Today in History
Today is Saturday, Feb. 10, the 41st day of 2024. There are 325 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Feb. 10, 1996, world chess champion Garry Kasparov lost the first game of a match in Philadelphia against an IBM computer dubbed “Deep Blue.” (Kasparov ended up winning the match, 4 games to 2; he was defeated by Deep Blue in a rematch the following year.)
On this date:
In 1763, Britain, Spain and France signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the Seven Years’ War (also known as the French and Indian War in North America).
In 1840, Britain’s Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg (KOH’-borg) and Gotha (GAH’-thuh).
In 1936, Nazi Germany’s Reichstag passed a law investing the Gestapo secret police with absolute authority, exempt from any legal review.
In 1959, a major tornado tore through the St. Louis area, killing 21 people and causing heavy damage.
In 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.
In 1967, the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was ratified as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.
In 1981, eight people were killed when a fire set by a busboy broke out at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino.
In 1989, Ron Brown was elected the first Black chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
In 1992, boxer Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant. (Tyson served three years in prison.)
In 2005, North Korea boasted publicly for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons.
In 2013, at the Grammy Awards, Fun. won song of the year for “We Are Young”; Gotye’s “Somebody I Used to Know” picked up record of the year.
In 2015, NBC announced it was suspending Brian Williams as “Nightly News” anchor and managing editor for six months without pay for misleading the public about his experiences covering the Iraq War.
In 2020, U.S. health officials confirmed the first case of the novel coronavirus among the hundreds of people who’d been evacuated from China to military bases in the United States; it was among the 13 confirmed cases in the U.S. Britain declared the new coronavirus a “serious and imminent threat to public health” and said people with the virus could now be forcibly quarantined.
In 2021, Larry Flynt, who turned his raunchy Hustler magazine into an empire while fighting numerous First Amendment court battles, died at age 78 in Los Angeles.
Today’s birthdays: Opera singer Leontyne Price is 97. Actor Robert Wagner is 94. Singer Roberta Flack is 87. Singer Jimmy Merchant (Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers) is 84. Rock musician Bob Spalding (The Ventures) is 77. Olympic gold-medal swimmer Mark Spitz is 74. Walt Disney Co. executive Robert Iger is 73. Rock musician and composer Cory Lerios (Pablo Cruise) is 73. World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman is 69. Actor Kathleen Beller is 68. Country singer Lionel Cartwright is 64. Movie director Alexander Payne is 63. ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos is 63. Political commentator Glenn Beck is 60. Actor Laura Dern is 57. Writer-producer-director Vince Gilligan (TV: “Breaking Bad”) is 57. Country singer Dude Mowrey is 52. Actor Jason Olive is 52. Actor Elizabeth Banks is 50. Actor Julia Pace Mitchell is 46. Reggaeton singer Don Omar is 46. Actor Uzo Aduba is 43. Actor Stephanie Beatriz is 43. Actor Max Brown is 43. Actor Barry Sloane is 43. Rock singer Eric Dill is 42. Actor Trevante Rhodes is 34. Actor Emma Roberts is 33. Actor Makenzie Vega is 30. Actor Chloe Grace Moretz is 27. Actor Yara Shahidi is 24.
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