| On this date in: |
| 1685 |
Composer George Frideric Handel was born in Germany. |
| 1822 |
Boston was granted a charter to incorporate as a city. |
| 1836 |
The siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas. |
| 1847 |
U.S. troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican general Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in Mexico. |
| 1848 |
John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, died at age 80 in Washington, D.C., two days after suffering a stroke on the floor of the House of Representatives. |
| 1861 |
President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office after an assassination plot was foiled in Baltimore. |
| 1870 |
Mississippi was readmitted to the Union. |
| 1954 |
The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began, in Pittsburgh. |
| 1965 |
Stan Laurel of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy died at age 74. |
| 1991 |
President George H.W. Bush announced that the allied ground offensive against Iraqi forces had begun. |
| 1997 |
Scientists in Scotland announced they had cloned an adult mammal, producing a lamb named Dolly. |
| 1999 |
A jury in Jasper, Texas, convicted white supremacist John William King of murder in the dragging death of an African-American man, James Byrd Jr. |
| 2000 |
Carlos Santana won eight Grammy Awards for his album “Supernatural,” tying the record set by Michael Jackson in 1983 for “Thriller.” |
| 2003 |
Norah Jones won five Grammy Awards for the album “Come Away With Me.” |
| 2011 |
The Obama administration said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law banning recognition of same-sex marriage. |
