February 9 ...

In 1773 ninth President of the US William Henry Harrison was born in Charles City County, VA. In 1775 the English Parliament declared the Massachusetts colony to be in rebellion. In 1797 John Adams won the US's first contested presidential election over Thomas Jefferson, who became vice president. In 1814 future New York Governor Samuel Tilden, the Democratic Party's nominee for president in 1876 (though he won more than 50% of the vote that year, he lost the election to Rutherford B. Hayes) was born in New Lebanon, NY. In 1825 in a disputed election, John Quincy Adams was elected the 6th President of the US in the House of Representatives. In 1861 the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America elected Jefferson Davis as its president. In 1870 the US Weather Bureau was established. In 1909 the first US federal legislation prohibiting narcotics was enacted -- against opium. In 1914 baseball owner and famed promoter Bill Veeck was born in Chicago, IL. In 1933 the Oxford Union, Oxford University's debating society, endorsed a motion stating, "that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country," by a vote of 275-153; this pacifist stand was widely denounced by Britons. In 1941 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in his classic war-time speech to the United States of America, said, "Put your confidence in us, give us the tools and we will finish the job." In 1942 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War II; also on this day, singer and songwriter Carole King was born in Brooklyn, NY. In 1943 the battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an American victory over the Japanese. In 1950 in a speech in Wheeling, WV, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-WI, charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists. In 1964 The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. In 1969 the Boeing 747-100 jumbo jet made its first commercial flight. In 1971 the Apollo 14 spacecraft returned to Earth after man's third landing on the moon. In 1975 the Russian Soyuz 17 returned to Earth. In 1984 Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov died at age 69, less than 15 months after succeeding Leonid Brezhnev; he was succeeded by Konstantin U. Chernenko. In 1990 the Galileo satellite flew by Venus.