POPnews - February 22nd

[So important to Filipinos were the EDSA I and EDSA II Revolutions that Jaime Cardinal Sin, the iconic Archbishop of Manila, had a shrine and church built to commemorate them at the corner of Ortigas Avenue and Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Quezon City, adorned by this statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.]
1797 - The Last Invasion of Britain began when 1400 soldiers of La legion noire in four French warships under the command of the Irish-American Colonel William Tate came ashore near the Welsh village of Fishguard.

1819 - Spain sold Florida to the United States for $5 million, in accordance with the terms of the Adams-Onis Treaty.

1856 - The Republican Party held its first national convention, in Pittsburgh.

1862 - Jefferson Davis was officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia; he had previously been inaugurated as a provisional president four days earlier at Montgomery, Alabama.

1879 - F. W. Woolworth opened his first Woolworth's 5-and-10 cent store in Utica, New York; among the innovations introduced by Woolworth was the fixed-price, eliminating the need to haggle. Although the Utica store failed within weeks, another, opened in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was successful enough to launch his mercantile empire.

1889 - US President Grover Cleveland signed a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington into the Union.

1924 - US President Calvin Coolidge delivered the first radio address from the White House.

1943 - Three of the members of the White Rose movement - students Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst - were executed by the Nazis for resisting the regime of Adolf Hitler and distributing anti-Nazi propaganda at the University of Munich; they would later be followed by fellow-members Alex Schmorell, Willi Graf, and their philosophy professor, Kurt Huber.

1948 - A Communist coup toppled the democratically-elected government of Czechoslovakia.

1958 - The President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the President of Syria, Shukri al-Kuwatli, signed a pact intended to unite their two countries as the United Arab Republic.

1959 - Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500.

1974 - Samuel Byck attempted to fly a plane into the White House to kill US President Richard Nixon. The only problem? None of the First Family happened to be in residence at the time.

1979 - Saint Lucia gained its independence from Britain and its membership in the Commonwealth of Nations; the celebration was attended by the Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, the Hon. Lady Ogilvy.

1980 - At the Olympic Winter Games held in Lake Placid, New York, the so-called Miracle on Ice occurred when the US hockey team defeated the Soviets 4-3, in what is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history; even though, as a Canadian, I've always been more partial to Game Eight of the 1972 Summit Series.

1983 - The notorious Broadway flop, Arthur Bicknell's Moose Murders, opened and closed on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

1986 - EDSA I - more commonly known as the People Power Revolution - toppled Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines and replaced him with Corazón Aquino, widow of his former chief rival Benigno Aquino.

1995 - The Corona reconnaissance satellite program - in existence from 1959 to 1972 - was declassified.

2002 - Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in a military ambush.

2006 - At least six men staged Britain's biggest robbery ever, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million US or €78 million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge.
*
share on: facebook