Today in History: FEB 20, John Glenn orbits Earth – The Boston Globe

In 1792, President George Washington signed an act creating the US Put up Workplace Division.

In 1862, William Wallace Lincoln, the 11-year-old son of President Abraham Lincoln and first girl Mary Todd Lincoln, died on the White Home, apparently of typhoid fever.

In 1905, the US Supreme Court docket, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, upheld, 7-2, obligatory vaccination legal guidelines meant to guard the general public’s well being.

In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an immigration act which excluded “idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded individuals, epileptics, insane individuals” from being admitted to the US.

In 1933, Congress proposed the twenty first Modification to the US Structure to repeal Prohibition.

In 1938, Anthony Eden resigned as British international secretary following Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s determination to barter with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

In 1962, astronaut John Glenn turned the primary American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard Venture Mercury’s Friendship 7 spacecraft, which circled the globe 3 times in a flight lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds earlier than splashing down safely within the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles southeast of Bermuda.

In 1965, America’s Ranger 8 spacecraft crashed on the moon, as deliberate, after sending again hundreds of images of the lunar floor.

In 1987, a bomb left by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski exploded behind a pc retailer in Salt Lake Metropolis, severely injuring retailer proprietor Gary Wright.

In 1998, Tara Lipinski of the US received the women’ determine skating gold medal on the Nagano Olympics; Michelle Kwan received the silver.

In 2003, a hearth sparked by pyrotechnics broke out throughout a live performance by the group Nice White at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., killing 100 folks and injuring about 200 others.

In 2005, demise claimed actor Sandra Dee at age 62; musical actor John Raitt at age 88; and counterculture author Hunter S. Thompson at age 67.

In 2013, the Obama administration introduced a broad new effort to battle the rising theft of American commerce secrets and techniques following contemporary proof linking cyber-stealing to China’s army. Former US Consultant Jesse Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois, entered a responsible plea in federal court docket to felony expenses that he’d engaged in a scheme to spend $750,000 in marketing campaign funds on private objects; his spouse, Sandra Jackson, pleaded responsible to submitting false joint federal earnings tax returns.

In 2018, college students who survived a Parkland, Fla. college taking pictures traveled to Tallahassee to induce state lawmakers to stop one other bloodbath, however procedural strikes within the legislature successfully halted any effort to ban assault-style rifles just like the one used within the assault. President Trump directed the Justice Division to maneuver to ban units just like the rapid-fire bump shares used within the Las Vegas bloodbath. Canadians Tessa Advantage and Scott Moir turned essentially the most adorned determine skaters in historical past, capturing the gold medal in ice dancing on Day 11 of the Winter Olympics in South Korea.

In 2020, a ballot by the Related Press and the NORC Heart for Public Affairs Analysis discovered extra Individuals expressing some concern about catching the flu than about catching the coronavirus.

Final 12 months, Russia prolonged army drills close to Ukraine’s northern borders after two days of sustained shelling alongside the contact line between Ukrainian troopers and Russia-backed separatists in jap Ukraine. Ukraine’s president appealed for a cease-fire. (Russia would invade 4 days later.) The White Home mentioned President Biden would nominate a Black girl with “impeccable expertise” for a emptiness on the Supreme Court docket. (Biden would nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson for the seat on Feb. 25.) In his former house enviornment in Cleveland, LeBron James led his workforce to a 163-160 victory over a workforce led by Kevin Durant within the NBA All-Star Recreation.