On This Day in History - February 24th - Almanac

Today is Thursday, Feb. 24, the 55th day of 2022 with 310 to follow.

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

Those born on this date are under the sign of Pisces. They include Pope Clement VIII in 1536; Wilhelm Grimm, historian and, with his brother Jacob, compiler of Grimm's Fairy Tales, in 1786; painter Winslow Homer in 1836; Irish author George Moore in 1852; Adm. Chester Nimitz, World War II commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, in 1885; actor Marjorie Main in 1890; actor Abe Vigoda in 1921; composer Michel Legrand in 1932; co-founder of Nike, Phil Knight in 1938 (age 84); former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., in 1942 (age 80); actor Barry Bostwick in 1945 (age 77); actor Edward James Olmos in 1947 (age 75); musician George Thorogood in 1950 (age 72); actor Helen Shaver in 1951 (age 71); Steve Jobs, founder of the Apple computer company, in 1955; race car driver Alain Prost in 1955 (age 67); baseball Hall of Fame member Eddie Murray in 1956 (age 66); TV personality Paula Zahn in 1956 (age 66); Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg in 1961 (age 61); actor Billy Zane in 1966 (age 56); the Kienast quintuplets of Liberty Corner, N.J., in 1970 (age 52); author Gillian Flynn in 1971 (age 51); boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 1977 (age 45); tennis player Lleyton Hewitt in 1981 (age 41); actor Dre Davis in 1986 (age 36); actor Daniel Kaluuya in 1989 (age 33); actor/rapper O'Shea Jackson Jr., also known as OMG, in 1991 (age 31).

On this date in history:

In 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Marbury v. Madison decision, ruled the power of the federal government was no greater than that of any individual state.

In 1868, Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln, was impeached by the U.S. House. Johnson, the first U.S. president to be impeached, was acquitted by a single vote three weeks later, ending a three-week trial in the Senate.

In 1916, under the eyes of the Kaiser, the German Crown Prince Wilhelm and his army smashed their way toward the fortress of Verdun, in France.

In 1933, Japan shocked the world, withdrawing from the League of Nations.

In 1945, U.S. troops took the Philippines capital of Manila from the Japanese.

In 1946, Juan Peron was elected president of Argentina.

In 1968, South Vietnam recapture the city of Hue, as the Tet Offensive comes to an end after 25 days of brutal combat.

In 1981, Britain's Prince Charles announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer.

In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court defended the right to satirize public figures when it voted 8-0 to overturn a $200,000 settlement awarded the Rev. Jerry Falwell over a parody of him in Hustler magazine.

In 1989, nine people were killed when a 10-by-40-foot section of a United Airlines 747 ripped away from the jetliner's outer skin on a flight from Hawaii to New Zealand.

In 1991, after weeks of airstrikes, U.S.-led coalition forces began a ground campaign into Kuwait and southern Iraq as part of the Gulf War.

In 1992, General Motors announced a record $4.5 billion loss in 1991 and said it would close 21 plants and idle 74,000 workers over four years.

In 1995, diver Greg Louganis, who won four gold medals in the Olympic Games in 1984 and 1988, revealed he had AIDS during an interview on ABC's 20/20. News of his revelation hit the news days earlier.

In 2004, an earthquake struck Morocco, killing about 600 people and injuring hundreds more.

In 2009, Taliban insurgents in Pakistan's militarily strategic Swat Valley agreed to a cease-fire, leaving them in charge of the area near the Afghan border.

In 2020, a New York City jury found former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein guilty of third-degree rape and first-degree sexual assault in a case that launched the #MeToo movement. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison in March 2020.

In 2021, Ghana became the first country in the world to receive COVID-19 vaccines from the international COVAX program, which aimed to inoculate some of the poorest and middle-income areas.

A thought for the day: American writer H. Jackson Brown Jr. said, "Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking."