On This Day in History - February 18th - Almanac

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 18, the 49th day of 2020 with 317 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include Britain's Queen Mary I in 1516; physicist Alessandro Volta in 1745; Austrian physicist Ernst Mach in 1838; stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1848; Italian automaker Enzo Ferrari in 1898; author Wallace Stegner in 1909; actor Jack Palance in 1919; actor George Kennedy in 1925; author/magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown in 1922; author Len Deighton in 1929 (age 91); author Toni Morrison in 1931; cartoonist Johnny Hart in 1931; filmmaker Milos Forman in 1932; artist Yoko Ono, wife of John Lennon, in 1933 (age 87); author Jean M. Auel in 1936 (age 84); actor Cybill Shepherd in 1950 (age 70); actor John Travolta in 1954 (age 66); film director John Hughes in 1950; game show icon Vanna White in 1957 (age 63); actor Greta Scacchi in 1960 (age 60); actor Matt Dillon in 1964 (age 56); rapper/record producer Dr. Dre, born Andre Romelle Young, in 1965 (age 55); producer/TV personality Tracey Edmonds in 1967 (age 53); actor Molly Ringwald in 1968 (age 52); TV personality/personal trainer Jillian Michaels in 1974 (age 46); singer/songwriter Regina Spektor in 1980 (age 40); actor Logan Miller in 1992 (age 28); K-pop singer J-Hope, born Jung Ho-seok, in 1994 (age 26).

On this date in history:

In 1841, the first filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It ended March 11.

In 1865, after a long Civil War siege, Union naval forces captured Charleston, S.C.

In 1930, dwarf planet Pluto was discovered by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.

In 1954, the Church of Scientology was established in Los Angeles.

In 1967, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb," died in Princeton, N.J., at the age of 62.

In 1979, snow fell in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the first known time. It fell a second time in 2016.

In 2001, Dale Earnhardt Sr., stock-car racing's top driver, was killed in a crash in the final turn of the final lap of the Daytona 500. He was 49.

In 2003, nearly 200 people died and scores were injured in a South Korea subway fire set by a man authorities said apparently was upset at his doctors.

In 2004, 40 chemical and fuel-laden runaway rail cars derailed near Nishapur in northeastern Iran, producing an explosion that killed at least 300 people and injured hundreds of others.

In 2006, 16 people died in rioting in Nigeria over published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that enraged Muslims around the world.

In 2008, two of four masterpieces stolen from the Zurich museum a week earlier, a Monet and a van Gogh, were found in perfect condition in the back seat of an unlocked car in Zurich.

In 2013, eight men disguised as police disabled a security fence, drove two vehicles onto a Brussels airport tarmac and stole diamonds worth $50 million.

In 2014, violence erupted between protesters and security forces in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, eventually resulting in 98 dead with an estimated 15,000 injured and 100 believed missing.

In 2019, a group of states and advocacy organizations banded together to sue President Donald Trump over his declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. He made the declaration so he could bypass Congress to fund a physical barrier on the border.

A thought for the day: "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." -- American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson