This Day in History
In Alaska
• In 1929, A search was begun for Carl Ben Eielson, pioneer Alaska pilot, who was missing for two weeks on a trip to Cape North, Siberia, to salvage furs from an ice-bound ship. His body was later found on Feb. 18, 1930, concluding a 100-day search. It was suspected a white-out and a faulty altimeter caused the crash.
• In 1930, Mining operations were suspended at the big copper mine at Latouche.
• In 1953, The Alaska Native Service Hospital in Anchorage was opened for public inspection.
• In 1979, "Alaska's Grand Old Adventurer," 74-year old Norman Vaughn, reached the South Pole for the second time as part of a group commemorating Admiral Byrd's 1929 expedition, of which Vaughn was a member.
In the nation
• In 1864, a Colorado militia killed at least 150 peaceful Cheyenne Indians in the Sand Creek Massacre.
• In 1929, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd radioed that he'd made the first airplane flight over the South Pole.
• In 1952, President-elect Eisenhower kept his campaign promise to visit Korea to assess the ongoing conflict.
• In 1961, "Enos" the chimp was launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.
• In 1963, President Lyndon Johnson named a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy.
• In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced he was leaving the Johnson administration to become president of the World Bank.
• In 1981, actress Natalie Wood drowned in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island, Calif., at age 43.
• In 1986, actor Cary Grant died in Davenport, Iowa, at age 82.
• In 2001, George Harrison, the "quiet Beatle," died in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer; he was 58. "A Separate Peace" author John Knowles died in Florida at age 75.
In the world
• In 1924, Italian composer Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels before he could complete his opera "Turandot." (It was finished by Franco Alfano.)
• In 1947, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the partitioning of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
• In 1987, a Korean Air jetliner disappeared off Burma, with the loss of all 115 people aboard; South Korean authorities claimed North Korean agents had planted a bomb aboard the aircraft.
• In 1992, A refugee center in western Germany was firebombed as violence against foreigners continued, despite a police crackdown on neo-Nazis.
• In 2001, The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution extending the U.N. humanitarian program in Iraq and setting the stage for an overhaul of U.N. sanctions against Baghdad the following year.