Today in Your History — February
A look at the people, events and popular culture that shaped our lives
AARP Members Only Access, February 2022
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PHOTO BY: Guido Marzilla/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Feb. 28: Pope Benedict XVI becomes the first pope to resign since 1415 (2013)
On Feb. 11, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI shocked the Vatican — and the world — when he announced that he would be making the almost completely unprecedented move of resigning the papacy, effective at the end of the month. The then 85-year-old German theologian, who had been the oldest pope elected since the 18th century, announced that, in order to serve as pope, “both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.” As such, after less than eight years in office, he would officially step down at 8 p.m. on Feb. 28. “The cardinals were just looking at one another,” the Mexican prelate, Monsignor Oscar Sánchez, told The Guardian about the announcement. “Then the pope got to his feet, gave his benediction and left. It was so simple; the simplest thing imaginable. Extraordinary. Nobody expected it. Then we all left in silence. There was absolute silence … and sadness.” Part of that shock probably came from just how rare such an occurrence was: In fact, Benedict XVI was the first pope to resign since Gregory XII did so back in 1415! On Feb. 28, he officially took on the title of pope emeritus and later moved into the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery inside Vatican City. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CBS via Getty Images
Feb. 27: Walter Cronkite delivers his famous commentary on the Vietnam War, which is credited with changing public opinion (1968)
CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite had a well-earned reputation for being the most trusted man in America, revered for his tireless pursuit of the truth. So in early 1968, with debate about the Vietnam War reaching a fever pitch, the storied newsman decided to check out the situation for himself. American public opinion of “the living room war” had been widely shaped by the news, but Cronkite himself had never offered his own take. During his visit to Vietnam, he interviewed generals and rode in helicopters carrying Marines in body bags. As historian Douglas Brinkley told The Washington Post, “He was just doing the gumshoe reporting all over Vietnam, and the print reporters all swooned over Cronkite for doing it.” Upon returning home, he broadcast the special “Report from Vietnam: Who, What, When, Where, Why?” at 10 p.m. ET on Feb. 27, offering, as he described it, “an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective.” He spoke honestly about what he had seen on the ground there, saying, “Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I’m not sure. The Viet Cong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we.” Then, at the end of the hour-long broadcast, he did something that seemed radical for “Uncle Walter” — he offered his opinion: “But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.” After the broadcast, President Lyndon B. Johnson reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Feb. 26: La La Land is mistakenly announced as best picture over Moonlight at the Oscars (2017)
On Feb. 26, 2017, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was celebrating the year’s best films, but none of the winning movies could match the drama onstage at the ceremony that night: It was the year of the best picture mixup! Coming into the homestretch, the musical La La Land had picked up six wins — including for best actress (Emma Stone) and best director (Damien Chazelle) — out of a record-tying 14 nominations. Moonlight, the gay coming-of-age drama, had won two, for best supporting actor (Mahershala Ali) and best adapted screenplay. To announce the best picture Oscar, Bonnie and Clyde stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway took to the stage. Beatty opened the envelope and hesitated. “You’re impossible, c’mon,” Dunaway said, impatiently, before taking the envelope and announcing that La La Land had won. The cast and crew bounded onto the stage. But halfway through their speeches, word started spreading that something was wrong. And then La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz broke the news: “I’m sorry, no. There’s a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won best picture.” The audience was, to put it mildly, stunned. Beatty quickly explained that he had hesitated earlier because the envelope said “Emma Stone, La La Land.” The La La Land crowd shuffled offstage, the Moonlight crew, including director Barry Jenkins, took their places, and Jenkins began his speech: “Very clearly, even in my dreams, this could not be true. … I have to say — and it is true, it’s not fake — we’ve been on the road with these guys for so long, and that was so gracious, so generous of them. My love to La La Land, my love to everybody.” For his part, host Jimmy Kimmel ended the night with a promise: “I knew I would screw this show up, I really did. … I promise I’ll never come back. Good night.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AF archive/Alamy
