On This Day

On Feb. 9, 1825, the House of Representatives voted John Quincy Adams president of the United States. He had lost both the popular vote and the electoral college vote to Andrew Jackson.

On Feb. 9, 1943, the United States declared victory against Japan in the seven-month World War II campaign for Guadalcanal and nearby islands in the southwest Pacific. The victory was a major turning point in the Pacific War.

On Feb. 8, 1587, Mary I of Scotland was beheaded for her alleged role in a conspiracy against her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England.

On Feb. 8, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated the telecommunications industry in an attempt to foster competition.

On Feb. 7, 1964, the Beatles were greeted by thousands of screaming fans as they landed at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to begin their first American tour, highlighted by three performances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

On Feb. 7, 1984, NASA astronauts Bruce McCandless and Robert L. Stewart performed the first spacewalk without being tethered to the spacecraft.

On Feb. 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash. The day would be immortalized as “The Day the Music Died” in the Don McLean song “American Pie.”

On Feb. 3, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson announced that the United States was breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany after it had reinstituted its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. The U.S. would declare war on Germany two months later.

On Feb. 2, 1887, Punxsutawney, Pa., celebrated the first official Groundhog Day, a holiday with roots in ancient traditions.

On Feb. 2, 1943, the remainder of the encircled Nazi forces at Stalingrad surrendered to Soviet forces, thereby ending one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles in the history of war.

On Feb. 1, 1960, four black college students refused to leave a lunch counter where they were denied service, sparking a wave of sit-in protests that spread through much of the South.

On Jan. 31, 1865, the House of Representatives passed the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude.

On Jan. 27, 1973, delegates from the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the Vietcong’s Provisional Revolutionary Government signed the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, which instituted a ceasefire in the Vietnam War and called for the withdrawal of American troops.

On Jan. 25, 1915, AT&T unveiled its transcontinental telephone service with a demonstration that included Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson, who made the first ever telephone call in 1876.

On Jan. 17, 1995, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit Kobe, Japan. It was especially deadly because it occurred so close to an urban center.

On Jan. 17, 1912, English explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, five weeks after Norwegian Roald Amundsen’s expedition became the first to reach the pole. Scott and his four men died on their journey back to their base.

On Jan. 17, 1893, a small group comprised primarily of American businessmen overthrew Hawaii's monarchy. The coup led to the end of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the annexation of Hawaii by the United States in the ensuing years.

On Jan. 9, 1968, the Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon.

On Jan. 5, 1968, Alexander Dubcek became first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He initiated the “Prague Spring,” a period of liberalization in the socialist state that prompted violent Soviet suppression.

On Jan. 5, 1914, Henry Ford introduced a minimum wage scale of $5 per day, more than doubling the wages for most employees of his Ford Motor Company.

On Jan. 4, 1965, in his State of the Union address, President Lyndon B. Johnson outlined the goals of his “Great Society,” a series of domestic programs designed to advance civil rights and aid those in poverty.

On Dec. 23, 1972, the Steelers beat the Raiders on a miraculous—and disputed—last-second touchdown dubbed the “Immaculate Reception.”

On Dec. 23, 1986, the Rutan Voyager aircraft, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, completed the first non-stop, around-the-world flight without refueling.

On Dec. 22, 1989, Romania’s Communist President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena fled Bucharest as revolutionaries stormed government headquarters. They were arrested later that day, and executed on Christmas Day after a quick trial.

On Dec. 21, 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie isolated a new element that came to be called “radium,” a landmark moment in chemistry and physics.

On Dec. 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, due to a Libyan terrorist bomb, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground.

On Dec. 21, 1864, Union forces under Gen. William T. Sherman ended a month-long, 300-mile “March to the Sea” with the capture of the city of Savannah, Ga.

On Dec. 18, 1944, the Supreme Court ruled in Korematsu v. United States that the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans was constitutional, though it ruled in a separate decision that loyal citizens must be released. The decisions came soon after the government decided to end internment.

On Dec. 18, 1916, the French troops defeated the Germans in the Battle of Verdun, the longest battle of World War I.

On Dec. 16, 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty boarded British ships in Boston Harbor and destroyed their cargo of tea, taking another step toward the Revolutionary War.