Today in History

U.S. gas stations threaten to close because of federal fuel policies.

Thirteen U.S. helicopters are shot down in one day in Vietnam

Canada’s maple leaf flag is raised for the first time.

Eighteen members of the U.S. figure skating team are lost in an airplane crash in Belgium.

Andrei Gromyko replaces Dmitri T. Shepilov as the Soviet Foreign Minister.

Matt Groening, cartoonist (The Simpsons).

Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung sign a mutual defense treaty in Moscow.

Royal Canadian mounted police arrest 22 as Soviet spies.

American bombers attack the Abbey of Monte Cassino in an effort to neutralize it as a German observation post in central Italy.

The Germans break the American Army’s lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia, North Africa.

British forces in Singapore surrender to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita.

Hitler orders that all British merchant ships will be considered warships.

U.S. Congress passes the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, allotting new funds for Federal Emergency Relief Administration.

The London Zoo announces it will install lights to cheer up fogged-in animals.

Harold Arlen, composer, arranger and pianist (“Stormy Weather,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon”).

The British threaten to use natives in the Boer War fight.

The U.S. battleship Maine blows up in Havana Harbor, killing 268 sailors and bringing hordes of Western cowboys and gunfighters rushing to enlist in the Spanish-American War.

John Barrymore, actor, sibling to actors Lionel Barrymore & Ethel Barrymore, father of actors John Drew Barrymore & Diana Barrymore and grandfather of actor Drew Barrymore.

Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant launches a major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn.

Susan B. Anthony, suffragette and political activist.

New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery.

The first serious fist fight occurs in Congress.

Henry Steinway, piano maker

Abraham Clark, signer of Declaration of Independence.

Louis XV, King of France

Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and mathematician.