On February 15, 1961, the entire 18-member U.S. figure skating team was killed in a plane crash in Berg-Kampenhout, Belgium.
The team was on its way to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Among those killed in the crash was 16-year-old Laurence Owen, who had won the U.S. Figure Skating Championship in the ladies’ division the previous month.
She was featured on the February 13, 1961, cover of Sports Illustrated, which called her the “most exciting U.S. skater.”
Shortly after the 1961 crash, the U.S. Figure Skating Memorial Fund was established; to date, it has provided financial assistance to thousands of elite American skaters.
John Glenn made space history on this day in 1962 when he orbited the world three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes. He became the first American to orbit the Earth. He was aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule. Glenn witnessed the Devil’s Cigarette Lighter while in flight.
In West Warwick, RI on this day in 2003, 100 people were killed and more than 230 were injured when fire destroyed the nightclub, The Station. The fire started with sparks from a pyrotechnic display being used by Jack Russel’s Great White. Ty Longley, guitarist for the band, was one of the victims in the fire.
American Tara Lipinski, at age 15, became the youngest gold medalist in winter Olympics history when she won the ladies’ figure skating title at Nagano, Japan on this day in 1998.
Joan of Arc (Jeanne d’Arc) (January 6, 1412 – May 30, 1431)
The capture of “The Maid ofOrléans”
Samuel Morse publicly demonstrated the telegraph for the first time on this day in 1838.
(John T. McCoy’s watercolor depiction of the round-the-world flight.)
The first commercial around-the-world airline flight took place on this day in 1942. Pan American Airlines was the company that made history with the feat.
On this day in 1994, figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed on the right leg by an assailant at Cobo Arena in Detroit, MI. Four men were later sentenced to prison for the attack, including Tonya Harding’s ex-husband.
Shown from left: Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993)
Adolf Hitler purged the Nazi Party by destroying the SA and bringing to power the SS in the "Night of the Long Knives”.
The original Pure Food and Drug Act (also known as the Wiley Act) was passed by Congress on June 30, 1906 and signed by President Theodore Roosevelt. It prohibited interstate commerce in misbranded and adulterated foods, drinks and drugs under penalty of seizure of the questionable products and/or prosecution of the responsible parties.
The Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 11 returned to Earth on this day in 1971. The three cosmonauts (below) were found dead inside.
Margaret Mitchell’s book, "Gone with the Wind," was published in this day in 1936. It was one of the best-selling novels of all time and the basis for a blockbuster 1939 movie.
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell(November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949)
From left: Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.
On this day in 1994, the U.S. Figure Skating Association stripped Tonya Harding of the 1994 national championship and banned her from the organization for life for an attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan.
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne(June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010)
Twentieth-century African-American singer and actress Lena Horne sang "Stormy Weather," won a Grammy Award for a 1981 album entitled Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, and appeared in film versions of The Wiz, Broadway Rhythm, and Ziegfeld Follies.
After dropping out of high school at the age of sixteen, she performed in the chorus of Harlem’s famed Cotton Club.