Today in History

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Today in History

By Correspondent

 
YEARDAYEVENTS
364Feb 17Flavius Jovianus (~32), Christian emperor of Rome (363-64), died.
763Feb 17The An Lushan rebellion, begun in 755, ended. It had spanned the reigns of 3 Tang emperors before it was quashed. The rebellion and subsequent disorder resulted in a huge loss of life and large-scale destruction.
1387Feb 17Jogaila founded the archdiocese of Vilnius and provided land for the Bishop’s headquarters.
1454Feb 17At a grand feast, Philip the Good of Burgundy took the “vow of the pheasant,” by which he swore to fight the Turks.
1461Feb 17The Houses of York and Lancaster battled again at St. Alban’s. Queen Margaret defeated the Earl of Warwick and freed Henry VI.
1568Feb 17Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian II agreed to pay tribute to the Sultan for peace
1598Feb 17Boris Godunov, the boyar of Tatar origin, was elected czar in succession to his brother-in-law Fydor.
1600Feb 17Giordano Bruno (b.1548), Italian philosopher, occasional alchemist and advocate of Copernican theory, was burned at stake by the Catholic Church. In 2008 Ingrid D. Rowland authored “Giordano Bruno: Philosopher / Heretic.”
1612Feb 17Ernst of Bayern (57), prince, bishop of Luik, archbishop of Cologne, died.
1621Feb 17Miles Standish was appointed 1st commander of Plymouth colony.
1634Feb 17William Prynne (1600-1669), English Puritan leader and pamphleteer, was tried in Star Chamber for publishing “Histrio-masti.”
1652Feb 17Gregorio Allegri (67), Italian singer, composer (Miserere), died.
1673Feb 17Moliere, [Jean Baptiste Poquelin], French author (Tartuffe, Le Malade Imaginaire), died.
1691Feb 17Thomas Neale was granted a British patent for American postal service.
1720Feb 17Spain signed the Treaty of the Hague with the Quadruple Alliance ending a war that was begun in 1718.
1732Feb 17Louis Marchand (63), composer, died.
1774Feb 17Raphaelle Peale, U.S. painter, was born.
1776Feb 17Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), English historian, published his 1st volume of “Decline & Fall of Roman Empire.” He completed the 6-volume classic in 1788.
1796Feb 17Giovanni Pacini, composer, was born.
1801Feb 17Thomas Jefferson won the White House vowing to get rid of all federal taxes. He was supported by a new coalition of anti-Federalists that was the ancestor of the Democratic Party. In 2003 Jules Witcover authored “Party of the People: A History of the Democrats.”
1817Feb 17A street in Baltimore became the first to be lighted with gas from America’s first gas company.
1820Feb 17Henri Vieuxtemps, composer, teacher (Brussels Cons), was born in Verviers, Belgium.
1827Feb 17Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (81), Swiss educator, died.
1833Feb 17Lt. George Back (1796-1878) departed Liverpool, England, on the packet ship Hibernia with 4 men to search for missing Arctic explorer Captain John Ross. Ross had left England in 1829 to seek a Northwest Passage by way of the Arctic Ocean.
1836Feb 17HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin left Tasmania
1844Feb 17A. Montgomery Ward, mail order business founder, was born.
1852Feb 17The Imperial Museum, the 5th and last building of what became known as the New Hermitage, opened to the public (Feb 2 OS) in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was commissioned by Nicholas I and designed by Leo van Klenze of Germany.
1854Feb 17Friedrich A. Krupp, German arms manufacturer, was born.
1856Feb 17Heinrich Heine (b.1797), German journalist and poet, died in Paris. His prose work included a series of travel memoirs that began in 1826 with “The Harz Journey.”
1859Feb 17Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Un Ballo in maschera” premiered in Napoli.
1864Feb 17Confederate officer George Dixon used the submarine H.L. Hunley to sink the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, S.C. 5 Union soldiers died on the Housatonic as did the 9-man crew of the Hunley as it soon sank. In 1995 the Hunley was found by Clive Cussler. The event was turned into a TNT cable movie in 1999. On Aug 8, 2000, the Hunley was raised and returned to Charleston.
   
1865Feb 17Union forces regained Fort Sumter.
1867Feb 17William Cadbury, chocolate manufacturer, was born.
1870Feb 17Mississippi became the 9th state readmitted to US after Civil War.
1874Feb 17Thomas J. Watson Sr. (d.1956), U.S. industrialist, was born in upstate New York. In 1914 he began running the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., a predecessor to IBM. He converted the financially ailing manufacturing business into the international giant IBM.
1876Feb 17Sardines were 1st canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine.
1880Feb 17Tsar Alexander II of Russia survived an assassination attempt.
1883Feb 17A. Ashwell patented a free toilet in London.
1889Feb 17H[aroldson] L. Hunt, Texas oil multi-millionaire, was born.
