February 5

1935 - Hank Aaro was born

1942 - Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach was born.

1943 - Middleweight boxer Jake" the Bronx Bomber" became the first to defeat Sugar Ray Robinson.

146 BC - The Third Punic. War between Rome and Carthage ended. The result was complete destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of its people and Roman dominance of the Medditerranean

 

On this day in history, February 5, 1937, FDR announces plan to pack the Supreme Court
Flush from his reelection, Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to buoy the New Deal with this strategy.


By 1942, "all but two of the justices" were appointees of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the nation's 32nd president.

On this day in history, Feb. 5, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced a plan to expand the Supreme Court to as many as 15 justices.

While the 32nd U.S. president claimed the plan was to enable the highest court in the land to act more efficiently, Roosevelt’s critics said he was attempting to pack the Supreme Court, neutralizing those justices "hostile to his New Deal," as History.com notes.

The New Deal was Roosevelt's domestic program that embraced the concept of a government-regulated economy "aimed at achieving a balance between conflicting economic interests," says Britannica.com.

 

1909: Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic is announced.
Leo Baekeland, a Belgian-born chemist working in New York, announces his invention of the world's first man made plastic material, naming it Bakelite. It will help launch the plastics revolution.

 

February 6

1952 - Elizabeth II ascended to.the crown of the United Kingdom

1911 - Ronald Reagan was born

1917 - Zsa Zsa Gabor was born

1895 - Babe Ruth was born

 

On this day in history, February 6, 1911, President Ronald Reagan is born in Illinois
Movie star-turned-politician led the nation through the 1980s.


A portrait of Ronald Reagan, 40th U.S. president, in his early Hollywood years.

America’s 40th President Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, on this day in history, Feb. 6, 1911.

Before he was a movie star-turned-commander-in-chief, Reagan was born to parents Nelle and John Reagan in the northwestern Illinois town.

Although they were poor, Reagan still remembered his childhood as "idyllic," according to History.com, and grew up to play football in high school and at Eureka College.

While in college, Reagan studied economics and sociology and also acted in school plays, according to the White House website.

After graduating during the Great Depression, Reagan finally took a job broadcasting sports at a radio station in Iowa.

In 1937, Warner Brothers offered Reagan his first on-screen gig playing a radio reporter in the B-movie "Love Is on the Air."

Reagan signed a seven-year contract starting at $200 per week, History.com notes.

A few years later, Reagan landed the notable role of Notre Dame University’s George Gipp in the movie "Knute Rockne – All American."

Ronald Reagan is shown playing George Gipp in the 1940 Warner Brothers film, "Knute Rockne — All American."

 

1937: Of Mice and Men is published. A poetically gritty story of two migrant farm workers struggling with social injustice and human frailty, 'Of Mice and Men' will catapult author John Steinbeck into the top ranks of American novelists.

 

On this day in history
Mstrman received an invitation to Dallas to confer with the lung transplant surgeon at UTSW for the 23rd of February.

 

On This Day In History
February 6, 1985
The “Reagan Doctrine” is announced

In his State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan defines some of the key concepts of his foreign policy, establishing what comes to be known as the “Reagan Doctrine.” The doctrine served as the foundation for the Reagan administration’s support of “freedom fighters” around the globe.

Reagan began his foreign policy comments with the dramatic pronouncement that, “Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God’s children.” America’s “mission” was to “nourish and defend freedom and democracy.” More specifically, Reagan declared that, “We must stand by our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.” He concluded, “Support for freedom fighters is self-defense.”

With these words, the Reagan administration laid the foundation for its program of military assistance to “freedom fighters.” In action, this policy translated into covertly supporting the Contras in their attacks on the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua; the Afghan rebels in their fight against the Soviet occupiers; and anticommunist Angolan forces embroiled in that nation’s civil war. President Reagan continued to defend his actions throughout his two terms in office. During his farewell address in 1989, he claimed success in weakening the Sandinista government, forcing the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan, and bringing an end to the conflict in Angola. Domestic critics, however, decried his actions, claiming that the support of so-called “freedom fighters” resulted only in prolonging and escalating bloody conflicts and in U.S. support of repressive and undemocratic elements in each of the respective nations.