Feb. 25: The Passion of the Christ premieres (2004)
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was far from a surefire blockbuster when it was released on Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lent season, back in 2004. After all, it starred a relatively unknown Jim Caviezel as Jesus Christ; it was shot in Hebrew, Latin and Aramaic, with English subtitles; and it sparked conversations about anti-Semitism for its portrayal of Jewish leaders. The film was also epically, brutally violent, depicting the capture, torture and eventual crucifixion of Jesus in every gruesome detail. In his four-star review, Roger Ebert called it “the most violent film I have ever seen,” and there were two reported incidents of people having fatal heart attacks during the crucifixion scene. The film nonetheless went on to earn three Oscar nominations, but perhaps more impressively, it was a roaring financial success, raking in $611 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. That makes it the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever at the domestic box office! Who would have guessed that, in a box-office battle, Jesus would prove triumphant over the Joker and Deadpool? —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Photo
Feb. 24: Nixon visits the Great Wall of China (1972)
President Richard Nixon called his eight-day visit to China in 1972 “the week that changed the world,” and it certainly had major diplomatic ramifications. It was the first time a U.S. president had visited the People’s Republic of China since it was established in 1949, and the trip paved the way for a new era of cultural exchange and trade. On his fourth day in the country, Nixon finally took a break from meetings to see the sights. His first stop was the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China, followed by a visit to the Ming Dynasty Imperial Tombs and then a dinner of Peking duck with Premier Zhou Enlai. Television cameras and news reporters trailed the leaders everywhere they went. At a tea break during the tour, Nixon told the press that he hoped one result of his China trip could be that “walls erected — whether like this physical wall or whether other walls, ideological and philosophical — will not divide peoples of the world, that people peoples regardless of differences in philosophy and background will have an opportunity to communicate with each other and know each other.” But many Americans remember a different Nixon quote from the visit: “I think that you would have to conclude that this is a great wall.” Newspaper readers chuckled. But most reports failed to include the second half of the line — “and it had to be built by a great people” — which made it sound a bit more thoughtful. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
Feb. 23: Jason Collins becomes the first openly gay athlete to play in any of the four major professional leagues (2014)
“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center,” wrote Jason Collins in an essay in the May 6, 2013, issue of Sports Illustrated. “I’m black. And I’m gay. I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation.” Collins, a 7-footer who had already played for five NBA teams, became a free agent after the announcement, but he didn’t play professionally again for almost a year, until he joined the Brooklyn Nets the next February. On that whirlwind Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014, Collins woke up to a flurry of texts from his agent and the Nets coach, inviting him to join the team. Before the end of the night, he had signed a contract, taken his physical, spoken to the media and played his first game. “Right now I’m focused on trying to learn the plays, the game plan assignment,” he said in a pregame press conference. “I don’t have time to really think about history right now.” Many commentators noted that it had been another Brooklyn team, the Dodgers, that had broken a different barrier in 1947 when they signed Jackie Robinson, making him the first Black player in Major League Baseball. When Collins took the court, he was greeted with supportive applause from the crowd. He ended up playing 11 minutes in the game, though he didn’t score any points. Later that spring, Collins appeared on the cover of Time’s 100 Most Influential People issue, which included an essay written by one of his classmates from Stanford, Chelsea Clinton. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Steve Powell /Getty Images
Feb. 22: The Miracle on Ice game takes place at the Lake Placid Olympics (1980)