1897Feb 17The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, was founded in Washington, D.C.
1901Feb 17Carles Casagemas (b.1881), Spanish painter and close friend of Picasso, shot himself in front of Germaine Pichot.
1904Feb 17The original two-act version of Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madame Butterfly” was poorly received during its world premiere at La Scala, Milan.
1905Feb 17Russia’s Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (b.1857), the brother of Tsar Alexander III, was assassinated by a terrorist bomb at the Kremlin.
1908Feb 17Walter Lanier “Red” Barber, baseball announcer for the Cincinnati Reds, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees, was born in Columbus, Miss.
1909Feb 17Marjorie Lawrence, soprano (Venus-Tannhauser), was born in Australia.
1909Feb 17A government commission reported that the tobacco industry was controlled by six men with 86 firms that were worth $450 million.
1909Feb 17Apache chief Geronimo died of pneumonia at age 80, while still in captivity at Fort Sill, Okla.
1910Feb 17In San Francisco 3 elephants appearing at a Broadway vaudeville house went on a rampage while parading in North Beach.
1911Feb 17The 1st hydroplane flight to & from a ship was made by Glenn Curtiss in San Diego.
1913Feb 17Oskar Danon, composer, conductor, was born.
1917Feb 17Edmund Bishop (70), English secretary of Thomas Carlyle, died.
1919Feb 17Germany signed an armistice giving up territory in Poland.
1920Feb 17A directorship for the Klaipeda (Kaliningrad) region was formed.
1924Feb 17Margaret Truman, pres. daughter, writer (Murder at FBI), singer, was born in Mo.
1925Feb 17Hal Holbrook, actor (All the President’s Men, Mark Twain), was born in Cleveland.
1926Feb 17An avalanche buried 75 in Sap Gulch, Bingham, Utah, and 40 died.
1927Feb 17The death toll reached 24 with some 3,000 left homeless after a fierce storm hit the Pacific Coast.
1929Feb 17Chaim Potok, novelist (The Chosen, The Promise), was born.
1932Feb 17Irving Berlin’s musical “Face the Music,” premiered in NYC.
1933Feb 17The League of Nations censured Japan in a worldwide broadcast. The rise of militaristic nationalism led Japan down the road to Pearl Harbor and World War II.
1934Feb 171st high school auto driving course was offered by State College, Penn.
1935Feb 17Thirty-one prisoners escaped an Oklahoma prison after murdering a guard.
1936Feb 17Jim Brown, NFL fullback (Cleveland Browns), actor (Dirty Dozen), was born in Ga.
1938Feb 17The first Baird color TV was demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London.
1941Feb 17The SS Gairsoppa was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The British ship was carrying some 219 tons of silver when it sank in the North Atlantic some 300 miles (490 km) off the Irish coast. Of the 85 people on board, only one survived. In 2011 Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration confirmed the identity and location of the ship. In 2012 Odyssey Marine Exploration said it had succeeded in removing about 43% of the insured silver.
1942Feb 17Sidney Newsom (b.1877), California architect, died. He and his brother Noble created homes that recalled Spanish haciendas, English cottages, French chateaus and American colonial homesteads.
1943Feb 17Dutch churches protested to Artur Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews.
1944Feb 17Oil was discovered in commercial quantities in Alabama.
1945Feb 17Gen. MacArthur’s troops landed on Corregidor in the Philippines. General Tomoyuki Yamashita was the Japanese general opposing MacArthur.
1947Feb 17The Voice of America began broadcasting to the Soviet Union.
1950Feb 17In New York 31 people died in a train crash at Long Island’s Rockville Center.
1951Feb 17Packard introduced its “250″ Chassis Convertible.
1953Feb 17Baseball star and pilot Ted Williams was uninjured as his plane was shot down in Korea.
1955Feb 17Britain announced its ability to make hydrogen bombs.
1956Feb 17ATV Midlands launched a weekday service and ABC began transmission at weekends in the same region the following day. A north of England service, covering Lancashire and Yorkshire, began in May, with ABC broadcasting at weekends and Granada during the week.
   
1957Feb 17Suez Canal reopened.
1958Feb 17The comic strip “B.C.”, created by Johnny Hart (1931-2007), 1st appeared.
1959Feb 17The U.S. launched its first weather station in space, Vanguard II weighing 9.8 kg.
1960Feb 17Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in the Alabama bus boycott.
1962Feb 17Beach Boys introduced a new musical style with their hit “Surfin.”
1963Feb 17Soviet leader Khrushchev visited the Berlin Wall.
1964Feb 17The Supreme Court ruled in Westberry vs. Sanders that  congressional districts within each state had to be roughly equal in population. Boundaries would need to be redrawn after every census.
1966Feb 17Alfred P. Sloan Jr. (b.1875) former president GM (1923-1956), died. As president of GM he brought in corporate management, introduced the ideas of model changes and offering a car “for every purse and purpose.” In 2002 David Farber authored “Sloan Rules.”
