A Blast from the Past

Today is Feb. 5.

It was on this date in 1991 -- as the air war against Iraq raged on -- that President Bush sent his top military advisers to Saudi Arabia to decide whether a ground assault was needed to liberate Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. They decided it was -- and U.S. troops marched into Kuwait City about 100 hours after the assault was launched. American-led allied forces rolled over Iraqi troops, who surrendered in droves.

Two federal grand juries in Florida announced indictments of Panama military strongman General Manuel Antonio Noriega and 16 associates on drug smuggling and money laundering charges on this date in 1988.

British clergyman Roger Williams arrived in Salem, Mass., on this date in 1631, seeking religious freedom and a new place to call home. He'd later found the colony of Rhode Island.

Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edward Mitchell walked on the moon for four hours on this date in 1971. Shepard -- the first American in space -- also became the first person to play golf on the moon. Do lunar duffers strive for a crater-in-one instead of a hole-in-one?

Justice delayed turned out finally to be justice achieved on this date in 1994, when white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. De La Beckwith died in 2002 in prison.

And Paul Simon's first solo single following his break-up with Art Garfunkel was released on this day in 1972. The song was "Mother and Child Reunion."

We now return you to the present, already in progress.