This Day In History: February 12, 1789 Ethan Allen, Vermont’s beloved but elusive folk hero, died on February 12, 1789. The manner of his death was an enigma; some say he suffered a stroke crossing Lake Champlain as he was heading to his Winooski River homestead; others contend his death was caused by falling from his sleigh in a drunken […]

This Day In History: February 11, 1858 Marie-Bernarde (known as Bernadette) Soubirous was a barely literate 14-year-old girl from a poverty stricken family in the small town of Lourdes, France. On February 11, 1858, she had gone to collect firewood with her sister and a friend. When they reached a small stream near a grotto, her companions removed their shoes […]

This Day In History: February 10, 1840 “I felt so happy when the ring was put on, and by my precious Albert.” – From the diary of Queen Victoria February 10, 1840 dawned cold and rainy in London, but this did not dampen the spirits of the crowds gathering to witness the spectacle of their young Queen’s wedding procession. It […]

This Day In History: February 9, 1964 “Congratulations on your appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and your visit to America. We hope your engagement will be a successful one and your visit pleasant. Give our best to Mr. Sullivan. Sincerely, Elvis & The Colonel.” – Telegram the Beatles received pre-show The build-up to the Beatles appearance on the Ed […]

This Day In History: February 6, 1928 On February 6, 1928, an attractive young woman arrived in New York on the ocean liner Berengaria. She held a press conference before she disembarked, explaining she had come to the United States to have her jaw reset. She alleged she had been injured by a Bolshevik soldier at Ekaterinburg, Russia, in July […]

This Day In History: February 5, 1897 It all began when the gay literary critic Jean Lorrain accused author Marcel Proust (also thought to have been gay) of having a homosexual relationship with the son of one M. Alphonse Daudet, Lucien Daudet (pictured right). Proust demanded satisfaction for the accusation that he had a tryst with Daudet, and challenged Lorrain […]

Today in History: February 4, 1902 “There were times in an aeroplane when it seemed I had escaped mortality to look down on Earth like a God.” – Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh, the celebrated aviator who made the first solo non-stop trans-Atlantic flight, was born on February 4, 1902 in Detroit, Michigan. He grew up on his family’s farm […]

This Day In History: February 3, 1998 On February 3, 1998, Karla Faye Tucker was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. She was the first woman to receive the death penalty in the state since the Civil War. Over one thousand demonstrators and 200 hundred members of the press gathered outside the prison. Emotions ran high. Even those that […]

This Day In History: February 2, 1886 For as the sun shines on Candlemas Day, So far will the snow swirl until the May. On February 2, 1887, the first official Groundhog Day featuring a rodent meteorologist at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania occurred. According to long-standing tradition, if on this day a groundhog pops out of his hole and […]

This Day In History: January 30, 1972 On January 30, 1972, British Army paratroopers shot and killed 13 unarmed demonstrators participating in a civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland. The march was in protest of the policy of internment without trial, which allowed the British government to detain suspected Irish nationalists indefinitely. The day became forever known as Bloody […]

This Day In History: January 29, 1820 On January 29, 1820, King George III died at Windsor Castle after 60 years on the throne, the longest reign of any English monarch up to that time. Extremely ill both mentally and physically for the last decade of his life, his son George, Prince of Wales had begun acting as Regent in […]

This Day In History; January 28, 1986 On January 28, 1986, one of the nation’s, and certainly NASA’s, most heart-wrenching tragedies occurred when the space shuttle Challenger blew apart just a minute after lift-off, ultimately killing all on board. This event, which had been anticipated with such optimism, turned into a cause for national mourning almost in the blink of […]

This Day In History: January 26, 1962 There is only one song that made it to number one on the Billboard charts on two separate Billboard runs, and that is Chubby Checker’s legendary dance smash “The Twist.” The title first topped the chart for the week of Sept. 24, 1960, and then reclaimed the number one position on January 13, […]

This Day In History: January 23, 1957 On January 23, 1957 the Wham-O toy company rolled out their very first batch of plastic aerodynamic flying discs – now known the world over as Frisbees. Since that day, the landscape of college campuses, parks and beaches have never been the same. The story of the Frisbee began on a Santa Monica, […]

Today in History: January 22, 1779 On January 22, 1779, notorious Tory outlaw Claudius Smith, who had plundered and terrorized the people of New York during the Revolutionary War, was executed on a makeshift gallows in Goshen, New York. Since his mother had long suspected he’d meet such an end and “die with his boots on”, he supposedly kicked off […]

This Day In History: January 21, 1977 On January 21, 1977, during his first full day as president, Jimmy Carter fulfilled a promise he made during his campaign when he granted a pardon to Vietnam War era draft evaders. The president felt that “reconciliation calls for an act of mercy to bind the nation’s wounds and to heal the scars […]

This Day In History: January 20, 1968 It certainly wasn’t a case of love at first sight. Initially, Roman Polanski refused to speak to the equally unimpressed Sharon Tate. Even by the time they were on their second date, Roman’s idea of romance was jumping out at Sharon wearing a Frankenstein mask, scaring her to death. But rocky beginnings or […]