1967Feb 17Beatles released “Penny Lane” & “Strawberry Fields.” Strawberry Fields was a children’s home run by the Salvation Army. It was closed in 2005.
1969Feb 17Russia and Peru signed their first trade accord.
1970Feb 17Alfred Newman (b.1900), US composer, died.
1972Feb 17President Nixon departed on his historic 10-day trip to China.
1973Feb 17President Richard Nixon named Patrick Gray director of the FBI.
1975Feb 17Art by Cezanne, Gauguin, Renoir, and van Gogh, valued at $5 million, was stolen from the Municipal Museum in Milan.
1979Feb 17China invaded Vietnam and began a “pedagogical” war against Vietnam. China completed its withdrawal on March 19. In China’s border war with Vietnam deputy commander Zhang Wannian led a victorious division offensive in the battle of Liang Shan.
1981Feb 17Pope John Paul II met with President Marcos in Manila.
1982Feb 17Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe dismissed Joshua Nkomo (1917-1999) for plotting a coup. A rebel insurrection that professed loyalty to Nkomo followed and was crushed. Nkomo fled the country.
1985Feb 17Murray Haydon became the third person to receive an artificial heart.
1986Feb 17The Single European Act modifying the Treaty of Rome was signed a 1st time in Luxembourg. The single European Act was passed to end trade restricting regulations and create a true single European market by 1992
1988Feb 17Lt. Col. William Higgins, an American officer serving with a United Nations truce monitoring group, was kidnapped in southern Lebanon. He was later slain by his captors.
1989Feb 17Iran’s President Ali Khamenei said Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” could save himself from a death sentence pronounced by Ayatollah Khomeini if he were to apologize for his book, which was regarded as blasphemous.
1990Feb 17The first set of Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) officials were elected. Due to electoral protest, the ARMM formally started to function only on July 9, 1990 following the oath taking of Atty. Zacaria A. Candao as First Regional Governor of ARMM.
1992Feb 17Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison. He was beaten to death in prison in November 1994.
1993Feb 17President Clinton addressed a joint session of Congress, asking Americans to accept one of the biggest tax increases in history as part of a plan to stimulate the economy and curb massive budget deficits.
1994Feb 17The U.S. government reported a record trade deficit with Japan the previous year.
1995Feb 17Federal judge allowed a lawsuit claiming US tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive and manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked.
1996Feb 17World chess champion Garry Kasparov beat IBM supercomputer “Deep Blue,” winning a six-game match in Philadelphia. Kasparov had lost the first game, won the second, fifth and sixth games and earned draws in the third and fourth.
1997Feb 17In a surprising development, Pepperdine University said that Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr would step down from the probe to take a full-time job at the school.
1998Feb 17The U.S. women’s hockey team won the gold medal at Nagano, Japan, defeating Canada 3-1.
1998Feb 17UN Sec. Gen’l. Kofi Annan announced that he would travel to Baghdad to try to resolve the ongoing crises over Saddam Hussein’s refusal to allow unconditional weapons inspections.
1999Feb 17In a satellite-linked address to college campuses across the country, President Clinton made his case for shoring up Social Security and Medicare.
2000Feb 17A House panel said in a report that the program to inoculate all 2.4 million American military personnel against anthrax was based on “a paucity of science” and should be suspended; the Pentagon defended the program and vowed to continue the inoculations.
2001Feb 17Pres. Bush named John Negroponte (62) as the next US ambassador to the UN.
2002Feb 17Pres. Bush opened a three-nation Asian tour in recession-wracked Japan, where he urged PM Junichiro Koizumi to follow through on long-promised economic reforms.
2003Feb 17An estimated 40 million viewers tuned in to the finale of Fox’s reality show “Joe Millionaire,” in which Evan Marriott chose Zora Andrich.
2004Feb 17Cameron Todd Willingham (b.1968) was executed in Texas. He had been convicted of murdering his three young children by arson at the family home in Corsicana, Texas on December 23, 1991. An informant who sent him to jail later said he lied in order to get a reduced sentence on pending robbery charges.
2005Feb 17President Bush named John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the government’s first national intelligence director (DNI). Central American politicians and human rights activists issued stinging criticism of Negroponte, citing the career diplomat’s active backing for the Contra rebels and support for a government involved in human rights abuses.
2006Feb 17Harry Whittington, the lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney while quail hunting, left a Corpus Christi, Texas, hospital, saying “accidents do and will happen.”
2007Feb 16US Senate Republicans foiled a Democratic bid to repudiate President Bush’s deployment of 21,500 additional combat troops to Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
2008Feb 17In southwest Pakistan a military pickup truck struck a land mine that killed four troops and wounded two others. The Baluch Republican Army, a little known rebel group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
2009Feb 17British experts that they have found the first evidence of a hemophiliac contracting mad cow disease from contaminated blood products.
