Today in history

By Associated Press

Feb. 9

In 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.

In 1942, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War II.

In 1943, the World War II battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an Allied victory over Japanese forces.

In 1950, in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists.

In 1962, an agreement was signed to make Jamaica an independent nation within the British Commonwealth later in the year.

In 1963, the Boeing 727 went on its first-ever flight as it took off from Renton, Washington.

In 1971, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in California’s San Fernando Valley claimed 65 lives.

In 1984, Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov, 69, died 15 months after succeeding Leonid Brezhnev; he was followed by Konstantin U. Chernenko, who would only be in power for 13 months.

In 1986, Halley’s Comet visited the solar system for the first time since 1910. (Its next return will be in 2061).

In 2002, Britain’s Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, died in London at age 71.

In 2009, New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs, telling ESPN he’d used banned substances while with the Texas Rangers for three years.

In 2018, at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea, North and South Korean athletes entered Olympic Stadium together, waving flags showing a unified Korea; it was their first joint Olympic march in more than a decade.

In 2020, “Parasite,” from South Korea, won the best picture Oscar, becoming the first foreign-language film to take home the biggest honor in film.

In 2021, the Senate moved ahead with a second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, rejecting arguments that the chamber could not proceed because Trump was no longer in office.

In 2022, it was revealed that Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian figure skating superstar who had just led her team to an Olympic gold medal, tested positive for a banned heart medication before the Beijing Games.

In 2023, Burt Bacharach, the composer and Oscar winner who delighted millions with the quirky arrangements and unforgettable melodies of “Walk on By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and dozens of other hits, died at age 94.

Feb. 10

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 and Gotha.

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.

— From AP reports