Today is Sunday, Feb. 11, the 42nd day of 2018. There are 323 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight: On Feb. 11, 1990, South African black activist Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years in captivity.
On this date:
In 1531, the Church of England grudgingly accepted King Henry VIII as its supreme head.
In 1812, Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting law favoring his Democratic-Republican Party — giving rise to the term “gerrymandering.”
In 1858, a French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, reported the first of 18 visions of a lady dressed in white in a grotto near Lourdes. (The Catholic Church later accepted that the visions were of the Virgin Mary.)
In 1937, a six-week-old sit-down strike against General Motors ended, with the company agreeing to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union.
In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Yalta Agreement, in which Stalin agreed to declare war against Imperial Japan following Nazi Germany’s capitulation.
In 1963, American author and poet Sylvia Plath was found dead in her London flat, a suicide; she was 30.
In 1972, McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. and Life magazine scrapped plans to publish what turned out to be a fake autobiography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes.
In 1986, Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky was released by the Soviet Union after nine years of captivity as part of an East-West prisoner exchange.
In 2012, pop singer Whitney Houston, 48, was found dead in a hotel room bathtub in Beverly Hills, California.
Today’s birthdays: Actor Conrad Janis is 90. Actor Burt Reynolds is 82. Actress Tina Louise is 80. Bandleader Sergio Mendes is 77. Actor Philip Anglim is 66. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is 65. Actress Catherine Hickland is 62. Actress Carey Lowell is 57. Singer Sheryl Crow is 56. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is 54. Actress Jennifer Aniston is 49. Singer-actress Brandy is 39. Actor Matthew Lawrence is 38. Rhythm-and-blues singer Kelly Rowland is 37. Actress Natalie Dormer is 36. Singer Aubrey O’Day is 34. Actress Q’orianka Kilcher is 28. Actor Taylor Lautner is 26.
Thought for today: “Respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners.” — Laurence Sterne, Irish-born English author (1713-1768).
— Associated Press
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