2009Feb 17China and Russia signed a $25 billion energy deal in Beijing that will see the Asian country secure oil supplies from Moscow for the next 20 years in return for loans.
2009Feb 17Colombia’s main leftist rebel group said that it “executed” eight Indians in the country’s remote southwest, accusing them of acting as paid informants for Colombia’s military. The communique posted on a Web site sympathetic to the rebels followed widespread but unconfirmed reports that as many as 27 Awa Indians had been killed.
2009Feb 17The UN said some 4.9 million more Ethiopians are in urgent need of food aid, bringing the total number of people in Ethiopia who need relief aid to 12 million, or 15 percent of the population.
2009Feb 17In Equatorial Guinea gunmen clashed with security forces near the presidential palace. Gunmen in two speedboats attacked the island capital before dawn. 16 men from neighboring Nigeria were arrested in the mysterious attack on the presidential compound. The government said several attackers drowned.
2009Feb 17France’s lower house of parliament unanimously passed a law granting government payments to those who take time off work to care for dying relatives in their last weeks of life.
2009Feb 17Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister met with top Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in the latest high-level visit by a major Western nation that opposed the 2003 US-led invasion but has promised to help Iraq rebuild now that security has improved.
2009Feb 17In southern Iraq a bus filled with Shiite pilgrims collided with a British military vehicle, killing seven pilgrims and injuring 27 others.
2009Feb 17A Milan court sentenced David Mills, the British former tax lawyer of Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, to four-and-a-half years in jail for corruption. In 2010 Italy’s highest court overturned a guilty verdict against Mills, ruling that the stature of limitations had expired.
2009Feb 17Japan’s Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa abruptly resigned over allegations he made a drunken appearance at a G-7 news conference, shaking PM Taro Aso’s already deeply unpopular government. On Oct 4 Nakagawa (56) was found dead in his home. Police ruled out foul play.
2009Feb 17In Japan US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned North Korea against following through on a threatened missile launch, saying it would damage its prospects for improved relations with the United States and the world. Clinton also signed an agreement with Japan that will move 8,000 Marines off the southern Japanese island of Okinawa to the US territory of Guam.
2009Feb 17Kosovo celebrated the first anniversary of its unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. Thus far it was recognized by only 54 of the UN’s 192 countries. Five of the EU’s 27 countries so far refused recognition
2009Feb 17Business leaders in Martinique agreed to a 20 percent price cut on most supermarket products, despite initial refusal.
2009Feb 17In Mexico hundreds of people blocked bridges to the US in three border cities, demanding the army leave in another challenge for the Mexican government as it struggles to quell escalating drug violence. 3 police officers, including the operations director of the Ciudad Juarez city police, were shot to death by unidentified assailants on a street near the US consulate. Federal police fighting gunmen in the northern border city of Reynosa had to call the army for help. After the fighting, which left five gunmen dead and seven police injured, authorities seized several assault rifles and even a 60 mm mortar. Cardboard signs with handwritten messages appeared taped to the doors and windows of businesses in ciudad Juarez, warning that one officer would be killed every two days police chief Roberto Orduna did not quit.
2009Feb 17In southern Nigeria gunmen attacked two oil facilities operated by Royal Dutch Shell. A local militant leader claimed responsibility for the attack in a letter and threatened further violence. A Nigerian appeal court sacked the governor of the southwestern state of Ekiti after complaints of vote irregularities and ordered a fresh poll within three months.
2009Feb 17NATO warned that Pakistan risked creating a safe haven for Islamist extremists after it struck a deal to impose Islamic law and suspend a military offensive in the former tourist haven of Swat.
2009Feb 17In Portugal Conchita Cintron (b.1922), Peruvian-born matador, died. She faced her first bull at age 13 and made her premier at the main arena in Lima in 1937. She reportedly killed over 750 bulls during her career in Europe.
2009Feb 17The UN agency for children said Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers have stepped up conscription of child soldiers, as the rebels prepare to face a final onslaught by the military. Tamil politicians accused the Sri Lankan government of ignoring the safety of tens of thousands of civilians in its campaign to wipe out the Tamil Tiger rebels, saying more than 2,000 noncombatants have been killed in the recent fighting.
2009Feb 17The Sudanese government and Darfur’s most powerful rebel group signed an declaration to conduct future peace negotiations, but failed to agree on a hoped-for cease-fire after a week of talks.
2009Feb 17Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih (b.1929), one of the most respected Arab novelists of the 20th century, died in London where he spent most of his life. His books included the classic “Season of Migration to the North” (1966) about a Sudanese man’s experiences of life and love in Britain in the 1960s.
2009Feb 17The Yemeni Interior Ministry announced the surrender of Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, a former Guantanamo detainee who later became an al-Qaida field commander. He was handed over to Saudi authorities.
