Today is Saturday, Feb. 18, the 49th day of 2012. There are 317 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight:
On Feb. 18, 1861, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as provisional president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Ala.
On this date:
In 1546, Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, died in Eisleben.
In 1885, Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was published in the U.S. for the first time.
In 1930, photographic evidence of Pluto (now designated a “dwarf planet”) was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.
In 1977, the space shuttle Enterprise, sitting atop a Boeing 747, went on its maiden “flight” above the Mojave Desert.
In 2001, auto racing star Dale Earnhardt Sr. died in a crash at the Daytona 500; he was 49.
Associated Press
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