Today is Thursday, Feb. 20, the 51st day of 2025
with 314 to follow.
The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars and Uranus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Venus.
On this date in history:
In 1816, The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini opened in Rome.
In 1872, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City.
In 1938, Anthony Eden resigned as Britain's foreign secretary to protest the "appeasement" policy of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain toward Nazi Germany.
In 1939, tens of thousands of Nazi supporters gathered for a rally at New York City's Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Adolf Hitler. The attendees raised Nazi salutes to a 30-foot-tall image of former President George Washington.
In 1947, British Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee told the House of Commons that it was the government's "definite intention to take necessary steps to effect the transfer of power to responsible Indian hands by a date not later than June 1948."
In 1947, a portion of the Iraq Petroleum Co.'s pipeline, which carries oil from the rich fields in the Euphrates Valley to the Mediterranean at Jaffa, was blown up at two places in North Palestine in a new outburst of underground violence.
In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. He landed safely after three orbits in a Mercury spacecraft. The previous year, Russian Yuri Gagarin was the first person to orbit Earth.
In 1991, U.S. troops penetrated Iraq, capturing up to 500 Iraqi soldiers.
In 1998, Tara Lipinski, 15, of the United States became the youngest winner of a ladies Olympic gold medal in figure skating.
In 2003, fire broke out during a rock concert at a West Warwick, R.I., nightclub, killing 100 people.
In 2008, a missile interceptor launched from a U.S. Navy ship knocked down a dying satellite 130 miles over the Pacific Ocean. Officials said the satellite contained 1,000 pounds of frozen toxic fuel.
In 2010, a minaret and part of the roof fell into a historic 18th-century mosque during services, killing at least 38 people and injuring 71 more in the ancient city of Meknes, Morocco.
In 2020, a federal judge sentenced Republican strategist and former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone to 40 months in prison for his conviction on seven criminal counts stemming from the Justice Department's Russia investigation. Then-President Donald Trump granted Stone a full pardon in December 2020.
In 2023, two large earthquakes struck southern Turkey in Hatay province two weeks after a large temblor struck the area, killing some 60,000 people.
In 2024, an Utah court sentenced parenting blogger Ruby Franke to four consecutive terms of one to 15 years in prison on child abuse charges. Two of the former YouTuber's children had been found in a malnourished state in her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt's home.