2009Feb 17In Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and his arch rival Morgan Tsvangirai sat at a cabinet table for the first time as ministers of the country’s new unity government held their inaugural meeting. A Zimbabwe court charged Roy Bennett, a senior MDC party official, over a plot involving terrorism and insurgency, just days after the party joined a unity government.
2010Feb 17Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq a new name, “Operation New Dawn,” effective Sept 1, to reflect the reduced role US troops will play in securing the country this year as troop levels fall.
2010Feb 17San Francisco police along with state and federal agents arrested 28 suspected gang members in a daylong operation to clear the “worst of the worst” off the streets.
2010Feb 17In Palo Alto, Ca., a Cessna 310 crashed into a neighborhood after takeoff from the fogged-in Palo Alto Airport, killing all 3 people aboard. 4 houses were damaged, but no one on the ground was injured. Pilot Doug Bourn (56), Brian Finn (42) and Andrew Ingram (31) worked for Tesla Motors Inc.
2010Feb 17It was reported that a mysterious illness was killing brown pelicans along the northern California coast. Some 100 birds were in for treatment at the Int’l. Bird Rescue Research Center in Cordelia. Some 300 others found treatment at the center’s San Pedro branch. Biologists on Feb 22 said stormy weather had caused the disappearance of prey in stirred up waters possible due to El Nino and recent big storms.
2010Feb 17Military commanders raised the Afghan flag in the bullet-ridden main market of the Taliban’s southern stronghold of Marjah as firefights continued to break out elsewhere in the town between holed-up militants and US and Afghan troops. Helmand Gov. Gulab Mangal said about 40 insurgents have been killed since the offensive began Feb 13. Four NATO service members have been killed, and one Afghan soldier.
2010Feb 17In Brazil the Unidos da Tijuca samba group was crowned champion of the Rio Carnival parades for the first time in more than seven decades. Viradouro, which chose a 7-year-old as a drums corps queen, placed last out of 12 schools in the drum corps category, and scored even lower in the float category.
2010Feb 17France’s Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy made the first visit ever by a French president to Haiti, once his nation’s richest colony. Sarkozy said France will cancel Haiti’s 56 million in debt and pledged hundreds of millions in aid for the catastrophic Jan 12 earthquake.
2010Feb 17In Haiti 8 American missionaries were freed from jail and left for Miami, nearly three weeks after being arrested trying to take 33 children out of the earthquake-stricken country. Group leader Laura Silsby and her former nanny Charisa Coulter remained in jail.
2010Feb 17In Iraq the bullet-riddled body of Assyrian Christian student Wissam George (20) was recovered in Mosul after he went missing the same morning.
2010Feb 17In Myanmar Gaw Thita, a Buddhist monk, was quietly sentenced to seven years in prison violating immigration laws by taking a trip to Taiwan last year.
2010Feb 17Pakistan’s government was forced into an embarrassing U-turn, withdrawing the recent appointments of top judges that sparked a showdown with the Supreme Court and a fresh crisis in the country. Police in Karachi arrested a suspected Taliban commander. He was identified as Abdullah, also known as Abu Waqas, a commander from the Bajaur region on the Afghan border. Unknown gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying militants in the Kurrum region on the border, killing six Taliban and wounding two. A US drone fired a missile into the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, killing at least three militants.
2010Feb 17A court in Sri Lanka freed 14 men held on suspicion of plotting a coup with opposition leader and ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka.
2011Feb 17US federal authorities charged 111 doctors, nurses and physical therapists in nine cities with Medicare fraud totaling over $225 million, part of a massive nationwide bust that snared more suspects than any other in history. The indictments were for suspects in Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Chicago, Brooklyn, Tampa, Fla., and Baton Rouge, La.
2011Feb 17Federal prosecutors in Arizona said two illegal immigrants from Mexico, Jose Beltran-Bermudez and Yazmin Arvayo-Palafox, have been indicted after they were found to possess a combined 222 assault rifles and 5 pistols that authorities say were headed to Mexico.
2011Feb 17US Federal authorities said police have arrested nine people and seized 300 firearms, including assault rifles, in a raid targeting an arms ring that allegedly sold weapons to Mexican drug traffickers. Operation Too Hot to Handle netted a haul of around 300 guns, mostly Kalashnikov-type rifles and semi-automatic pistols, seized in Arizona, Texas and Mexico.
2011Feb 17In Florida Jorge Barahona (53) appeared in court on charges of aggravated child abuse. He and his wife had adopted twins, a boy and a girl, from foster care in 2008. On Feb 14 Nubia (10) was found dead. Her brother was found coated in a toxic chemical and Barahona was found doused in gasoline in an apparent attempt at suicide.
