Today is Monday, Feb. 6, the 37th day of 2017. There are 328 days left in the year.
Today’s highlight:
On Feb. 6, 1952, Britain’s King George VI, 56, died in Norfolk, England; he was succeeded as monarch by his 25-year-old elder daughter, who became Queen Elizabeth II.
On this date:
In 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, was born in Tampico, Illinois.
In 1922, Cardinal Archille Ratti was elected pope; he took the name Pius XI.
In 1933, the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the so-called “lame duck” amendment, was proclaimed in effect by Secretary of State Henry Stimson.
In 1943, a Los Angeles jury acquitted actor Errol Flynn of three counts of statutory rape.
In 1958, British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on takeoff from Munich, West Germany, killing 23 of the 44 people on board.
In 1973, Dixy Lee Ray was appointed by President Richard Nixon to be the first woman to head the Atomic Energy Commission.
In 1987, Wall Street Journal reporter Gerald Seib was released after being detained six days by Iran, accused of being a spy for Israel; Iran said the detention was a result of misunderstandings.
In 1992, 16 people were killed when a C-130 military transport plane crashed in Evansville, Indiana.
In 1995, the space shuttle Discovery flew to within 37 feet of the Russian space station Mir in the first rendezvous of its kind in two decades.
Ten years ago: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki complained that a long-awaited Baghdad security operation was off to a slow start, but he also reassured Iraqis that security forces would live up to their responsibilities. Singer Frankie Laine died in San Diego at age 93.
Five years ago: The U.S. closed its embassy in Syria and Britain recalled its ambassador to Damascus in a new Western push to get President Bashar Assad to leave power and halt the murderous grind in Syria.
One year ago: A magnitude-6.4 earthquake struck Tainan, Taiwan, killing 116 people.
Associated Press
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