Volume 14 , Issue 8

On This Day In History (20 February)

On Feb. 20, 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth as he flew aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule. Go to article.

On Feb. 20, 1902, Ansel Adams, the photographer noted for his landscapes of the American West, was born. Following his death on April 22, 1984, his obituary appeared in The Times. Go to obituary

On this Date, February 20:

• 1790 - Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II died.
• 1792 - President George Washington signed an act creating the U.S. Post Office.
• 1809 - The Supreme Court ruled that the power of the federal government is greater than that of any individual state.
• 1839 - Congress prohibited dueling in the District of Columbia.
• 1862 - William Wallace Lincoln, the 11-year-old son of President Abraham Lincoln and first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, died at the White House, apparently of typhoid fever.
• 1895 - Abolitionist Frederick Douglass died.
• 1938 - British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigned in protest over Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's decision to negotiate with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
• 1944 - During World War II, U.S. bombers began raiding German aircraft manufacturing centers in a series of attacks that became known as "Big Week."
• 1965 - The Ranger 8 spacecraft crashed on the moon after sending back thousands of pictures of the lunar surface.

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