   
2011Feb 17In Ohio Frank Spisak (59), who shot three people to death nearly 30 years ago on the campus of Cleveland State University in a shooting rampage that targeted African Americans, was executed. His racially motivated shooting spree took place from February 1982 to August 1982. During his 1983 trial, Spisak grew a Hitler-style mustache, carried a copy of Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” and gave the Nazi salute to the jury.
2011Feb 17In Wisconsin 14 Democratic lawmakers disappeared as the state Senate was about to begin debating a measure by Gov. Scott Walker that would eliminate collective bargaining for most state public employees. Protesters filled the Capitol for a 3rd day.
2011Feb 17Chevron and a US aid agency announced a $50 million plan aimed at improving conditions in Nigeria’s main oil-producing region, where pollution and poverty have led to years of unrest.
2011Feb 17Afghan and NATO forces said they have captured leaders of an insurgent group in eastern Afghanistan, including one believed to be linked to last month’s suicide attack on a Kabul supermarket. Insurgent attacks elsewhere killed three, including a NATO service member. The multinational force said it killed a member of the Haqqani network in an airstrike in Khost province. An Afghan National Police officer was killed when he was hit by a NATO convoy in a traffic circle near the US Embassy in Kabul. A NATO operation in Kunar province killed number of insurgents. Afghan civilians were later reported killed in the operation.
2011Feb 17An Australian diver was killed by sharks in south Australia, in only the second fatal shark attack in Australian waters in more than two years.
2011Feb 17Bahrain army patrols and tanks locked down Manama after riot police swinging clubs and firing tear gas smashed into demonstrators, many of them sleeping, in a pre-dawn assault in the capital that uprooted their protest camp demanding political change. At least five people were killed and more than 230 injured.
2011Feb 17Belgium citizens staged a party to mark 249 days without a government, a figure that they are treating as a world record in political waffling. Belgium snatched Iraq’s dubious record as the country boasting the world’s longest political crisis of recent times.
2011Feb 17Britain’s government said gay couples are to be allowed civil partnership ceremonies in churches, erasing some of the last remaining distinctions between gay partnerships and traditional marriages.
2011Feb 17Cyber crime costs the British economy some 27 billion pounds ($43.5 billion) a year and appears to be “endemic,” according to the 1st official government estimate of the issue.
2011Feb 17Analysts of the British research firm, Capital Economics, wrote that the government of Venezuela could default on its obligations in 2012.
2011Feb 17A top Canadian cabinet minister said a cyber attack on key economic ministries last month was serious but will not affect the timing of next month’s federal budget. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp said hackers using China-based servers had broken into computer systems at the Finance Department and Treasury Board.
2011Feb 17China warned the United States not to use calls for uncensored access to the Internet as a pretext to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries.
2011Feb 17At least 1,500 Egyptian workers from the Suez Canal Authority protested for better pay in three cities straddling the strategic waterway.
2011Feb 17Hong Kong’s health authority said at least 12 people have died from swine flu in less than a month, after the latest death from the disease.
2011Feb 17In Iran opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was reported missing. His daughters said they had no word from either of their parents since Feb 15.
2011Feb 17In Iraq Kurdish security forces opened fire in Sulaimaniyah on a crowd of protesters surrounding the headquarters of the party affiliated with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani. Two people were killed and 54 injured. Hundreds of demonstrators massed in the southern city of Basra to demand the local governor’s ouster. Protesters in Nasir stormed a local government building. Gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a spokesman for the provincial government in the northern city of Mosul.
2011Feb 17Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinians along the tense border with the Gaza Strip before dawn. Soldiers fired on the men after they were spotted planting an explosive device in a no-go zone along the border between 2 and 3 am.
2011Feb 17A Lebanese military court convicted Amin al-Baba of spying for Israel and sentenced him to death. He had been spying for Israel from 1997 until his 2009 arrest.
2011Feb 17Libyan protesters seeking to oust longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi defied a crackdown and took to the streets in four cities on what activists have dubbed a “day of rage.” At least 14 demonstrators have been reported killed in clashes with pro-government groups.
2011Feb 17Madagascar’s ousted president said he will attempt to return from exile in South Africa despite facing a life sentence in prison, as the regime that forced him out in a coup vowed to keep order on the Indian Ocean island nation.
2011Feb 17In Mexico cartel member Juan Carlos Vasconcelos (24) was arrested for three shootings that killed 20 people on the outskirts of Mexico City. The 1st shooting left 5 people dead on Jan 8. Another killed 8 people on Jan 16 and the third left 7 dead Feb 13. Six human heads were dumped outside a police station in Veracruz state. An 11-year-old boy and his father were killed in an ambush on their car in Ciudad Juarez.
2011Feb 17In northern Nigeria police killed three men after they attacked a bank and a police station in Darazo, Bauchi state.
2011Feb 17In Puerto Rico police arrested 469 people over the last 36 hours in a sweep that targeted people accused of crimes ranging from murder to traffic violations.
