On this day: February 22
The pilgrims get their first taste of popcorn, George Washington is born, Elvis hits the charts for the first time, and Team USA pulls off a "Miracle on Ice," all on this day.
1630: Popcorn is introduced to the English colonists in Plymouth, Mass., by Quadequina of the Wampanoag tribe, who brought it in deerskin bags as his contribution at their first Thanksgiving dinner. Native Americans were growing popcorn for more than a thousand years before the arrival of European explorers.
1630: Popcorn is introduced to the English colonists in Plymouth, Mass., by Quadequina of the Wampanoag tribe, who brought it in deerskin bags as his contribution at their first Thanksgiving dinner. Native Americans were growing popcorn for more than a thousand years before the arrival of European explorers.
1732: George Washington, the first president of the United States, is born near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Va.
1819: By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for $5 million. In addition, the treaty settled a boundary dispute along the Sabine River in Texas and firmly established the boundary of U.S. territory and claims through the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean. The treaty would be officially ratified two years later.
1856: The Republican Party opens its first national organizing convention in Pittsburgh, Pa.
1857: Robert Baden-Powell, the soldier, author and Scout movement founder, is born in London, England.
1862: Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the president of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Va. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on Feb. 18, 1861.
1872: The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee. Today, it is the oldest existing third party in the United States.
1879: In Utica, N.Y., Frank Woolworth opens a five-cent Woolworth store. It failed within weeks. He would open his second store in April 1879 in Lancaster, Pa., expanding the concept to include merchandise priced at 10 cents. In 1911, the F. W. Woolworth Company was incorporated with 586 stores.
1907: Actor Robert Young, best known for his leading roles in the TV shows "Father Knows Best" and "Marcus Welby, M.D.," is born in Chicago, Ill.
1909: The 16 battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by the USS Connecticut, return to Hampton Roads, Va., 26 months after departing on a voyage around the world. The voyage was ordered by President Theodore Roosevelt to demonstrate growing American military power and blue-water navy capability. The battleships from America's Atlantic Fleet got their name because their hulls were painted white, the Navy's peacetime color scheme, and decorated with gilded scrollwork with a red, white and blue banner on their bows.
1918: Charlie Finley, an American businessman best remembered for owning Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics, is born in Ensley, Ala. Finley purchased the team while it was located in Kansas City and moved it to Oakland, Calif., in 1968. During the early 1970s, the A's became a powerhouse, winning three straight World Series from 1972 to 1974 and five straight division titles from 1971 to 1975. Finley's also remembered for pushing for the designated hitter, interleague play and night starts in the postseason and All-Star Game.
1918: Don Pardo, the radio and television announcer known as the voice of the long-running late night sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live," is born in Westfield, Mass. Pardo was also the announcer for early incarnations of such shows as "The Price Is Right," "Jeopardy!" and "NBC Nightly News."
1924: U.S. President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first U.S. president to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.
1929: Actor James Hong, who has appeared in more than 350 roles in film, television, and video games over a 50-year career but is best known for roles in "Big Trouble in Little China," "Blade Runner," "Black Widow" and "Wayne's World 2," is born in Minneapolis, Minn.
1932: Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, is born in Boston, Mass. Ted Kennedy entered the U.S. Senate in a November 1962 special election to fill the seat once held by his brother John. He would represent Massachusetts in the Senate until his death in August 2009, making him the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history. He's seen here in 1962.
1934: Hall of Fame baseball manager George "Sparky" Anderson, who managed the Cincinnati Reds to the 1975 and 1976 championships and then added a third title in 1984 with the Detroit Tigers, is born in Bridgewater, S.D. Anderson, who also played one year for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1959, was the first manager to win World Series titles in both the American League and National League.
1934: Frank Capra's romantic comedy "It Happened One Night," starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The movie would go on to become the first to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay), a feat that would not be matched until 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and later by 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs."
1936: In Paris, France, Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie wins an unprecedented 10th consecutive World Figure Skating Championships. After the 1936 World Figure Skating Championships, Henie gave up her amateur status and took up a career as a professional performer in movies and live shows.
1944: Film director Jonathan Demme, best known for directing 1991's "The Silence of the Lambs," which won him the Academy Award for Best Director, is born in Baldwin, N.Y. Demme is also known for directing "Philadelphia," "Rachel Getting Married" and the Talking Heads concert movie "Stop Making Sense."
1950: Hall of Fame basketball player Julius Erving, the high-flying player known as Dr. J who won ABA championships with the Virginia Squires and New York Nets and an NBA title with the Philadelphia 76ers, is born in Nassau County, N.Y.
1956: Elvis Presley enters the music charts for the first time with "Heartbreak Hotel." The song would eventually top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, become his first million-seller, and was the best-selling single of 1956.
1959: Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500 in a controversial finish that would take several days to sort out. Petty and Johnny Beauchamp drove side-by-side across the finish line for a photo finish. Eventually, Petty was crowned the inaugural champion of the race, winning $19,050. The race, NASCAR's second 500-miler following the Southern 500, has been held every year since.
1959: Actor Kyle MacLachlan, best known for his movie roles in "Blue Velvet," "Showgirls" and "Dune," and for his TV roles in "Twin Peaks," "Sex in the City" and "Desperate Housewives," is born in Yakima, Wash.
