Category: Today

On March 3, 1836, Texans signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, officially breaking from Mexico to establish the Republic of Texas.

On March 3, 1863, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil War conscription act, the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act required registration of all males between 20 and 45 years of age. Exemptions could be purchased for $300 or by finding a substitute. Only 18 percent of those registered and drafted actually entered the Union army. The law was fiercely opposed. Protests of the draft law in New York City led to bloody riots, in which estimates of deaths range from 120 to 2,000 and 2,000 to 8,000 people injured.

On March 3, 1945, American and Filipino troops recaptured Manila in the Philippines from the Empire of Japan.

On March 2, 1807, the U.S. Congress passed an act to “prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States…from any foreign kingdom, place, or country.”

On Feb. 29, 1972, Hank Aaron signed a three-​year deal with the Atlanta Braves that paid him $200,000 per year, making him the highest-​paid player in Major League Baseball at the time. Two years later, Aaron became baseball’s career home run king when he broke Babe Ruth’s long-​standing record.

On Feb. 29, 1988, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu was arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-​day anti-​apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.

On Feb. 28, 1993, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, with media in tow, raided the Waco, Texas, compound of the Branch Davidian religious group, prompting a gun battle in which four agents and six Davidians were killed. The federal agents were attempting to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on information that the religious sect was stockpiling weapons. A nearly two-​month standoff after the unsuccessful raid ended with an assault on the compound on April 19, 1993, and a fire that burned the compound to the ground killing 76 Davidians, including Koresh and 20 children.

On Feb. 27, 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

On Feb. 25, 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of repressively ruling the nation and Corazon Aquino became the Philippines’ first woman president in a peaceful revolution sometimes called the “Yellow Revolution” because of the yellow ribbons used during street demonstrations.

On Feb. 24, 1803, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of William Marbury vs. James Madison, Secretary of State of the United States, confirming the legal principle of judicial review — the ability of the Supreme Court to limit congressional power by declaring legislation unconstitutional.

On Feb. 24, 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Later, he was acquitted by the Senate.

On Feb. 23, 1836, the Battle of the Alamo began with Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launching an assault on the Alamo Mission near modern-​day San Antonio, Texas. The siege lasted 13 days until Mexican forces overwhelmed the mission.

On Feb. 23, 1861, President-​elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington, D.C., after dodging opposition mobs in Baltimore, Maryland.

On Feb. 23, 1903, Cuba leased Guantánamo Bay to the U.S. “in perpetuity.”

On Feb. 23, 1945, during the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U.S. flag.

On Feb. 22, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend, Christoph Probst, members of a close-​knit group of University of Munich students calling themselves “The White Rose,” were executed after being caught distributing leaflets urging Germans to resist Hitler and the Nazis. [For more see today’s commentary.)

On Feb. 22, 1980, the U.S. hockey team defeated the four-​time defending gold-​medal-​winning Soviet team 4 – 3 before a frenzied crowd of 10,000 spectators at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The victory of the youthful American college players beating the Soviet squad, considered the best in the world, became known as “The Miracle on ice.”

On Feb. 22, 1732, George Washington, who would go on to become “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” was born in Virginia.

On Feb. 8, 1943, Japanese troops evacuated Guadalcanal, leaving the island in Allied possession after a prolonged campaign. In August of 1942, U.S. Marines landed on the island as the Allies’ first major offensive against Japanese-​held positions in the Pacific. A series of bloody battles ensued in the tropical heat as Marines engaged Japanese troops on land and the Navy has seven major battles in the waters surrounding Guadalcanal. American casualty estimates were 1,600 combat dead, 2,000 died of disease and 4,000 wounded, while roughly 24,000 Japanese perished. The American victory paved the way for other wins in the Solomon Islands.

On Feb. 7, 1775, Benjamin Franklin published “An Imaginary Speech” in London, responding to comments made to the Parliament that the British need not fear the colonial rebels, as “Americans are unequal to the People of this Country in Devotion to Women, and in Courage, and worse than all, they are religious.” In his thoughtful counter, Franklin slyly recalled that the population in the colonies had increased, while the British population had declined, and, therefore, American men must be more “effectually devoted to the Fair Sex” than their British brethren.

On Feb. 7, 1907, the first large march – known as ”the Mud March” – was organized by Britain’s National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), with more than 3,000 women slogging through the cold, muddy streets of London, from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall, to advocate for women’s suffrage.

On Feb. 7, 1990, the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union agreed to endorse President Mikhail Gorbachev’s recommendation that the party give up its 70-​year monopoly on political power. A Communist Party official noted, “Society itself will decide whether it wishes to adopt our politics.”