2011Feb 17Russian riot police raided the offices of Inteko, a building company belonging to Yelena Baturina, Russia’s richest woman and wife of former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. The raid was part of an investigation into the alleged embezzlement of $444 million from the Bank of Moscow.
2011Feb 17Swiss media reported that a private helicopter carrying five people has crashed near the western Swiss ski resort of Les Diablerets.
2011Feb 17In Tanzania an ammunition depot exploded in Dar Es Salaam killing at least 25 people and sent thousands into a stadium for safety.
2011Feb 17Pope Benedict XVI and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met at the Vatican, stressing the need for better ties and the promotion of shared Christian values.
2011Feb 17In Vietnam 12 people from nine countries were killed in Vietnam’s deadliest tour boat accident since the country opened to foreign visitors 25 years ago. Nine foreigners and six Vietnamese survived only by flinging themselves overboard and swimming to other tour boats anchored nearby in Ha Long Bay.
2011Feb 17In Yemen several thousand protesters defied appeals for calm from the military and the country’s most influential Islamic cleric and marched through the capital, pressing on with their campaign to oust the US-allied president.
2012Feb 17The US Congress approved legislation renewing a payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and jobless benefits for millions more, backing the main items on President Barack Obama’s jobs agenda in a rare burst of Washington bipartisanship.
2012Feb 17The FBI arrested Amine El Khalifi (29) of Morocco in Washington DC. He was charged by criminal complaint with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against US property. He had a MAC-10 automatic weapon and wore a suicide-bomber vest given to him by FBI undercover agents posing as accomplices in the sting operation. If convicted, he could receive a maximum sentence of life in prison.
2012Feb 17The westbound top deck of the SF Bay Bridge was closed until Feb 21 as work progressed on the new eastern span set to open Labor Day 2013. The bridge reopened the evening of Feb 19 as work was completed ahead of schedule.
2012Feb 17In Louisiana two barges collided near Laplace spilling oil and leading officials to close a 5-mile stretch of the Mississippi River.
2012Feb 17In Angola the Epal water utility in Luanda vowed to repair a burst water main within days, to end severe shortages that have lasted a week across much of the city. Most people in this city of seven million live without running water or electricity.
2012Feb 17Budget carrier Air Australia collapsed, stranding thousands of passengers as its domestic flights and international services to Honolulu, Bali and Phuket were all grounded.
2012Feb 17Bahrain announced the deportation of four foreign activists for “taking part in illegal demonstrations,” bringing to 12 the number expelled over the past week.
2012Feb 17In Brazil the globe’s biggest Carnival bash opened in Rio. It promised to be an even bigger blowout this year, with 20 percent more tourists expected than in 2011.
2012Feb 17British student Glenn Mangham (26) was jailed for 8 months after admitting to hacking into Facebook between April and May last year. Mangham claimed he had been trying to expose weaknesses in Facebook’s security and was not driven by financial motives.
2012Feb 17In western China Tibetan Buddhist monk Tamchoe Sangpo set himself on fire at Bongtak monastery in Qinghai province amid a wave of such protests against China’s handling of the vast Tibetan areas it rules.
2012Feb 17Thousands of Egyptians rallied in the Mediterranean city of Port Said, saying that its residents were not behind a deadly soccer riot earlier this month that killed 74 people.
2012Feb 17The EU partially lifted sanctions on Zimbabwe to encourage further progress in political reforms but kept restrictions on veteran President Robert Mugabe.
2012Feb 17In France British PM David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy put recent disputes behind them to unveil a nuclear power deal and renew their own sometimes shaky political alliance. Cameron said the British engineering firm Rolls-Royce will secure a £400 million (481 million euro, $632 million) share in the work to build Britain’s first French-pioneered EPR reactor at Hinkley Point in southern England.
2012Feb 17France and Britain pledged to help the Syrian opposition in its struggle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime but said conditions were not right for a foreign intervention as in Libya. Pres. Sarkozy urged anti-Assad forces to unite and be better organized.
2012Feb 17Germany’s conservative Pres. Christian Wulff resigned over allegedly receiving favors while he was governor of Lower Saxony state. The opposition proposed Joachim Gauck to replace Wulff. A federal assembly was expected to elect Gauck in March.
2012Feb 17In Greece two masked robbers stole artifacts from a museum In Patras. On Nov 23 three men were arrested after tried to sell a gold seal-ring dating back some 3,200 years. All the artifacts were found buried in a field 3 km (2 miles) from the museum.
2012Feb 17It was reported that Kolkata, once the capital of British India, is slowly being painted blue — the favorite color of Mamata Banerjee, the fiery new chief minister of West Bengal, who has ordered a makeover.
2012Feb 17Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara was named the new head of West Africa’s regional bloc, outgoing chief Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria announced before the close of the Economic Community of West African States in Abuja.
