Also on this day
Lead Story
1980
In one of the most dramatic upsets in Olympic history, the underdog U.S. hockey team, made up of college players, defeats the four-time defending gold-medal winning Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The Soviet squad, previously regarded as the finest in the world,...
American Revolution
1777
On this day in 1777, Revolutionary War leader and Georgia’s first Provisional Governor Archibald Bulloch dies under mysterious circumstances just hours after Georgia’s Council of Safety grants him the powers of a dictator in expectation of a British invasion.
Bulloch was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1730 to a Scottish...
Automotive
1959
On this day in 1959, Lee Petty defeats Johnny Beauchamp in a photo finish at the just-opened Daytona International Speedway in Florida to win the first-ever Daytona 500. The race was so close that Beauchamp was initially named the winner by William France, the owner of the track and head...
Civil War
1864
On this day in 1864, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest routs a Union force three times the size of his army at the Battle of West Point, Mississippi, helpingto end Union General William T. Sherman’s expedition into Alabama. Sherman was marching an army east across Mississippi from Vicksburg to Meridian....
Cold War
1946
George Kennan, the American charge d’affaires in Moscow, sends an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union, and U.S. policy toward the communist state. Kennan’s analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for America’s Cold War policy of containment.Kennan was among...
Crime
2006
In the early morning hours of February 22, 2006, a gang of at least six men, some of them armed, steal £53 million from the Securitas bank depot in Kent, Great Britain. It was the largest such theft in British history.
The plot was well planned. On the evening before, two...
2014
On this day in 2014, one of the world’s most-wanted criminals, Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzman Loera, head of the Sinaloa cartel, the world’s biggest drug trafficking organization, is arrested in a joint U.S.-Mexican operation in Mazatlán, Mexico, after outrunning law enforcement for more than a decade. Guzman had been...
Disaster
1998
Seven tornadoes rip through central Florida on this day in 1998, killing 42 people. This was the deadliest outbreak of twisters in Florida’s history.
The potential for deadly storms in the winter of 1997-98 in Florida was first forecast in October. The El Nino weather system was in full effect, pushing...
General Interest
1819
Spanish minister Do Luis de Onis and U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams sign the Florida Purchase Treaty, in which Spain agrees to cede the remainder of its old province of Florida to the United States.Spanish colonization of the Florida peninsula began at St. Augustine in 1565. The Spanish...
1847
During the Mexican-American War, Mexican General Santa Anna surrounds the outnumbered forces of U.S. General Zachary Taylor at the Angostura Pass in Mexico and demands an immediate surrender. Taylor refused, allegedly replying, “Tell him to go to hell,” and early the next morning Santa Anna dispatched some 15,000 troops to...
1968
The American war effort in Vietnam was hit hard by the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, which ended on this day in 1968. Claims by President Lyndon Johnson that the offensive was a complete failure were misleading. Though the North Vietnamese death toll was 20 times that of its enemies, strongholds...
Hollywood
1975
On this day in 1975, Drew Barrymore, who will shoot to stardom as a child after appearing in “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial” then later build a successful career as a leading lady, is born in Los Angeles . Barrymore is part of a famous family of American actors that includes her...
Literary
1892
On this day, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay is born in Rockland, Maine.
One of three daughters of a divorced nurse, Millay learned independence and self-reliance early, and transmitted those qualities to her poetry. She began publishing poetry in high school. In 1912, the year she turned 20, her poem “Renascence”...
Music
1990
With the benefit of hindsight, there might be Grammy awards that members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences wish they could take back, but there is only one that they actually did: the Best New Artist Grammy that was awarded to the famously fraudulent dance act Milli...
Old West
1918
Swept along by hysterical fears of treacherous German spies and domestic labor violence, the Montana legislature passes a Sedition Law that severely restricts freedom of speech and assembly. Three months later, Congress adopted a federal Sedition Act modeled on the Montana law.
The roots of the Montana Sedition Law lay...
Presidential
1732
On this day in 1732, George Washington is born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the second son from the second marriage of a colonial plantation owner. An initially loyal British subject, Washington eventually led the Continental Army in the American Revolution and became known as the father of the United States.
Washington...
Sports
1980
On this day in 1980, the U.S. men’s hockey team pulls off one of the biggest upsets in sports history with a 4-3 victory over the heavily favored Soviet Union at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Two days later, the Americans went on to beat Finland...
Vietnam War
1965
General William Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam, cables Washington, D.C., to request that two battalions of U.S. Marines be sent to protect the U.S. airbase at Da Nang.
Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, aware of Westmoreland’s plan, disagreed and cabled President Lyndon B. Johnson from Saigon to warn that such a...
1967
Operation Junction City is launched to ease pressure on Saigon. It was an effort to smash the Viet Cong’s stronghold in Tay Ninh Province and surrounding areas along the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon.
The purpose of the operation was to drive the Viet Cong away from populated areas and into...
World War I
1917
On February 22, 1917, Sergeant Benito Mussolini is wounded by the accidental explosion of a mortar bomb on the Isonzo section of the Italian Front in World War I. Born in Predappio, Italy, in 1883, the son of a blacksmith and a teacher, Mussolini was well-read, largely self-educated and had...
World War II
1942
On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines, as the American defense of the islands collapses.
The Philippines had been part of the American commonwealth since it was ceded by Spain at the close of the Spanish-American War. When the Japanese invaded China in...
