On This Day in History: February 20th

colby2152 · #1 $Old$ February 20th, 2008, 05:27 AM

On this date in:

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.

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.

1998 American Tara Lipinski became at age 15 the youngest gold medalist in Winter Olympics history when she won the ladies' figure skating title at Nagano, Japan.

1999 Film critic Gene Siskel died at age 53.

2003 Fire broke out during a rock concert at a nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., killing 100 people and injuring about 200 others.

2005 Journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson shot himself to death at age 67.

ThePerfectHacker · #2 $Old$ February 20th, 2008, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colby2152 $View Post$

1998 American Tara Lipinski became at age 15 the youngest gold medalist in Winter Olympics history when she won the ladies' figure skating title at Nagano, Japan.

I saw that when I was 8 or 9 on TV.

And she might have been the youngest but there was another girl (Russian) just a few months older, also 15, who won gold in skating in the past Olympiads.