It was the height of the Cold War, and the American hockey team was entering the Lake Placid Winter Olympics as major underdogs. They were the youngest Olympic hockey team ever, made up of mostly college players, with an average age of only 22. The heavily favored Soviets, meanwhile, were full-time professionals who had won the last four gold medals. In a recent exhibition game at Madison Square Garden, the Soviets had defeated the Americans 10-3. Yet when the two teams met in the semifinals, something totally unexpected happened: The scrappy Americans came out on top, winning 4-3, causing broadcaster Al Michaels to shout, “Do you believe in miracles?... Yes!” as the home-nation crowd chanted “U.S.A! U.S.A!” There was a symbolic patriotic element to the victory, and the game spawned a 1981 TV movie, starring Karl Malden as coach Herb Brooks, and a 2004 film with Kurt Russell in the coach’s role. The “Miracle on Ice” may be the most famous game in ice hockey history, but it could also be the most misremembered. Many Americans will swear that it was the tournament’s final game, but the squad actually had one more to go, against Finland, before they took home the gold! —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Robert Parent/Getty Images
Feb. 21: Malcom X is assassinated (1965)
In 1964, Malcolm X made a very public split from the Nation of Islam, a move that immediately put him in harm’s way. He faced death threats and attempts on his life, including having Molotov cocktails thrown at his family’s home in Queens, New York, in February 1965. At the time, he told reporters, “I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.” On Feb. 21, he took the stage at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood to deliver a lecture about his new Organization of Afro-American Unity. Shortly after he began, three members of the Nation of Islam rushed the stage, shooting and killing the activist leader. The men were arrested. One of them, Mujahid Abdul Halim, confessed during the trial and claimed that the other men were innocent, but all three were convicted. Those two, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, were exonerated for the killing only last year. About 1,500 mourners attended Malcolm’s funeral on Feb. 27, with actor Ossie Davis delivering the eulogy. Martin Luther King Jr. sent his widow, Betty Shabazz, a telegram saying, “While we did not see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: David Madison/Getty Images
Feb. 20: Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest individual Olympic gold medalist in figure-skating history at the age of 15 (1998)
At the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, American figure skater Tara Lipinski shocked the sports world when she bested teammate Michelle Kwan to become the youngest gold medalist in her sport’s history. A year earlier, Jere Longman had written of their rivalry in The New York Times, describing them as, “Lipinski, the consistent Energizer bunny of a jumper versus Kwan, the more sophisticated, complete artist.” Nevertheless, in her rhinestones and scrunchie, the 4-foot-10-inch Energizer bunny prevailed. On Feb. 20, she was 15 years and 255 days old — or 60 days younger than Norwegian skater-turned-actress Sonja Henie was when she won her gold 70 years earlier. Lipinski had been roller skating since the age of 3 and ice skating since 6, starting her practices as early as 4 a.m. and eventually turning to homeschooling so she could spend more time training. After winning her gold, she slept with the medal around her neck at the athletes village and said that the first thing she did upon waking was pinch it to see if it was real. “For the rest of my life, I’ll always have ‘pinch me’ moments thinking about it,” she later told Cosmopolitan.com. “I still say to myself, ‘How did this happen?!’ ” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: CBS via Getty Images
Feb. 19: Sammy Davis Jr. guest stars on ‘All in the Family’ (1972)
In one of the most iconic celebrity cameos in television history, Sammy Davis Jr. starred as himself in the second season All in the Family episode “Sammy’s Visit.” After Archie (Carroll O’Connor) takes a job as a taxi driver, the Rat Packer accidentally leaves his briefcase in the back of his cab, then shows up at the Bunker place to retrieve it. Though Archie tries to hide his bigotry, he can’t help but let his prejudices show when, for example, he asks his guest, “You being colored, well, I know you had no choice in that, but whatever made you turn Jew?” It’s a hilariously awkward half hour, with Archie making Freudian slips about Sammy’s glass eye (“Now, Mr. Davis, do you take cream and sugar in your eye?”) as the duo engages in plenty of frank talk about racial slurs and inequality. But the episode will always be best remembered for how it ends: Archie and Sammy stand next to each other to pose for a picture, and Sammy turns and plants a giant kiss on Archie’s cheek. Norman Lear, the show’s creator, later said that the kiss led to what might have been the longest sustained studio audience laughter ever on television (it had to be edited down for broadcast), and the Emmy-winning episode landed at number 18 on TV Guide’s 2004 list of the most memorable moments in television history. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Stephen Munday/Getty Images