2013Feb 17Iran’s independent Arman daily reported that authorities are confiscating Buddha statues from shops in Tehran, to stop the promotion of Buddhism in the country.
2013Feb 17In Iraq multiple car bombs exploded within minutes of each other as Iraqis were out shopping in and around Baghdad, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 100 in mainly Shiite areas.
2013Feb 17Hundreds of French and Malian soldiers retook the jihadist stronghold of Bourem, a town where many radical Islamic fighters were believed to have fled.
2013Feb 17A Moroccan military court convicted 24 Western Saharan activists for their roles in the killing of 11 soldiers at a protest camp in 2010, and gave nine of the defendants life sentences.
2013Feb 17Gunmen attacked an oil vessel off the coast of Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta, kidnapping six foreigners. Three Ukrainians, two Indians and a Russian were taken from a vessel run by energy company Century Group.
   
2013Feb 17The Harita Bauxite, a bulk carrier, sank near the Philippines. 10 of 24 crewmen, mostly from Myanmar, were rescued. One later died and the rest remianed missing. The vessel was thought to be carrying nickel ore from Indonesia.
2013Feb 17A top Syrian government official said electricity has been restored in most parts of Damascus and power will gradually reach the south. The power outage plunged Damascus into darkness late the previous evening and affected much of southern Syria. Fighting raged in at least three provinces between rebels and troops loyal to Pres. Assad.
2014Feb 17In California 2 CHP officers were killed as they responded to a multi-vehicle crash on Hwy. 99 near Kingsburg.
2014Feb 17In Miami, Florida, local artist Maximo Caminero (51) smashed a colored vase, valued at $1 million, by Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei. Caminero was charged with criminal mischief. Caminero said he was protesting against favoritism for int’l. rather than local art.
2014Feb 17In Idaho an avalanche buried four people killing one man 36 miles north of Ketchum.
2014Feb 17Cambodian police arrested two Vietnamese men who were trying to smuggle almost 80 kg (176 pounds) of illegal ivory from Angola.
2014Feb 17In Colombia 5 policemen were killed by FARC guerrillas.
2014Feb 17Ethiopian Airlines co-pilot Hailemedehin Abera Tagegn (31) locked his colleague out of the cockpit, hijacked a Rome-bound plane and landed in Geneva, all in an attempt to seek asylum in Switzerland.
2014Feb 17In Georgia Vano Merabishvili, a top ally of former President Mikhail Saakashvili, was convicted of embezzlement and abuse of office and sentenced to five years in prison.
2014Feb 17Greek authorities said they have charged the head of a demining charity, his wife and seven other people with fraud and money laundering involving 9 million euros ($12 million) in public funding.
2014Feb 17Iran’s ambassador to Moscow said Russia could build the Islamic republic a second nuclear power reactor under a proposed oil-for-goods swap that has raised grave concern in Washington.
2014Feb 17In Israel an explosion atop 5-story building in Acre collapsed three floors leaving 5 people dead. It was reported as an act of sabotage meant to take out a cellular antenna placed on the roof by the owner.
2014Feb 17Niger security officials said they have arrested about 20 Boko Haram Islamist militants from neighboring Nigeria who were suspected of planning attacks in Niger’s south east border town of Diffa.
2014Feb 17In the southern Philippines a bombing suspect was killed in a gunbattle when he clashed with police commandos. Police were trying to serve a warrant to Muslim militant Yusop Kusain for his alleged involvement in a deadly 2007 bombing.
2014Feb 17In South Korea at least 10 people were killed and 50 more feared trapped after the Manua Ocean Resort auditorium collapsed under heavy snow in the city of Gyeongju. Some 560 students from Busan Univ. Foreign Studies had gathered there for a 2-day freshman orientation.
2014Feb 17A wave of around 250 African migrants managed to breach the high defenses of the Spanish enclave of Melilla in Morocco, with more than half making it into the EU territory.
2014Feb 17A UN panel warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he may be held accountable for orchestrating widespread crimes against civilians. The UN Human Rights Council delivered a 400-page report on human rights violations in North Korea.
2014Feb 17Syrian government troops took control of the village of Maan after destroying the last “hideouts of terrorists, who came into the village and committed a massacre.” Anti-Assad Islamic fighters overran the village on Feb 9.
2014Feb 17In Venezuela a student protester (17) died after being hit by a vehicle in Carupano. This was the 4th fatality from political unrest over the past week.
2014Feb 17In Zimbabwe former US Rep. Melvin Jay Reynolds (62) was arrested on suspicion of possessing pornography and an immigration offence. Reynolds, an Illinois Democrat, resigned from his congressional seat in 1995 after he was convicted of 12 counts of statutory rape, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography. On Feb 21 a judge dismissed the pornography charges but ordered Reynolds to pay a fine or face jail time after pleading guilty to charges of violating the country’s immigration laws.
   
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