On This Day:
Monday February 13, 2012
This is the 44th day of the year, with 322 days remaining
in 2012.
Fact of the Day: potato chips
Potato chips were invented in 1853 at Saratoga Springs, New
York, where chef George Crum of Moon's Lake House shaved
potatoes paper thin and sent them out to a patron who had
complained that his French fries were too thick. The
customers were delighted, ordered more, and encouraged Crum
to open up his own restaurant. Crum's new restaurant had
people standing in line to get potato chips. Wise potato
chips were introduced in 1921 by grocer Earl V. Wise as a
way of dealing with overstocked and old potatoes. He sold
them in brown paper bags the then in cellophane starting in
the 1930s.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Catherine dei Ricci, St. Stephen of Rieti,
St. Ermenilda or Ermengild, St. Martinian the Hermit, St.
Polyeuctes of Melitene, St. Licinus or Lesin, and St.
Modomnoc.
Florida:
Fiesta de Menendez (founder of St. Augustine).
Events
1633
- Galileo
was detained by the Italian
Inquisition in Rome.
1635
- The oldest public school in the United
States, the Boston
Public Latin School, was founded.
1689
- Following the Glorious
Revolution in Britain,
Mary
II, the daughter of the deposed king, James
II, and William
III prince of Orange, her husband, were proclaimed
joint sovereigns.
1741
- "The
American Magazine" was published in Philadelphia,
and became the first U.S. magazine, beating Benjamin
Franklin's "General
Magazine" off the presses by three days.
1795
- The first U.S. state university opened, the University
of North Carolina.
1914
- The American
Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
was founded.
1920
- The League
of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.
1935
- Bruno
Richard Hauptmann was found guilty of first-degree
murder in the kidnap-death of the infant son of Charles
Lindbergh and his wife, Anne
Morrow Lindbergh; Hauptmann was later executed.
1945
- Allied planes began the controversial and devastating
bombing the German city of Dresden.
1974
- Russian novelist Alexander
Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the USSR.
2000
- The last original "Peanuts"
comic strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles
M. Schulz dies.
2001
- A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit El
Salvador, killing at least 402 people just one month
after another quake killed more than 800 people.
Births
1888
- Georgios
Papandreou, three-time Greek prime minister.
1892
- Grant
Wood, American painter.
1910
- William
Shockley, American Nobel
Prize-winning physicist whose work led to the
miniaturization of radio, TV, and computer circuits.
1923
- Charles
"Chuck" Yeager, American test pilot, the first man to
break the sound barrier.
1950
- Peter
Gabriel, English musician.
1956
- Princess
Alia bint Al Hussein, Jordanian
Royal Family member.
Deaths
1728
- Cotton
Mather, American colonist and writer.
1883
- Richard
Wagner, German composer.
2002
- Waylon
Jennings, American country music singer and guitarist.
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