1962: TV personality and herpetologist Steve Irwin, known as "The Crocodile Hunter" after the name of his TV show, is born in Essendon, Victoria, Australia. Irwin, known for his exuberant and enthusiastic personality for putting himself in risky situations with often deadly animals, died at age 44 on Sept. 4, 2006, after being pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming an underwater documentary film.
1964: "Dawn (Go Away)" by The Four Seasons hits No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it will remain for three weeks trailing two Beatles songs, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You." The song is gradually bumped by more Beatles songs until the Fab Four hold all of the top five spots on April 4.
1968: Rock group Genesis release their first record "Silent Sun."
1968: Actress Jeri Ryan, best known for her TV roles on "Star Trek: Voyager" (pictured) and "Boston Public," is born in Munich, West Germany.
1973: The animated movie "Charlotte's Web," based off the bestselling children's book by E.B. White, premieres in New York City. The film, like the book, is about a pig named Wilbur (voiced by Henry Gibson) who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte (voiced by Debbie Reynolds).
1974: Would-be President Richard Nixon assassin Samuel Byck commits suicide inside a DC-9 airliner at Baltimore/Washington International Airport during a standoff with police. Byck was aiming to crash the jet into the White House in an attempt to kill Nixon but the plane never left the gate. He shot three people in his attempt, killing two of them.
1974: Singer-songwriter James Blunt, best known for his 2005 No. 1 hit "You're Beautiful," is born James Hillier Blount in Tidworth, Wiltshire, England.
1975: Actress Drew Barrymore, whose breakout role came in 1982 as a 6-year-old in Steven Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," is born in Culver City, Calif. A member of the Barrymore acting family, she has since go on to star in movies such as "Poison Ivy," "Boys on the Side," "The Wedding Singer," "Never Been Kissed," "Charlie's Angels" and "50 First Dates."
1980: In what would be called the "Miracle on Ice," the United States hockey team defeats the heavily favored Soviet Union hockey team 4-3 in the medal round at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. The team, made up of amateur and collegiate players and led by coach Herb Brooks, would go on to win the gold medal after beating Finland two days.
1981: American screenwriter Michael Maltese, a long-time story writer for classic animated cartoons, dies at the age of 73 in Los Angeles after a six-month bout with cancer. He is especially known for working with Warner Bros., where he wrote the stories for such classics as "For Scent-imental Reasons," "Hare Trigger," "Baseball Bugs," "Rabbit of Seville," "Duck Amuck," "One Froggy Evening," "Ali Baba Bunny," "Robin Hood Daffy" and "What's Opera, Doc?" He also collaborated on the 1960s "Tom and Jerry" theatrical shorts for MGM and worked at Hanna-Barbera Productions on television cartoons such as "Quick Draw McGraw," "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons."
1984: David Vetter, who was born with severe combined immunodeficiency, a disorder that causes the immune system to not work, and was known in media reports as "David, the bubble boy," dies from Burkitt's lymphoma at the age of 12 in Montgomery County, Texas. David lived his entire life in a sterile environment to avoid a fatal infection. The only cure at the time was a bone marrow transplant, and none of his family members was a match. At the age of 12, doctors decided to attempt an unmatched transplant from his sister, but while it initially appeared successful, David became ill a few months later. His autopsy revealed that the donor bone marrow contained traces of a dormant virus, Epstein-Barr, which had been undetectable in the pre-transplant screening. Although his name was known by the media, it was withheld in news reports it in order to give David and his family privacy. His last name was not revealed to the general public until 10 years after his death.
1987: Artist, director and writer Andy Warhol, a leading figure in the "pop art" movement and who coined the term "15 minutes of fame," dies in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia at the age of 58 in New York City. Warhol had been recovering from a routine gallbladder surgery.
1989: Fabrice Morvan and Rob Pilatus of the pop duo Milli Vanilli win a Grammy for Best New Artist. The Grammy was later revoked after their producer, Frank Farian, publicly admitted that they never sang a note on their debut "Milli Vanilli" album and that they lip-synch when they perform live. Morvan (left) and Pilatus (right) are seen here with National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences president C. Michael Green at the rehearsal for the 1990 Grammys.
1989: Jethro Tull wins the first Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance for the album "Crest of a Knave," beating out the heavily favored Metallica and their album "...And Justice for All." The award was highly controversial as many did not consider the album or even the band to be hard rock or heavy metal.
1993: Radiohead's first album, "Pablo Honey," is released. The album featured three charting singles: "Anyone Can Play Guitar," "Stop Whispering" and the band's most well-known hit on mainstream radio, "Creep."
1997: In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned, becoming the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. She was born on July 5, 1996, and she lived until the age of 6, at which point she died from a progressive lung disease.
2002: Animator Chuck Jones, the creator of the famed "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" shorts for Warner Bros., "Tom & Jerry" cartoons, the TV version of "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and many other well-known animated classics, dies of heart failure at the age of 89 in Corona Del Mar, Calif.
2011: An earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude strikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 185 people and injuring more than 1,500 more. More than half of the deaths occurred in the six-story Canterbury Television Building, which collapsed and caught fire in the quake.
2011: Adele releases her second album, "21," in the United States. The record would top the charts in more than 30 countries, including a 24-week run at No. 1 in the U.S., become the top-selling record of 2011 and win six Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Album of the Year.
