February 21, 2006

On Feb. 21, 1794, Mexican revolutionary Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was born. He became president of Mexico and led the attack on the Alamo.

In 1801 churchman John Henry Newman, who founded the Oxford Movement in the Church of England and later became a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, was born in London.

In 1838 American inventor Samuel Morse gave his first public demonstration of the telegraph.

In 1846 Sarah Bagley became the first female telegrapher, taking charge at the newly opened telegraph office in Lowell, Mass.

In 1866 Lucy Hobbs became the first woman to graduate from a dental school, the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in Cincinnati.

In 1878 the first telephone directory was issued, by the District Telephone Company of New Haven, Conn.

In 1885 the Washington Monument was dedicated.

In 1893 classical guitarist Andres Segovia was born in Linares, Spain.

In 1903 writer Anais Nin was born in Neuilly, France.

In 1907 poet W.H. Auden was born in York, England.

In 1916 the World War I Battle of Verdun began in France.

In 1925 The New Yorker magazine made its debut.

In 1947 Edwin Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera, which could produce a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds.

In 1972 President Richard Nixon began his historic visit to China as he and his wife, Patricia, arrived in Shanghai. Also, West Coast longshoremen returned to their jobs after their 134-day strike.

In 1973 Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan Airlines jet over the Sinai Desert, killing more than 100 people.

In 1975 former Atty. Gen. John Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to 2 1/2 to 8 years in prison for the Watergate cover-up.

In 1980 a general strike began in Kabul, Afghanistan, to protest Soviet military intervention.

In 1986 Larry Wu-tai Chin, the first American convicted of spying for China, killed himself in his Virginia jail cell.

In 1988 TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart tearfully confessed to his congregation in Baton Rouge, La., that he was guilty of an unspecified sin and was leaving the pulpit temporarily. (Reports linked Swaggart to a prostitute.)

In 1991 ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn died in Panama City; she was 71.

In 1992 Kristi Yamaguchi won the gold medal in women's figure skating at the Winter Olympics in Albertville, France; Midori Ito of Japan won the silver and Nancy Kerrigan won the bronze.

In 1995 the United States and Mexico signed an agreement to unlock $20 billion in U.S. support to stabilize the peso, but under tough conditions.

In 1996 the Space Telescope Science Institute announced that photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the existence of a black hole equal to the mass of 2 billion suns in a galaxy some 30 million light-years away.


In 2001 the Supreme Court ruled that state workers cannot use a federal disability-rights law to win money damages for on-the-job discrimination. Also, at the Grammy Awards, Steely Dan won album of the year for "Two Against Nature," plus best pop album and best pop performance by a duo or group for "Cousin Dupree"; rapper Eminem won three awards, all in rap categories.

In 2003 chief UN inspector Hans Blix ordered the destruction of dozens of Iraqi missiles with ranges that violated UN limits. Also, Michael Jordan became the first 40-year-old in NBA history to score 40 or more points, getting 43 in the Washington Wizards' 89-86 win over the New Jersey Nets.

In 2005 Israel freed 500 Palestinian prisoners in a goodwill gesture.