Feb. 18: Shani Davis becomes the first Black athlete to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics (2006)
It might be hard to imagine that racial barriers were still being broken in sports as recently as 2006, but it wasn’t until that year that a Black athlete won an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics. At the Games in Torino, Italy, 23-year-old Shani Davis won a gold in the 1,000-meter speed skating event, a dream of his since at least the age of 6, when he first strapped on ice skates as a kid in Chicago. When NPR asked him about the bigger significance of his record-breaking achievement, he said, “If people in America are excited and thrilled to have a Black Olympic champion in speed skating, you know, I’m happy that I can make people happy.” Before retiring in 2019, Davis picked up a total of four medals — two gold and two silver — though many will remember him as much for his style as a skater as his world records. As Paul Newberry wrote for the Associated Press after Davis’ disappointing appearance at the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, “It wasn’t just the honors he claimed, the records he broke. It was the way he did it. That lean, 6-foot-2 frame brought a touch of silken elegance to a grueling, grunting sport, his hunched-over technique so smooth through the treacherous turns that he was always going a lot faster than it seemed.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AdamNadel/AP Photo
Feb. 17: Garry Kasparov beats the chess-playing computer Deep Blue (1996)
On this date in 1996, humankind breathed a collective sigh of relief when Soviet-born world chess champion Garry Kasparov finally defeated IBM’s chess-playing computer Deep Blue after a six-game match. A Terminator-like fate, at least in the world of queens and rooks and knights, had been averted. Kasparov was a true chess prodigy, and in 1985, at the age of 22, he had become the youngest world champion ever. But this time he was facing an opponent with the power to consider 200 million moves per second. The match, which began a week earlier at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, had gotten off to a nail-biting start: Deep Blue took the first game, Kasparov the second, and the third and fourth ended in draws. Kasparov rallied to win the fifth game before sealing the victory in the sixth. The opponents faced off again the next year in a rematch with a very different outcome. During the sixth game, Kasparov resigned and stormed off after only 19 moves were played. It was the first time he had ever lost a match in his career. “It was nothing to do about science,” he said in a postgame press conference. “It was zeal to beat Garry Kasparov. And when a big corporation with unlimited resources would like to do so, there are many ways to achieve the result. And the result was achieved.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: KABC-TV/AP Photo
Feb. 16: Britney Spears shaves her head, sparking a media frenzy (2007)
If you’ve followed the “Free Britney” movement in the past few years, you know that the embattled pop star has been fighting to end a conservatorship put in place in 2008 following concerns about mental health issues and substance abuse. In the year leading up to that ruling, Spears’ public struggles were tabloid fodder, broadcast for the world to see, and perhaps the low point came in mid-February. After checking into a rehab facility in Antigua only to check out a day later, she showed up at a hair salon in Tarzana, California, and asked owner Esther Tognozzi to shave her head. Tognozzi tried talking the singer out of it, but when she turned around to talk to her bodyguard, Spears grabbed the buzzer and shaved her own head, as the paparazzi furiously snapped photos from outside. Within a few days, Britney’s hair would be up for auction on eBay for $1 million, with Tognozzi’s husband claiming that some of the proceeds would go to a charity, such as Locks of Love, but the listings were eventually taken down because the hair couldn’t be authenticated. After the salon, Spears continued on to a tattoo parlor in Sherman Oaks, where she got a pair of lips inked on her wrist. Her appearance caused such a scene that the police had to be called out to control the crowd. At the time, Spears became the butt of late-night jokes and was endlessly skewered by the tabloid media; now many realize her actions were a cry for help that went ignored for years. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: AP Video/ AP Photo
Feb. 15: A meteor explodes over Russia, causing damage and injuries (2013)
