February 8 ...

In 1587 Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. In 1693 a charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. In 1820 Union general William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Lancaster, OH. In 1828 science fiction writer Jules Verne was born in Nantes, France. In 1851 novelist and short story writer Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis, MO. In 1861 the southern states that had seceded from the Union agreed to set up the Confederate States of America. In 1896 the Western Conference was formed by representatives of Midwestern universities. The group changed its name to the Big 10 Conference. In 1904 the Russo-Japanese War, a conflict over control of Manchuria and Korea, began as Japanese forces attacked Port Arthur. In 1910 William D. Boyce of Chicago, IL, incorporated the Boy Scouts of America. In 1915 D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking as well as controversial silent movie (many would say racist) epic about the Civil War, The Birth of a Nation, premiered in Los Angeles. In 1922 President Warren Harding had a radio installed in the White House. In 1926 the Walt Disney Studio was formed. In 1942 Congress advised Franklin D. Roosevelt that Americans of Japanese descent should be interned. In 1969 the last issue of the Saturday Evening Post was published; the magazine started in 1821. In 1973 Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal, including the chairman, Sam J. Ervin Jr., (D-NC). In 1974 the three-man crew of the Skylab space station returned to Earth after spending 84 days in space. In 1996 in a ceremony at the Library of Congress, President Clinton signed legislation revamping the telecommunications industry, saying it would "bring the future to our doorstep."