02/18/2025
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This Day In History archive

1908 – Rhodes Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, kills 171 people.

1912 – A state record minus-40 degrees in Oakland, Maryland.

1920 – New York Times editorial falsely reports rockets can never fly.

1930 – “Mickey Mouse” comic strip first appears.

1942 – Henry Ford patents a method of constructing plastic auto bodies.

1943 – United States infantry captures Galloping Horse Ridge, Guadalcanal during World War II.

1948 – The first country music TV show, “Midwestern Hayride,” premieres on WLWT in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1958 – 9,000 scientists of 43 nations petition the United Nations for a nuclear test ban.

1962 – Chubby Checker’s song “The Twist,” credited with starting the Twist craze, goes to #1 in the charts two years after first reaching the number one spot.

1962 – Philadelphia center Wilt Chamberlain scores 73 points in the Warriors’ 135-117 win over the Chicago Packers. It was the most points scored in a NBA regulation game.

1968 – Johnny Cash performs for inmates at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California. The show is recorded for a live album release.

1975 – Secretary of State Henry Kissinger hints at military action against oil countries in case of “actual strangulation of the industrialized world” in the wake of oil shock.

1979 – Charlie Daniels hosts Volunteer Jam in Nashville, Tennessee.

1982 – Air Florida 737 took off in a snowstorm, crashed into the 14th St Bridge in Washington, D.C., and fell into the Potomac River, killing 78 people.

1987 – Seven top New York City Mafia bosses each sentenced to 100 years in prison.

1998 – CBS pays $4 billion to televise the National Football League’s American Football Conference games for eight years.

2009 – Global shipping experiences a drop in trade as exports from South Korea drop an annualized 40% with Taiwan and Japan.

2016 – Record Powerball lottery in America – $1.6 billion – has three winning tickets.

2020 – Oldest material existing on earth at 7.5 billion years old revealed by scientists studying the Murchison meteorite that fell to earth in Australia in the 1960s.

2022 – California Governor Gavin Newsom blocks Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin Sirhan Sirhan’s release on parole after 53 years in jail.

Sonny Jones
Author: Sonny Jones

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