On This Day:
Wednesday February 18, 2015 This is the 49th day of the year, with 316 days remaining in 2015. Fact of the Day: traffic lights The present system of color coding was developed by the railroads during World War I, though the use of these particular colors for the same meanings goes back further. Red, the color of blood, has been a danger signal since early times; even Roman legions used a red banner for Mars, the god of war. The other colors have changed over time. Originally red meant "stop", green "caution" and white "go". The white signal was easily confused with normal light, so it as changed. The railroads decided to drop white and make green "go" and yellow "caution", the latter presumably because it was readily visible and offered the most striking contrast to the other two colors. The first traffic signals (Cleveland 1914) used just red and green. In the early 1920s, in Detroit, they started using the three colors we use today.
Holidays Feast day of St. Colman of Lindisfarne, St. Flavian of Jerusalem, St. Simeon of Jerusalem, St. Theotonius, and St. Helladius of Toledo.
Gambia: Independence Day.
Nepal: National Democracy Day.
Zambia: Kuomboka.
Events 1678 - John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" was published.
1688 - Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania adopted the first formal antislavery resolution in America.
1735 - The first opera produced in the colonies was performed in Charleston, South Carolina, entitled "Flora."
1865 - The mayor of Charleston, South Carolina, surrendered control of the city to Union Brigadier General Alexander Schimmelfennig.
1885 - Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was published.
1908 - U.S. postage stamps were first sold.
1930 - The ninth planet of our solar system, Pluto, was discovered at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, by astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh.
1970 - The "Chicago Seven" defendants were found innocent of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention.
2001 - FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested and charged with selling American secrets to the Soviet Union and Russia over a 15-year period.
Births 1516 - Mary Tudor, Queen of England known as "Bloody Mary," daughter of Henry VIII, King of England, and Catherine of Aragon.
1795 - George Peabody, American merchant and philanthropist.
1848 - Louis Comfort Tiffany, American craftsman, glassmaker, and jewelry designer.
1862 - Charles M. Schwab, American, president of both U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel.
1898 - Enzo Ferrari, Italian auto racer, auto manufacturer.
1922 - Helen Gurley Brown, American feminist, publisher, author.
1933 - Yoko Ono Lennon, Japanese-born American singer, wife of John Lennon.
1934 - Audre Lorde, a writer, poet, and activist.
1953 - Robbie Bachman (born Robin Bachman), Canadian drummer and founder of Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
1957 - Vanna White, American television personality.
1968 - Molly Ringwald, American actress.
1985 - Lee Boyd Malvo, American serial killer, sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
Deaths 1564 - Michelangelo (born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni), an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer.
1902 - Charles Lewis Tiffany, American founder of Tiffany & Co.
1906 - John Batterson Stetson, American hat manufacturer.
1964 - Joseph-Armand Bombardier a Canadian inventor and businessman, and the founder of Bombardier in Quebec.
1977 - Andy Devine, raspy-voiced American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick.
1981 - John Knudsen Northrop, American aircraft industrialist.
1998 - Harry Caray (born Harry Christopher Carabina), American sportscaster.
2001 - Dale Earnhardt, Sr., American race car driver, from injuries suffered in a crash at the Daytona 500.
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