On the morning of Feb. 15, 2013, a massive airburst exploded 12 miles over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, releasing about 30 times more energy than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. But it wasn’t an act of war or terrorism; it was a small asteroid whizzing by at about 12 miles per second, causing a sonic boom that shattered windows, collapsed a factory roof and cracked public statues, and emitting enough heat to burn retinas and skin, injuring up to 1,200 people. Of course, in space terms, “small” is relative. Asteroid 2012 DA14 was about 65 feet in diameter, roughly the height of a six-story building, and its fireball glowed 30 times brighter than the sun. After the giant piece of space rock broke up, between 4.4 and 6.6 tons of meteorites reached the ground, and divers later found a 1,400-pound meteorite at the bottom of Lake Chebarkul. Many experts saw the event as a warning. “If humanity does not want to go the way of the dinosaurs,” said Qing-Zhu Yin of the University of California, Davis, “we need to study an event like this in detail.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Adam Butler/PA Images via Getty Images
Feb. 14: Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa against Salman Rushdie (1989)
Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie sent shockwaves through the global Muslim community with the publication of his 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, which was quickly deemed blasphemous. Religious critics claimed, for instance, that Rushdie called Muhammad a “magician” and a “false prophet.” The book’s publication led to mass demonstrations in Pakistan, where thousands protested in front of the American cultural center to demand that the book be banned. In the ensuing scuffle, The New York Times reported, five people were killed and up to 80 were injured. And then, on Valentine’s Day 1989, the situation reached its boiling point when the Iranian religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa (or a legal ruling on Islamic law) against Rushdie, offering a bounty to any Muslim who would execute the author. Rushdie expressed regret for the book’s publication, saying that the “experience has served to remind us that we must all be conscious of the sensibilities of others.” But the Ayatollah was having none of it. He issued another statement, writing, “Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he’s got, his life and wealth, to send him to hell.” Rushdie, as a result, went into hiding, under the protection of the British police, until 1998, when the Iranian government finally announced that it would no longer pursue his execution. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Ben Margot/AP Photo
Feb. 13: The final Peanuts comic strip runs in papers a day after Charles M. Schulz died (2000)
In December 1999, cartoonist Charles M. Schulz announced that, due to an ongoing battle with colon cancer, he would soon be hanging up his pencil and ending Peanuts after nearly half a century. The final daily strip would appear on Jan. 3, with the last Sunday release to follow on Feb. 13. As if right on cue, Schulz died in his sleep on Feb. 12 at his home in Santa Rosa, Calilfornia, just hours before Snoopy would take his final bow. The last Sunday strip is an emotional doozy, as Snoopy sits atop his doghouse with a typewriter, tapping out a final letter to fans. “Dear Friends,” he writes, “I have been fortunate to draw Charlie Brown and his friends for almost 50 years. It has been the fulfillment of my childhood ambition. Unfortunately, I am no longer able to maintain the schedule demanded by a daily comic strip.” He explains that, because his family does not want any other cartoonist to continue the strip, Peanuts is ending. He finishes with: “Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy … how can I ever forget them…” and his — the artist’s — signature. Great moments from the strip’s history, including Snoopy as the World War I Flying Ace and Lucy pulling out the football from beneath Charlie Brown, fill the sky behind him. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Columbia/courtesy Everett Collection
Feb. 12: Groundhog Day premieres (1993)
On Feb. 12, 1993, with the release of Groundhog Day, director Harold Ramis and actor Bill Murray would forever change the way we listen to Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” That cheerful 1965 ditty was transformed into a harbinger of existential dread by this surprisingly poignant time-loop comedy: Every morning, Pittsburgh weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) awakens in a Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, bed-and-breakfast to the sound of Cher’s voice on the radio as he relives Groundhog Day over and over (and over!) again. Since the film’s release, there has been much speculation about how long Phil was trapped in the loop, with Ramis himself once suggesting 10 years — although an early draft of the script mentioned 10,000 years. Groundhog Day went on to gross about $71 million worldwide and picked up the BAFTA Award for best original screenplay, while the time-loop concept has spawned its fair share of imitators, including Edge of Tomorrow, Palm Springs and Happy Death Day, not to mention a Tony-nominated Broadway musical adaptation of the film. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Greg English/AP Photo
Feb. 11: Nelson Mandela is released from prison after 27 years (1990)
