Today in history:
On February 22, 2022, three white men were convicted of federal hate crimes in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging through their neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, when he was attacked in 2020. (The men are serving life sentences after being convicted of murder in state court.)
Also on this date:
In 1732, the first president of the United States, George Washington, was born in Westmoreland County in the Virginia Colony.
In 1784, an American merchant ship, the Empress of China, left New York on the first trading voyage by an American ship to China.In 1819, a weakened Spain, faced with revolutions in Latin America, signed a treaty ceding Florida to the United States.
In 1862, Jefferson Davis was installed for a full six-year term as President of the Confederate States of America after his election the previous November. He previously served as the provisional president of the Confederacy.
The first Daytona 500 race was held in 1959; although Johnny Beauchamp was initially declared the winner, the win was later awarded to Lee Petty.
In 1967, more than 25,000 American and South Vietnamese troops launched Operation Junction City, aimed at destroying a Viet Cong stronghold near the Cambodian border.
In 1997, scientists in Scotland announced that they had successfully cloned an adult mammal for the first time, a sheep they named ‘Dolly’.
In 1980, the “Miracle on Ice” took place during the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, when the U.S. Olympic hockey team upset the Soviet Union 4-3. (The U.S. team won the gold medal two days later, 4-2 over Finland.)
In 2010, Najibullah Zazi, accused of buying products from beauty salons to make bombs for an attack on New York City subways, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, among other charges. (He helped the US identify and prosecute terrorists for nearly a decade after his arrest and received a 10-year prison sentence.)
In 2020, pioneering Black mathematician Katherine Johnson, who calculated rocket and Earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” died at the age of 101.
In 2024, a private lander built by Intuitive Machines made the first U.S. landing on the moon in more than 50 years, but the spacecraft managed only a weak signal and spotty communications with flight controllers.
Today’s Birthdays:
- Actor Paul Dooley is 98.
- Actor James Hong is 97.
- Actor Julie Walters is 76.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Julius Erving is 76.
- Golf Hall of Famer Amy Alcott is 70.
- Actor Kyle MacLachlan is 67.
- Famer Vijay Singh’s Golf Hall is 63.
- Hockey Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine is 61.
- Actor Paul Lieberstein (TV: “The Office) is 59.
- Actor Jeri Ryan is 58.
- Actor-singer Lea Salonga is 55.
- Tennis Hall of Famer Michael Chang is 54.
- Singer James Blunt is 52.
- Actor Drew Barrymore is 51.
- Comedian Iliza Shlesinger is 43.
- Dancer and singer Genneya Walton is 27.
- Rapper Molly Brazy is 27.
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