From left, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President
Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin sit on the patio
of Livadia Palace.

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference, was held
February 4–11, 1945 and convened in the Livadia Palace. It was the major
World War II conference. It was the second conference of the “Big Three”
Allied leaders–U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin–and the war had
progressed mightily since their last meeting, which had taken place in
Tehran in late 1943.

 

TIM MAGUIRE

On February 7, 1964, Pan Am Yankee Clipper flight 101 from London
Heathrow landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport—and “Beatlemania”
arrives. It was the first visit to the United States by the Beatles, a
British rock-and-roll quartet that had just scored its first No. 1 U.S.
hit six days before with “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” At Kennedy,
the “Fab Four”—dressed in mod suits and sporting their trademark
pudding bowl haircuts—were greeted by 3,000 screaming fans who
caused a near riot when the boys stepped off their plane and onto
American soil.

Country/Pop singer Troyal Garth Brooks is 58 years old today.

 
ED DONAHUE
    
    
    

Space Shuttle Columbia’s last Launch.     
     
 

The Columbia’s 28th space mission, designated STS-107, was originally
scheduled to launch on January 11, 2001, but was delayed numerous
times for a variety of reasons over nearly two years. Columbia finally
launched on January 16, 2003, with a crew of seven.

Eighty seconds into the launch, a piece of foam insulation broke off
from the shuttle’s propellant tank and hit the edge of the shuttle’s
left wing.

When Columbia re-entered the earth’s atmosphere on the morning of
February 1, 2003, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to
penetrate the heat shield and destroy the internal wing structure,
which caused the spacecraft to become unstable and break apart.

The first debris began falling to the ground in West Texas near Lubbock
at 8:58 a.m. One minute later, the last communication from the crew of
five men and two women was heard, and at 9 a.m. the space shuttle
disintegrated over northeast Texas, near Dallas.  
     
     
    

      
        
                      
     
    
   
       
 
Crewmember helmet found in a field after the space shuttle Columbia 
disaster.

Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

On January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King, Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia,
the son of a Baptist minister. King received a doctorate degree in theology
and in 1955 helped organized the first protest of the African-American civil
rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated civil disobedience and nonviolent
resistance to segregation in the South. The peaceful protests he led
throughout the American South were often met with violence, but King
and his followers persisted, and the movement gained momentum.

A powerful orator, King appealed to Christian and American ideals and
won growing support from the federal government and Northern whites.

In 1963, Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph led the massive March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; the event’s grand finale was King’s 
famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Two hundred and fifty thousand people
gathered outside the Lincoln Memorial to hear the stirring speech. 

Nancy Kerrigan cries in pain after the attack.

Former figure skater Nancy Kerrigan (above) was clubber on her right leg
by an assailant on this day in 1994. The attacker was hired by the ex-
husband of her rival Tonya Harding.  Four men were later sentenced to
prison for the attack, including Harding’s ex-husband.

Nancy Kerrigan turned 50 last October.

Tonya Maxene Price (née Harding) became 49 in
November.