with bomb-sniffing dogs; at least 10 people were killed. The Iraqi Cabinet approved draft legislation to manage the country's vast oil industry and divide its wealth among the population.
Today's birthdays: Singer Fats Domino is 80. Political columnist Robert Novak is 77. Country-rock musician Paul Cotton (Poco) is 65. Actor-director Bill Duke is 65. Singer Mitch Ryder is 63. Rock musician Jonathan Cain (Journey) is 58. Singer Michael Bolton is 55. Actor Greg Germann is 50. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is 50. Bandleader John McDaniel is 47. Actress Jennifer Grant is 42. Rock musician Tim Commerford (Audioslave) is 40. Singer Erykah Badu is 37. Rhythm-and-blues singer Rico Wade (Society of Soul) is 36. Rhythm-and-blues singer Kyle Norman (Jagged Edge) is 33. Rhythm-and-blues singer Corinne Bailey Rae is 29. Country singer Rodney Hayden is 28. Actress Taylor Dooley is 15.
Thought for today: "The wise make proverbs and fools repeat them."
-- Isaac D'Israeli, English author (1766-1848)
[Associated Press]
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