Ralph Dale Earnhardt (April 29, 1951 – February 18, 2001)

Dale Earnhardt is widely regarded as one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history and was named as one of the NASCAR’s 50
Greatest Drivers class in 1998.

On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, the 19-year-old granddaughter
of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped
from her apartment in Berkeley, Cal, by three armed strangers.

Patricia Campbell Hearst will be 71 years young on
February 20th.

On February 3, 1966, the Soviet Union accomplished the first
controlled landing on the moon, when the unmanned spacecraft
Lunik 9 touches down on the Ocean of Storms.

After its soft landing, the circular capsule opened like a flower,
deploying its antennas, and began transmitting photographs
and television images back to Earth. The 220-pound landing
capsule was launched from Earth on January 31.

Lunik 9 was the third major lunar first for the Soviet space
program: On September 14, 1959, Lunik 2 became the first
manmade object to reach the moon when it impacted with
the lunar surface, and on October 7 of the same year Lunik
3 flew around the moon and transmitted back to Earth the
first images of the far side of the moon.

The first views from the Moon’s surface taken by the Soviet
Luna 9  lander, captured on Feb. 4, 1966.

Rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P.
“The Big Bopper” Richardson, along with pilot Roger Peterson, 
were killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane
crashed in Iowa a few minutes after takeoff from Mason City on
a flight headed for Moorhead, Minnesota.      

Investigators blamed the crash on bad weather and pilot error.

After mechanical difficulties with the tour bus, Holly had chartered
a plane for his band to fly between stops on the Winter Dance
Party Tour. However, Richardson, who had the flu, convinced
Holly’s band member Waylon Jennings to give up his seat, and
Ritchie Valens won a coin toss for another seat on the plane.

Singer Don McLean (above) memorialized Holly, Valens and
Richardson in the 1972 No. 1 hit “American Pie,” which
refers to February 3, 1959 as “the day the music died.”

Holly’s headstone in the City of Lubbock Cemetery.

At midday, a 40-foot wave of fiery hot molasses flooded the
streets of Boston on January 15, 1919, killing 21 people and 
injuring scores of others. 

A 58-foot high tank filled with 2.5 million gallons of crude
molasses burst under pressure due unseasonably hot
weather at the U.S. Industrial Alcohol Company plant in
the north end of the city.

The flood crushed buildings, moved a firehouse, and
knocked an elevated train off its tracks.