Winamp & Shoutcast Forums - Malcolm X was shot dead, 21st Feb 1965

woo freakin hoo.

1437 - King James I of Scotland was assassinated by conspirators led by Walter of Atholl after his efforts to break the influence of the Scottish nobility.

1513 - Pope Julius II died after a 10-year reign. History knows him as a supreme patron of the arts for commissioning Bramante to design the new St. Peter's basilica, Michelangelo to execute the Sistine Chapel frescoes and Raphael to decorate his private apartments.

1613 - Michael Romanov was elected czar of Russia, beginning the Romanov imperial line.

1828 - Cherokee Phoenix, the first Indian-language newspaper in the United States, launched from Oklahoma.

1842 - The sewing machine was patented by John J. Greenough of Washington, DC.

1849 - In the second British-Sikh war, the British defeated a force of 50,000 Sikhs under Shir Singh at the battle of Gujerat.

1866 - Lucy Hobbs was the first woman to graduate from dental school.

1878 - In the United States, the first telephone directories issued were distributed to residents of New Haven, Connecticut. At that time, only 50 subscribers’ names were listed.

1885 - The Monument to the first president was dedicated at Washington, DC.

1904 - In Ishpeming, Michigan, the National Ski Association was formed.

1911 - Japan and the United States signed a commercial treaty limiting the flow of Japanese workers to the United States.

1915 - In World War I the Germans under Hindenberg heavily defeated the Russians under Baron Siever at the Winter Battle of Masuria which ended on this day. More than 200,000 Russians were lost.

1916 - WWI's single longest battle at Verdun, France. An estimated one million men were killed, decimating both the French and German armies.

1918 - The Australian cavalry captured the city of Jericho in Jordan.

1925 - "The New Yorker's" firt issue was published.

1932 - The camera exposure meter was patented by William N. Goodwin of Newark, New Jersey.

1943 - "Free World Theatre" made its debut on the NBC Blue network, which is now ABC radio. Arch Oboler produced and directed the program.

1944 - Japanese Field Marshal Hajime Sugiyama was replaced as Chief of the Imperial Army General Staff by General Hideki Tojo, the prime minister.

1945 - "The Lion and the Mouse" debuted on "Brownstone Theatre", which was also debuting on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

1947 - In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrated a new gadget to the Optical Society of America, the first camera to take, develop and print a black and white picture on photo paper, in about a minute. He named his invention the Polaroid Land Camera.

1950 - In Liberal, Kansas, the first International Pancake Race was held. The annual event, scheduled on Shrove Tuesday, has the women of Liberal competing against the women of Olney, Bucks, England; in a contest that has them wearing dresses and aprons, with their heads covered by scarves, while running a 415-yard, ‘S’ shaped course. Each woman carries a pancake in a skillet which must be tossed three times. The fastest time ever was 58.5 seconds in 1975, set by Liberal’s Sheila Turner.

1965 - Black nationalist leader Malcolm X (Malcolm Little) was murdered in New York as he was about to address a meeting of his Afro-American Unity Organization.

1968 - An agreement between baseball players and club owners increased major league players' minimum salary to $10,000 a year.

1969 - Random House published Philip Roth's novel, Portnoy's Complaint.

1970 - A Palestine commando group claimed responsibility for blowing up a Swiss airliner which crashed in Baden, killing 47 passengers.

1971 - Ruth Jensen won the richest women’s golf event, the $60,000 Sears Women’s World Classic.

1972 - The group, Climax, was awarded a gold record for their only hit, "Precious and Few". The Los Angeles, California-based group was led by Sonny Geraci, from the The Outsiders of "Time Won’t Let Me" fame.

1972 - Richard Nixon became the first serving United States president to visit China.

1973 - A Libyan Boeing 727 was shot down over an Israeli military airfield, killing 104 passengers.

1975 - Three aides of United States ex-president Richard Nixon, former attorney general John Mitchell, former chief of staff H.R. Haldeman and domestic adviser John Ehrlichman, were jailed for obstructing the course of justice in the Watergate affair.

1981 - Dolly Parton reached #1 on the pop music charts with "9 to 5", from the same named movie, which starred Dolly, Lili Tomlin and Jane Fonda. The song stayed at #1 for a week, until Eddie Rabbitt’s "I Love a Rainy Night" booted it out. It did come back two weeks later for one more week at Number One.

1982 - In Los Angeles, California, legendary disc jockey, Murray The K died of cancer. He had been one of rock radio’s first DJs and a famous, New York City, radio personality for years.

1983 - In the Indian state of Assam, more than 800 lives were lost in ethnic rioting following state elections.

1984 - In New York City, the Toy Manufacturers of America met to display the top toys of the year, including: Menudo, Michael Jackson whose accessories sold separately, Mr. T. and Judy Garland from "The Wizard of Oz".

1988 - Television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart announced tearfully in front of a crowd of 6,000, and while on national television, that he would relinquish the pulpit because of publicized photographs of him visiting a prostitute. Only a year earlier, Swaggart had denounced his rival evangelist Jim Bakker after a sex scandal had destroyed Bakker's PTL ministry. Swaggart was quoted, "I have sinned against you, and I beg your forgiveness." Swaggert claimed he did not engage in intercourse with the woman, but "paid her to perform pornographic acts".

1989 - Czechoslovak dissident playwright Vaclav Havel was jailed by Prague's Communist authorities for incitement and obstruction.

1989 - Two members of Winnie Mandela's guard were charged with the murder of 14-year-old Stompie Seipei in Soweto, South Africa.

1992 - A judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, followed a jury's recommendation and ordered the Sun supermarket tabloid to pay $1.5 million to a 96-year-old woman it falsely identified in 1990 as a pregnant 101-year-old newspaper carrier. The jury found that the Sun had invaded the privacy of Nellie Mitchell when it published that she had quit her newspaper route because she had become pregnant by a millionaire customer.

1994 - The Togolese opposition claimed victory in elections to the country's first multi-party parliament.

1994 - Pakistani commandos stormed the Afghan embassy in Islamabad, killing three Afghan gunmen who had been holding hostage five schoolboys and a teacher.

1994 - Aldrich Hazen Ames and his wife, Maria del Rosario Casas Ames were arrested. Ames had worked as a counterintelligence officer for the CIA. Prosecutors said the pair had been paid approximately $2.5 million for their spy activities. Ames was sentenced to life in prison. Rosario Ames was sentenced to a 63 month prison term in return for her husband's promise to cooperate with authorities.

1994 - British members of parliament voted overwhelmingly to reduce the age of consent for homosexual men from 21 to 18.

1997 - Jeanne Calment, believed to be the world's oldest person, celebrated her 122nd birthday in France.

1997 - North Korean Vice Premier Hong Song Nam was named acting premier in place of Kang Song San, one of the most powerful figures in the secretive Stalinist state.