Today is Wednesday, Feb. 10, the 41st day of 2021. There are 324 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Feb. 10, 1967, the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was ratified as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.
On this date:
In 1936, Nazi Germany’s Reichstag passed a law investing the Gestapo secret police with absolute authority, exempt from any legal review.
In 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.
In 1992, boxer Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant. (Tyson served three years in prison.) “Roots” author Alex Haley died in Seattle at age 70.
In 1997, a civil jury heaped $25 million in punitive damages on O.J. Simpson for the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, on top of $8.5 million in compensatory damages awarded earlier.
In 2005, Britain’s Prince Charles announced he would marry his divorced lover, Camilla Parker Bowles, in April. North Korea boasted publicly for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons.
In 2006, Dr. Norman Shumway, who performed the first successful U.S. heart transplant, died in Palo Alto, California, at age 83.
In 2014, former film star and diplomat Shirley Temple Black, 85, died at her home near San Francisco.
In 2015, the parents of Kayla Jean Mueller and U.S. officials confirmed the death of the 26-year-old aid worker who had been held captive by the Islamic State group (IS said Mueller had been killed in a Jordanian airstrike). NBC announced it was suspending Brian Williams as “Nightly News” anchor and managing editor for six months without pay for misleading the public about his experiences covering the Iraq War.
Today’s Birthdays: Opera singer Leontyne Price is 94. Actor Robert Wagner is 91. Rock musician Don Wilson (The Ventures) is 88. Singer Roberta Flack is 84. Olympic gold-medal swimmer Mark Spitz is 71. World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman is 66. ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos is 60. Political commentator Glenn Beck is 57. Actor Laura Dern is 54. Actor Elizabeth Banks is 47.
