Today is Friday, Feb. 9, the 40th day of 2018. There are 325 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Feb. 9, 1943, the World War II battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an Allied victory over Japanese forces.
On this date:
In 1773, the ninth president of the United States, William Henry Harrison, was born in Charles City County, Virginia.
In 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.
In 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected provisional president of the Confederate States of America at a congress held in Montgomery, Alabama.
In 1870, the U.S. Weather Bureau was established.
In 1893, Giuseppe Verdi's last opera, "Falstaff," was first performed in Milan, Italy.
In 1942, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War II. Daylight-saving "War Time" went into effect in the United States, with clocks moved one hour forward. The SS Normandie, a former French liner being refitted for the U.S. Navy at a New York pier, caught fire (it capsized early the next morning).
In 1950, in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., charged the State Department was riddled with Communists.
In 1964, The Beatles made their first live American television appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," broadcast from New York on CBS.
In 1971, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in California's San Fernando Valley claimed 65 lives. The crew of Apollo 14 returned to Earth after man's third landing on the moon.
In 1984, Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov, 69, died 15 months after succeeding Leonid Brezhnev; he was followed by Konstantin U. Chernenko (chehr-NYEN'-koh).
In 1991, voters in Lithuania overwhelmingly endorsed independence from the Soviet Union in a non-binding plebiscite.
In 2002, Britain's Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, died in London at age 71.