 

February 7

1964 - The Beatles arrived in New York City. Two nights later they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show beginning the British Invasion.
1812 - Auther Charles Dickinson was born in Portsmouth, England.

1940 - Pinocchio made its world premiere.

1477 - English humanist and statesman Sir Thomas Moore was born.in London.

 

MacArthur's Manila Return
1945
General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.


US WWII General Douglas MacArthur


MacArthur was back in the Philippines when WWII broke out and many of his forces were destroyed in attacks on the Philippines the day after Pearl harbour. MacArthur was forced to retreat to the Bataan peninsula and then Australia, vowing to one day return. He became a major figure in the war in the Pacific fighting his way through New Guinea. By October 1944 he returned to the island of Leyte, before liberating the rest of the Philippines. In September 1945 he received the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri.

After the war as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan he oversaw the country's reconstruction. He successfully steered it towards democracy overseeing improvements in land ownership and human rights that were to have a lasting effect. His last command was as Commander of a United Nations force in the Korean War but he was relived of his command in 1951 after disagreements in strategy and returned to the US.

Born: January 26, 1880
Birthplace: Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

 

1812: Earthquake causes the Mississippi River to flow backwards. The last of four massive earthquakes that began the previous December strikes in what will be the state of Missouri with a force strong enough to spawn a fluvial tsunami, causing the mighty Mississippi River to run backwards for many hours.

 

On this day in 2010, the New Orleans Saints won Super Bowl XLIV

 

February 8

1587 - Mary Queen of Scots( rival of Queen Elizabeth I ) was beheaded at Fothering Castle.

1931 - Actor James Dean was born

1976 - The Martin Scorses directed film Taxi Driver had its world premiere. It starred Robert DeNiro as a mentally ill Vietnam War veteran.

1820 - General William Tecumseh Sherman was born.

 

Bezos Accuses National Enquirer
2019 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos accuses The National Enquirer and its owner, American Media Inc, of blackmail over private messages detailing an extramarital affair.


Jeff Bezos

Biography: Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, and investor, best known for founding Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company. As of November 2023, with a net worth of approximately $170 billion, Bezos is the third-wealthiest person globally.

Raised in Houston and Miami, Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked on Wall Street in various roles before founding Amazon in 1994, initially as an online bookstore. The company expanded rapidly, delving into products and services like video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, becoming the largest online sales company and a major player in internet technology.

 

1969: Best-studied meteorite in history falls over Mexico
An extremely rare, car-sized carbonaceous chondrite meteorite, holding some of the universe's oldest elements, streaks across the sky and breaks into thousands of pieces over Chihuahua, Mexico.

 

February 9

1942 - Singer/songwriter Carol King was born

1950 - Senator McCarthy says there are communists in the State Department

1964 - Beatles perform on.the Ed Sullivan Show

1943 - Battle of Gudalcanal ended with.an Allied victory over Japan

 

On February 9, 1942, the U.S. Congress pushed ahead standard time for the United States by one hour in each time zone, imposing daylight saving time - called 'war time.'

It was repealed on Sept. 30, 1945, when individual states once again imposed their own “standard” time. It was not until 1966 that Congress passed legislation setting a standard time that permanently superseded local habits.

It was not the first time the government fucked with our clocks, as the one hour push had initially been temporarily instituted by the 1918 Standard Time Act, which was meant to be in effect for only seven months of the year—and was discontinued nationally after the war.

 

Accord with Arafat
1994 Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signs accord with PLO's Yasser Arafat.


Yasser Arafat


Shimon Peres

 

1971: Baseball Hall of Fame nominates Satchel Paige
Arguably the greatest pitcher in baseball history is recognized for the sport's highest honor, as Satchel Paige becomes the first player from the segregated Negro Leagues to be voted into the Hall.

 

9 Feb 1934
President Roosevelt suspended all civil airmail contracts (effective midnight 19 Feb 1934) and handed the role over to the United States Army Air Corps. The goal was to end a Hoover-era monopoly on the service, but the results were disastrous.

9 Feb 1942
Year-round daylight saving time was reinstated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy.
George Marshall, Henry Arnold, Harold Stark, and Ernest King attended the first formal meeting of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.