As anti-apartheid pressure mounted from the international community, South African President F.W. de Klerk announced that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison after 27½ years. The night before his release, de Klerk met with Mandela at Victor Verster Prison to tell him that he would be freed the next day, but Mandela asked for two weeks’ notice to prepare his family and his supporters. When de Klerk refused an extension, the two shared a whiskey together. At twilight on Feb. 11, the white-haired African National Congress leader addressed tens of thousands of supporters from the balcony of Cape Town’s City Hall: “Friends, comrades and fellow South Africans, I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people.” While Mandela is often remembered these days as a gentle Nobel Peace Prize winner, that first speech was anything but conciliatory, as he vowed to keep fighting for the end of white minority rule: “I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Bettmann/Getty Images
Feb. 10: The U.S. ratifies the 25th Amendment (1967)
On Feb. 10, 1967, the United States finalized its third new constitutional amendment of the decade, when the 38th state, Nevada, officially ratified the 25th Amendment, pushing it over the necessary threshold. If you read the text of the original Constitution, it doesn’t say much about how to replace a president who has died or is unable to serve, an issue that came up surprisingly frequently since the founding. Set in motion by the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 25th Amendment firmly established the rules of presidential succession in the case of a vacancy. Section 1 made official the obvious: The VP would become president — not just acting president — in the event of death or resignation. Section 2 set in motion rules for replacing the vice president, which had to be invoked only a few years later when Spiro Agnew resigned. Section 3 allows the president to temporarily transfer power to the vice president; Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Joe Biden all invoked the provision to get colonoscopies under general anesthesia. And the final section, which became a hot-button talking point in recent years, involves removing from office a president who has been declared unfit to serve. It has never been used. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Julian Barton/Avalon/Getty Images
Feb. 9: The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (1964)
On the night of Feb. 9, 1964 — two days after they arrived to rapturous crowds at New York’s JFK Airport — the Beatles played their first live performance on American shores on The Ed Sullivan Show, ushering in the era of Beatlemania. CBS received more than 50,000 ticket requests, although the studio held only 728 seats, and in the audience that night were Julie and Tricia Nixon and the daughters of Walter Cronkite and Jack Paar; Sullivan himself joked that he had trouble getting extra tickets. Backstage before their set, the Fab Four hung out with Olympic gold-medalist speed skater (and part-time barber) Terry McDermott, who took a photo pretending to cut Paul’s shaggy mop as his bandmates looked on mock-horrified. They took to the stage and ripped through “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You” and “She Loves You” as the audience erupted into eardrum-piercing screams, and they returned at the end of the hourlong broadcast with “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” An estimated 73 million people tuned in to the show that night — about 40 percent of the American population at the time. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Julian Barton/Avalon/Getty Images
Feb. 8: Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” hits No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (1992)
As grunge and gangsta rap were storming the airwaves, dance-pop group Right Said Fred released a campy, self-aware confection dedicated to self-absorption that improbably topped the charts, becoming one of the most iconic one-hit wonders of the 1990s. Brothers Fred and Richard Fairbrass were managing a gym in London, where they noticed quite a bit of preening and posing. One hot day, Richard whipped off his shirt, stood in front of a mirror and started singing “I’m too sexy for my shirt”; when everyone started laughing, the brothers knew they were on to something. They threw together a list of things they were “too sexy” for, including their hat, your party, Milan, their cat and ultimately “this song,” resulting in a song that was instantly danceable and easy to memorize. Listeners lapped it up. “Maybe it’s a nostalgic longing for pre-AIDS liberation,” wrote Steve Hochman in the Los Angeles Times. “Maybe it’s just cultural campiness. But don’t be surprised if the Freds’ classic disco mix of solid beats and swelling strings, Richard’s bumping and grinding and preening in a skin-tight white vinyl union suit before masses of throbbing bodies under throbbing strobe lights proves to be less anomalous these days than you might hope.” On Feb. 8, 1992, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it stayed for three gloriously cheesy weeks. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Everett Collection
