February 20 ...

In 1726 Revolutionary War hero William Prescott ("Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!") was born in Groton, MA. In 1790 Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II died. In 1792 President George Washington signed an act creating the US Post Office. In 1872 the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City. In 1895 Frederick Douglass died in Washington, DC at age 77. In 1902 photographer Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco, CA. In 1933 the US House completed congressional action on an amendment to repeal Prohibition. In 1944 US bombers began raiding German aircraft manufacturing centers in a series of attacks that became known as "Big Week." In 1952 The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn, opened at the Capitol Theatre in New York City. In 1962 John H Glenn Jr. became the first American to orbit Earth flying aboard Friendship 7. In 1965 the Ranger 8 spacecraft crashed on the moon after sending back thousands of pictures of the lunar surface. In 1969 after his prediction of a worldwide calamity occurring on this day proved false, former Catholic priest Michel Collin (he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1951 for declaring himself to be the Pope) accused his detractors of "quibbling over dates." In 1981 the space shuttle Columbia cleared the final major hurdle to its maiden launch as the spacecraft fired its three engines in a 20-second test. In 2001 the government announced the arrest two days earlier of veteran FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen, accused of spying for Russia for more than 15 years; also on this day, space shuttle Atlantis landed in the Mojave Desert after three straight days of bad weather prevented the ship from returning to its Florida home port.