Feb. 5
1917: Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, sharply restricting Asian immigration and requiring literacy tests for immigrants.
1918: During World War I, more than 200 people were killed when the Cunard liner SS Tuscania, carrying American troops to Europe, was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland.
1971: Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell stepped onto the moon in the first of two lunar excursions.
Feb. 6
1778: During the American Revolutionary War, the United States won official recognition and military support from France with the signing of the Treaty of Alliance in Paris.
1862: During the Civil War, Fort Henry in Tennessee fell to Union forces.
1921: “The Kid,” Charlie Chaplin’s first feature-length film, was released across the United States.
1952: Britain’s King George VI died at age 56. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, 25-year-old Queen Elizabeth II.
Feb. 7
1964: The Beatles were met by thousands of screaming fans at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport as they arrived to begin their first American tour.
1904: The Great Baltimore Fire began; one of the worst city fires in American history, it destroyed over 1,500 buildings in central Baltimore.
1943: The U.S. government announced that wartime rationing of shoes made of leather would soon take effect, limiting the number of pairs a person could buy each year.
Feb. 8
1587: Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after being implicated in a plot against her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.
1693: A charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg in the Virginia Colony.
1910: The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated by William D. Boyce, inspired by the British Boy Scout movement.
Feb. 9
1825: The House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate won a majority of electoral votes.
1943: The World War II Battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an Allied victory over Japanese forces.
1950: In a speech in Wheeling, W.Va., Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin charged that the State Department was riddled with communists.
1964: The Beatles made their first live American television appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” broadcast from New York on CBS
Feb. 10
1763: The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years’ War and transferring most of France’s Canadian territory to Great Britain.
1936: Nazi Germany’s Reichstag passed a law granting the Gestapo secret police sweeping authority, exempt from judicial review.
1962: On the Glienicke Bridge, the Soviet Union traded captured U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
Feb. 11
1847: American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio.
1937: A six-week sit-down strike against General Motors ended after the company agreed to recognize and bargain with the United Auto Workers.
1975: Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of Britain’s opposition Conservative Party, setting the stage for her rise to prime minister in 1979.
