On This Day:
Saturday February 22, 2014 This is the 53rd day of the year, with 312 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: Liberty Bell The Liberty Bell was sent from London, England in 1752, having been commissioned to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of William Penn's 1701 Charter of Privileges. It cracked the first time it was rung while being tested and had to be recast twice before being hung in the Pennsylvania State House steeple in 1753. The Liberty Bell weighs 2,080 pounds and has a circumference of 12 feet around the lip and 7 feet 6 inches around the crown. It was rung frequently to announce special events, one of the most historically important being the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776. The name "Liberty Bell" was not adopted until 1839 when a poem entitled "The Liberty Bell" was published in an abolitionist pamphlet. The famous crack that left the bell unringable occurred on February 22, 1846, when it was rung in honor of George Washington's birthday. The word "Pennsylvania" is spelled "Pensylvania" on the Liberty Bell because the proper spelling was not universally accepted when it was cast.
Holidays Feast day of St. Baradates, St. Margaret of Cortona, and Saints Thalassius and Limnaeus.
St. Lucia: Independence Day.
Events 1613 - Mikhail Romanov was elected czar of Russia.
1630 - Popcorn was introduced to English colonists by Quadequine, brother of Massasoit.
1819 - Spain agreed to cede the remainder of its old province of Florida to the United States.
1879 - Frank Winfield Woolworth opened a five-cent store in Utica, New York.
1886 - "The Times" newspaper published a classified personal column, the first newspaper to do so.
1889 - President Grover Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas (which was divided into North Dakota and South Dakota at the same time), Montana, and Washington state to the Union.
1924 - Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.
1940 - Five-year-old Tenzin Gyatso was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama in Lhasa, Tibet.
1946 - Dr. Selman Abraham Waksman announced his discovery of streptomycin, an antibiotic.
1956 - Elvis Presley entered the music charts for the first time, with "Heartbreak Hotel."
1980 - In a dramatic upset, the underdog United States Olympic hockey team, made up of collegians and second-rate professional players, defeated the defending champion Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.
1984 - Census Bureau statistics showed that the State of Alaska was the fastest growing state of the decade with a population increase of 19.2 percent.
2006 - In Britain's largest cash robbery, thieves stole $96 million (£53 or €78 million) from a Bank of England depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
2006 - The government of Tajikistan began demolition of the Dushanbe synagogue to make way for a new presidential residence, the "Palace of Nations".
Births 1732 - George Washington, first President of the United States of America (1789-1797), Commander-in-chief of Continental forces during the American Revolution.
1819 - James Russell Lowell, American poet, critic, essayist.
1892 - Edna St. Vincent Millay, American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.
1918 - Don Pardo (born Dominick George Pardo), American radio and television announcer.
1932 - Ted Kennedy, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.
1950 - Julius Erving, American basketball player.
1962 - Steve Irwin, Australian herpetologist.
1975 - Drew Barrymore, American actress.
Deaths 1512 - Amerigo Vespucci, Italian navigator after whom America is named.
1793 - Roger Sherman, an early American lawyer and politician.
1968 - Peter Arno, American cartoonist.
1987 - Andy Warhol, American Pop artist.
2002 - Roden Cutler, Australian diplomat and war hero.
2002 - Chuck Jones, American animator.
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