Today is Wednesday, Feb. 12, the 43rd day of 2025
with 322 to follow.
The moon is full. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
On this date in history:
In 1541, Santiago, Chile, was founded.
In 1733, the American colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe.
In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded by Moorfield Storey, Mary White Ovington and W.E.B. Du Bois.
In 1912, China's last emperor, Puyi, abdicated the throne after Sun Yat-sen's revolution. The Qing dynasty ruled for 268 years and the country had been under imperial rule for some 2,000 years.
In 1914, a dedication ceremony was held and the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial was laid. It took eight years to complete the monument honoring the 16th president.
In 1973, 116 prisoners of war were flown from Hanoi to the Philippines in the first release of U.S. POWs in North Vietnam.
In 1988, two Soviet warships deliberately bumped two U.S. Navy ships in international waters in the Black Sea, indicating continued tensions between the two parties despite the Cold War nearing its end.
In 1993, about 5,000 demonstrators marched on Atlanta's Capitol to protest the Confederate symbol on the Georgia state flag.
In 1999, the U.S. Senate acquitted U.S. President Bill Clinton of impeachment charges.
In 2001, NASA's NEAR Shoemaker landed on the asteroid Eros, the first time a near Earth asteroid was visited by a spacecraft.
In 2002, a Russian-built Tupelov-154 aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff near the western city of Khorramabad, Iran, killing all 117 people aboard.
In 2002, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic went on trial at The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. He died four years later before the conclusion of the trial.
In 2008, General Motors, which offered buyouts to its 74,000 unionized employees, reported a loss of $38.7 billion for 2007, the largest ever for an automaker.
In 2008, U.S. military officials announced capital charges against six al-Qaida members for their roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The admitted mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the others were detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In 2009, a Continental airlines turboprop commuter plane crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y., killing 50 people, including one person in the house.
In 2016, Pope Francis met Patriarch Kirill, the first meeting between the pontiff of the Catholic Church and the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, in Cuba.
In 2023, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs overcame a 10-point deficit and slipped by the Philadelphia Eagles with a game-winning field goal to win Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Ariz. Pop star Rihanna performed during half time.
