Daylight saving time instituted

On February 9, 1773, future President William Henry Harrison is born on the Berkeley Plantation in Virginia. Harrison went on to serve as the ninth U.S. president for a brief 32 days in 1841, the shortest term ever served. Harrison is also credited with the record for the longest inaugural address in history. Delivered on […]

Union General George Armstrong Custer marries Elizabeth Bacon in Monroe, Michigan, while the young cavalry officer is on leave. “Libbie,” as she was known to her family, was a tireless defender of her husband’s reputation after his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana in 1876, and her work helped establish him […]

On February 9, 1942, the largest and most luxurious ocean liner on the seas at that time, France’s S.S. Normandie, catches fire while in the process of being converted for military use by the United States. The Normandie, built in 1931, was the first ship to be constructed in accordance with the guidelines laid down […]

Adolph Coors disappears while driving to work from his Morrison, Colorado, home. The grandson of the Coors’ founder and chairman of the Golden, Colorado, brewery was kidnapped and held for ransom before being shot to death. Surrounding evidence launched one of the FBI’s largest manhunts: the search for Joe Corbett. Corbett, a Fulbright scholar at […]

Pitcher Leroy “Satchel” Paige becomes the first Negro League veteran to be nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

NASA astronaut Bernard Harris becomes the first Black man to walk in space. His mission contributes to a burgeoning collaboration between the United States and Russia in space exploration. Bernard Harris stepped out of the space shuttle Discovery in orbit on February 9, 1995. He first embarked on the unlikely journey toward his historic spacewalk […]