02/18/2025
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This Day In History archive

1893 – Henry Ford completes his first useful petrol/gasoline engine.

1901 – Private companies allowed to use the word “postcard.” Previously, the cards were labelled “Private Mailing Cards” and known as “souvenir cards.”

1912 – Irving Fisher patents archiving system with index cards.

1924 – School in Babb’s Switch, Oklahoma, catches fire and 36 people die.

1941 – First ships of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s Pearl Harbor fleet return to Japan after attack on the United States military base.

1943 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints General Dwight Eisenhower as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.

1948 – First completely solar heated house in the United States is occupied in Dover, Massachusetts.

1956 – “I Love Lucy” Christmas show airs, but is never put in syndication.

1961 – AFL Championship, Balboa Stadium, San Diego: Houston Oilers beat San Diego Chargers 10-3 with Billy Cannon scoring the game’s only touchdown.

1966 – United States Air Force C144 military charter aircraft crashes near Binh Thai, Vietnam, killing 129 people.

1970 – Walt Disney releases animated musical “The Aristocats,” featuring voices of Phil Harris, Eva Garbor, Herminone Baddley, Sterling Holloway, and Scatman Crothers.

1973 – District of Columbia Home Rule Act is passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to elect their own local government.

1980 – Americans remember hostages held by Iran by shining lights for 417 seconds.

1982 – Chaminade, with a student body of only 850 students, defeats top-ranked Virginia 77-72 in a Honolulu holiday basketball classic.

1990 – Montreal Expos trade Tim Raines to the Chicago White Sox for Ivan Calderon and Barry Jones.

1992 – President George H.W. Bush pardons former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane and former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger for their roles in the Iran-Contra affair.

2000 – The Texas 7, a group of prisoners who escaped the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, hold up a sports store in Irving, Texas. Police officer Aubrey Hawkins is shot during the robbery.

2001 – Time magazine names New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani “Person of the Year” for leadership after the 9/11 terrorists attacks.

2012 – 11 kindergarten children are killed after a minivan plunges into a roadside pond in Jiangxi, China.

2023 – Beijing breaks its 1951 record for sub-zero December temperatures, recording more than 300 hours as a record cold spell affects the north and northeast of China.

Sonny Jones
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