On This Day in History - February 12th - Almanac

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 12, the 43rd day of 2019 with 322 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Saturn and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include French architect Etienne-Louis Boullee in 1728; former first lady Louisa Adams in 1775; Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, in 1809; biologist Charles Darwin in 1809; labor leader John L. Lewis in 1880; Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in 1881; German painter Max Beckmann in 1884; actor Lorne Greene in 1915; Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli in 1923 (age 96); baseball player/sports commentator Joe Garagiola in 1926; Charles Van Doren, subject of U.S. TV quiz scandals, in 1926 (age 93); former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., in 1930; basketball Hall of Fame member Bill Russell in 1934 (age 85); actor Joe Don Baker in 1936 (age 83); author Judy Blume in 1938 (age 81); former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1942 (age 77); actor Maud Adams in 1945 (age 74); actor Joanna Kerns in 1953 (age 66); former talk show host Arsenio Hall in 1956 (age 63); actor Josh Brolin in 1968 (age 51); singer Chynna Phillips in 1968 (age 51); actor Jesse Spencer in 1979 (age 40); actor Christina Ricci in 1980 (age 39); rapper Gucci Mane, born Radric Delantic Davis, in 1980 (age 39); singer Elle Varner in 1989 (age 30).

On this date in history:

In 1541, Santiago, Chile, was founded.

In 1733, the American colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe.

In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded by Moorfield Storey, Mary White Ovington and W.E.B. Du Bois.

In 1914, a dedication ceremony was held and the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial was laid. It took eight years to complete the monument honoring the 16th president.

In 1973, 116 prisoners of war were flown from Hanoi to the Philippines in the first release of U.S. POWs in North Vietnam.

In 1988, two Soviet warships deliberately bumped two U.S. Navy ships in international waters in the Black Sea, indicating continued tensions between the two parties despite the Cold War nearing its end.

In 1993, about 5,000 demonstrators marched on Atlanta's Capitol to protest the Confederate symbol on the Georgia state flag.

In 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted U.S. President Bill Clinton of impeachment charges.

In 2000, Charles Schulz, creator of the popular comic strip "Peanuts" and the world of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, died of colon cancer at age 77.

In 2001, a NASA spacecraft landed on the asteroid Eros.

In 2002, a Russian-built Tupelov-154 aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff near the western city of Khorramabad, Iran, killing all 117 people aboard.

In 2004, South Korean scientists announced they had created the world's first mature cloned human embryos.

In 2008, General Motors, which offered buyouts to its 74,000 unionized employees, reported a loss of $38.7 billion for 2007, the largest ever for an automaker.

In 2008, U.S. military officials announced capital charges against six al-Qaida members for their roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The admitted mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and the others were detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In 2009, a Continental airlines turboprop commuter plane crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y., killing 50 people, including one person in the house.

In 2014, U.S. comedian Sid Caesar, one of TV's first big stars, died after a brief illness at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 91.

In 2016, Pope Francis met Patriarch Kirill, the first meeting between the pontiff of the Catholic Church and the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, in Cuba.

In 2018, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery unveiled the official portraits of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama. They were completed by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald respectively.

A thought for the day: "The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one." -- Sid Caesar