Feb. 7: Blazing Saddles premieres (1974)
On this date in 1974, Mel Brooks released one of the most side-splitting films in history, the Western spoof Blazing Saddles. With a cast that includes Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn and Harvey Korman, the comedy is chockablock with sight gags, anachronisms, a pie fight, a Yiddish-speaking Native American chief, the invention of candygrams, a horse getting punched in the face, too many baked beans around the campfire and a slew of ethnic stereotypes meant to poke a massive hole in racist thinking through broad satire. (It might come as no surprise that Richard Pryor was one of the screenwriters.) In his four-star review, Roger Ebert called the film “a crazed grabbag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken.” Though Brooks has said that Blazing Saddles would be too politically incorrect to be made today, it was a massive hit upon its release, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1974, with a box office total of $119.5 million. The film went on to be nominated for three Oscars, including best supporting actress for Kahn, and the American Film Institute celebrated it as the sixth funniest American movie of all time on its “100 Years… 100 Laughs” list. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: John Swart/AP Photo
Feb. 6: Michael Jordan makes his famous slam dunk from the free-throw line (1988)
At the 1988 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Michael Jordan redefined the art of the dunk with his gravity-defying leap opposite Atlanta Hawks forward Dominique Wilkins, who had bested him during their first face-off, in 1985. As the two neared the end of the competition, Jordan needed 49 points to come out on top. “I looked up into the box seats and came across the guy who started it all, Dr. J,” Jordan said of the influential player Julius Erving. “He told me to go back all the way, go the length of the floor, then take off from the free-throw line. And I did it.” In front of a hometown crowd at Chicago Stadium, His Airness stormed across the court, leaped from the free-throw line, cocked the ball behind his right ear and slammed it through the hoop. If you didn’t know any better, you might think he had jumped on a trampoline to get that much air — it was downright superhuman. Jordan scored a perfect 50 points and clinched the title, with Sports Illustrated later ranking the 1988 Slam Dunk Contest as the greatest in league history. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: William F. Campbell/Getty Images
Feb. 5: Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers (1994)
Mississippi segregationist and Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith was arrested in 1963 for the June 12, 1963, shooting of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers, but he wouldn’t be brought to justice for another three decades. All signs pointed to Beckwith’s guilt: His fingerprints were found on the sniper rifle used in the killing, and witnesses reported seeing both Beckwith and his white Plymouth Valiant near the scene of the crime. But two all-white juries failed to reach a verdict in 1964. Years later, as Beckwith was serving a prison sentence in Louisiana for transporting explosives in his car, a guard overheard him threatening a Black nurse and admitting to killing Evers. The case was reopened, and the Mississippi newspaper the Clarion Ledger uncovered damning accounts that proved a pro-segregation state agency had worked with Beckwith to screen jurors for his previous trials. On February 5, 1994, Beckwith — who had worn a Confederate-flag pin on his lapel during the trial — was finally found guilty by a jury of eight Black people and four white people, and he was later sentenced to life in prison. The new trial inspired the 1996 courtroom drama Ghosts of Mississippi, with James Woods earning an Oscar nomination for playing the murderer. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images
Feb. 4: Facebook is launched by Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg (2004)
If you’ve seen the movie The Social Network, you might already know the gist of the story: On February 4, 2004, 19-year-old Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and a few of his classmates launched a little website called TheFacebook.com (it would drop the “The” in 2005). The concept was inspired by university “face books” — student directories that featured pictures of and basic information about each student. Frustrated that Harvard didn’t offer one, Zuckerberg decided to take matters into his own hands. “I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week,” he told The Harvard Crimson. In the fall 2003 semester, he had launched an earlier iteration called Facemash, and it had a less-than-savory format: It would randomly pair photos of two students, and the user would have to pick which was “hotter.” When Harvard cut off Zuck’s internet, he pivoted and launched what would go on to become the world-conquering social media network. Students could create their own profiles, skirting any potential privacy issues. Zuckerberg ensured that, unlike with other similar platforms, only people with Harvard email addresses could join; the network soon began spreading to other campuses, with the goal of emphasizing “trusted connections” with friends and friends of friends, which Zuckerberg dubbed your “social graph.” Soon he was dropping out of Harvard, moving operations to Palo Alto, California, getting millions of dollars in venture capital and — for better or worse — totally changing the course of human history. