A Brief History On February 16, 1904, African American movie actor and singer James Franklin Baskett was born in Indianapolis.  You may not know his name, but the character he played in the Disney classic movie, Song of the South in 1946, Uncle Remus, is a beloved part of Americana as is his rendition of the song, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Digging Deeper In 1948, Baskett was awarded an honorary Oscar, becoming the first Black actor to receive an Academy Award. Other notable African American births on February 16th include pianist and organist Bill Doggett in 1916, actor LaVar Burton in 1957, both…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on February 15th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On February 15, 1113, the reigning Pope of the Catholic Church, Pope Paschal II, issued a Papal Bull titled “Pie Postulatio Voluntatis,” recognizing the Order of Hospitallers, a military order of Catholic knights that had existed in the Holy Land since about 1099. On February 15, 1862, Confederate States of America army forces under the command of Brigadier General John B. Floyd…

A Brief History On February 15, 1996, the Chinese space program took a tragic turn when a Long March 3B rocket malfunctioned and crashed into a Chinese village, killing between 6 and 100 people on the ground. Digging Deeper The rocket was carrying an Intelsat 708 communications satellite into space, but veered off course shortly after lift off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.  While the highly publicized American Space Shuttle disasters come to mind when discussing fatal space incidents, there have been many failures of space launches that have resulted in the expensive loss of equipment and in some…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on February 14th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On February 14, 269, Saint Valentine reportedly experienced martyrdom. On February 14, 1349, the city of Strasbourg, France was the scene of a St. Valentine’s Day massacre 150 times worse than the more famous Chicago incident! On February 14, 1400, England’s King Richard II (aka Richard of Bordeaux) died in captivity, most likely starved to death. On February 14, 1779, Captain James Cook,…

A Brief History On February 14, 2000, the American spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker orbited asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft from Earth to orbit an asteroid. Digging Deeper NEAR Shoemaker had been designed for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and was launched in 1996.  Not only did the spacecraft make history with its orbit, a year later it made space history again by being the first spacecraft to touch down on an asteroid, the same 433 Eros. The spacecraft was named after Eugene Shoemaker, an American geologist that studied impact craters on the Earth, but also studied…