Also on this date
Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman decreed that 400,000 acres of land in the South would be divided into 40-acre lots and given to former slaves. (The order, later revoked by President Andrew Johnson, is believed to have inspired the expression, “Forty acres and a mule.”)
In 1865,
In 1912,
a day before reaching the South Pole, British explorer Robert Scott and his expedition found evidence that Roald Amundsen of Norway and his team had gotten there ahead of them.
In 1919,
pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski became the first premier of the newly created Republic of Poland.
In 1989,
three days of rioting began in Miami when a police officer fatally shot Clement Lloyd, a Black motorcyclist, causing a crash that also claimed the life of Lloyd’s passenger, Allan Blanchard. (The officer, William Lozano, was convicted of manslaughter, but then was acquitted in a retrial.)
In 1991,
the White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. (Allied forces prevailed on Feb. 28, 1991.)
In 2002,
Richard Reid was indicted in Boston on federal charges alleging he’d tried to blow up a U.S.bound jetliner with explosives hidden in his shoes. (Reid later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.)
In 2020,
the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump opened in the Senate, with senators standing and swearing an oath of “impartial justice.” Trump again denounced the proceedings as a “hoax,” while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said new evidence reinforced the need to call additional witnesses.
Former Haitian strongman Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who’d been living in exile in France, made a surprise return to Haiti as the country wrestled with a political crisis, cholera outbreak and stalled reconstruction from a devastating earthquake.
The U.N. nuclear agency certified that Iran had met all of its commitments under a landmark deal, prompting the West to lift economic sanctions that had been in place for years.
Health authorities in China announced that a second person had died from a new coronavirus.
Associated Press