The picture, known as Pale Blue Dot (above) depicts our
planet as a nearly indiscernible speck roughly the size
of a pixel. 

On Valentine’s Day, 1990, 3.7 billion miles away from the sun,  
the Voyager 1 spacecraft looked back at our solar system and
snapped the first-ever pictures of the planets from its perch at
that time beyond Neptune. This is the last image Voyager 1 ever
beamed back after which the cameras were turned off to save
power and memory.

Artist impression of Voyager-1.

Bernard John Dowling Irwin
(June 24, 1830 – December 15, 1917)

U.S. Army assistant surgeon Bernard John Dowling "J.D." Irwin
rescued a kidnapped boy and 60 soldiers encircled by legendary
Apache warrior Cochise on this day in history, Feb. 13, 1861.

Irwin’s heroic volunteer effort under dire circumstances in the
Arizona Territory has gone down in American military lore as
the first Congressional Medal of Honor action.

It took place before the award even existed.

The Cochise Stronghold in Arizona.

Singer, songwriter, musician, and actor.Waylon Jennings is
considered one of the pioneers of the outlaw movement in
country music.

Jennings started playing guitar at age eight and performed
at fourteen on KVOW radio, after which he formed his first
band, the Texas Longhorns. Jennings left high school at age
sixteen, determined to become a musician, and worked as a
performer and DJ on KVOW, KDAV, KYTI, KLLL, in Coolidge,
Arizona, and Phoenix. In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings’
first recording session, a cover of Jole Blon, and hired him to
play bass. Jennings gave up his seat on the ill-fated flight in
1959 that crashed and killed Holly, J. P. "the Big Bopper"
Richardson and Ritchie Valens.

Jennings died in his sleep from complications of diabetes at
his home in Chandler, Arizona, aged 64.

Waylon Jennings ,left, on bass guitar and Buddy Holly.

On February 12, 1999, the five-week impeachment trial of Bill
Clinton came to an end, with the Senate voting to acquit the
president on both articles of impeachment: perjury and
obstruction of justice.

The Payola scandal reaches a new level of public prominence
and legal gravity on this day 1960, when President Eisenhower
called it an issue of public morality and the FCC proposed a
new law making involvement in Payola a criminal act.

What exactly was Payola? During the hearings conducted by Congressman Oren Harris (D-Arkansas) and his powerful
Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight—fresh off its inquiry
into quiz-show rigging—the term was sometimes used as a
blanket reference to a range of corrupt practices in the radio
and recording industries.

   
Albert James "Alan" Freed 
(December 15, 1921 – January 20, 1965)        

      
      
     
In 1960, payola was made illegal. In December 1962, after
being charged on multiple counts of commercial bribery, 
Freed pled guilty to two counts of commercial bribery,
fined three hundred dollars and was given a suspended 
sentence.