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: NASA/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Feb. 3: Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot a space shuttle (1995)
Astronaut Eileen Collins was born in Elmira, New York, which has been called the Soaring Capital of America because of its connection to the history of motorless flight. But she needed quite a bit more rocket power on February 3, 1995, when she became the first woman to pilot a U.S. space shuttle. On the STS-63 mission, she flew Discovery as it approached and made a rendezvous with the Russian space station, coming within 37 feet of Mir. In her pocket she carried the international pilot’s license of pioneering aviator Bobbi Trout. When Collins landed the shuttle eight days later, she said, “I knew all those women pilots out there were watching me and thinking, ‘Eileen, you better make a good landing.’ ” The mission was doubly groundbreaking in that it also marked the first time a Black astronaut, Bernard Harris, performed a space walk. Later, Collins became the first woman to command a shuttle mission, in 1999, and after Columbia was tragically destroyed in an explosion in 2003, she commanded a “return to flight” mission for NASA in 2005. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Feb. 2: Hasbro introduces G.I. Joe action figures (1964)
Though there’s some discrepancy among toy fanatics about the exact date in February 1964 that G.I. Joe made his big debut, many experts trace the icon’s launch to the 2nd. After Mattel released the generation-redefining Barbie in 1959, Hasbro sought a way to deliver similarly gangbuster numbers by selling dolls to boys. But how? The solution: Call them action figures! Standing 12 inches tall and featuring 21 points of articulation, “America’s Movable Fighting Man” first came offered in four different characters, based on the branches of the military: Action Soldier, Action Marine, Action Sailor and Action Pilot. But the real moneymaking power of a toy like this one was the ability to spawn a never-ending supply of must-have new accessories. As the toy’s inventor, Stan Weston, later recalled, a Mattel founder had once told him, “Stan, you’ve got to sell them the razor. Then you can sell them a lot of blades.” Weston stumbled upon his hypermasculine subject by looking in the most bookish of places: He flipped through the Encyclopedia Britannica until he found a subject, the military, that could work. And many a parent probably cursed his name as they headed out on Christmas Eve to buy the latest tank or helicopter or machine gun or … —Nicholas DeRenzo
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PHOTO BY: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images
Feb. 1: A ‘wardrobe malfunction’ steals Super Bowl’s thunder (2004)
Who remembers the teams who made it to Super Bowl XXXVIII? You’ll be forgiven if you don’t. It was the New England Patriots over the Carolina Panthers, 32-29. But the memorable event that year wasn’t the play on field; it was the halftime show in which Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed and created a moment that lives forever on YouTube. As the show was nearing its conclusion, Timberlake made a surprise guest appearance and sang a duet with Jackson of his song “Rock Your Body.” At one point in the song, the former boy bander ripped a part of Jackson’s black Alexander McQueen costume, unintentionally briefly exposing her breast on national television. “The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime show performance was made after final rehearsals,” Jackson later said in a statement. “MTV was completely unaware of it. It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended, including the audience, MTV, CBS and the NFL.” Timberlake called the incident a “wardrobe malfunction,” which quickly entered the American lexicon. That day, “Janet Jackson” became the most-searched term in internet history (a statistic later confirmed by Guinness World Records), and the moment indirectly led to the creation of YouTube: Cofounder Jawed Karim was frustrated that he couldn’t easily find the footage online, so he created a new platform for sharing videos. Perhaps most important, the moment is now remembered as one that revealed the stark sexism of the entertainment industry: Jackson’s career suffered irreparably, and Timberlake’s skyrocketed. —Nicholas DeRenzo
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