Today is Thursday, Feb. 24, the 55th day of 2022. There are 310 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Feb. 24, 1942, the SS Struma, a charter ship attempting to carry nearly 800 Jewish refugees from Romania to British-mandated Palestine, was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea; all but one of the refugees perished.
On this date:
In 1868, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson by a vote of 126-47 following his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; Johnson was later acquitted by the Senate.
In 1981, a jury in White Plains, New York, found Jean Harris guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of “Scarsdale Diet” author Dr. Herman Tarnower. (Sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, Harris was granted clemency by New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in December 1992.)
In 1988, in a ruling that expanded legal protections for parody and satire, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned a $150,000 award that the Rev. Jerry Falwell had won against Hustler magazine and its publisher, Larry Flynt.
In 2008, Cuba’s parliament named Raul Castro president, ending nearly 50 years of rule by his brother Fidel.
In 2011, Discovery, the world’s most traveled spaceship, thundered into orbit for the final time, heading toward the International Space Station on a journey marking the beginning of the end of the shuttle era.
In 2015, the Justice Department announced that George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in a 2012 confrontation, would not face federal charges.
In 2020, former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was convicted in New York on charges of rape and sexual assault involving two women. (Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in state prison.)
Today’s Birthdays: Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., is 80. Actor Barry Bostwick is 77. Actor Edward James Olmos is 75. Singer-writer-producer Rupert Holmes is 75. Rock singer-musician George Thorogood is 72. News anchor Paula Zahn is 66. Baseball Hall of Famer Eddie Murray is 66. Country singer Sammy Kershaw is 64. Former boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. is 45.
