Today In History...

In 1793 During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason by the National Convention, is executed by the guillotine.

In 1861 Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four other Southerners resign from the U.S. Senate.

In 1892 John Couch Adams, English co-discoverer of Neptune, dies.

In 1908 New York City enacts an ordinance that made smoking in public by women punishable by a fine of $5.00 to $25.00 and 10 days in jail.

In 1915 The Kiwanis Club is formed in Detroit, Michigan.

In 1924 Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin dies of a stroke at age 54.

In 1950 A federal jury in New York finds former State Department official Alger Hiss guilty of perjury.

In 1950 George Orwell, author of "1984," dies in London.

In 1954 The first gas turbine automobile is exhibited in New York City.

In 1954 The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched atGroton, Connecticut.

In 1969 Switzerland had to seal off an underground cavern after a nuclear accident.

In 1976 The supersonic Concorde is put into service by Britain and France.

In 1977 President Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.

In 1979 The Pittsburgh Steelers become the first team to win three Super Bowls, when they defeat the Dallas Cowboys, 35-31, in Super Bowl XIII.

In 1979 Neptune becomes the outermost planet (Pluto moves closer).

In 1982 John Henry Abbott, a convict turned author, is found guilty in New York of first-degree manslaughter in the stabbing death of waiter Richard Adan in 1981.

In 1986 Thirty people are killed when a car packed with explosives exploded on a busy street of Christian east Beirut.

In 1987 West Germany indicates that extraditing a suspect in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner to the U.S. could take longer than originally expected.

In 1988 A study released in the Journal of the American Medical Association said the anti-acne drug known as Retin-A could reduce wrinkles.

In 1990 In the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, mutinous military cadets fire on troops patrolling the capital during a crackdown on anationalist uprising.

In 1991 During the Persian Gulf War, CBS News correspondent Bob Simon, CBS News London bureau chief Peter Bluff, a cameraman and soundman are captured by Iraqi forces; they were released March 2.

In 1992 The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to review a Pennsylvania law imposing waiting periods and other restrictions on abortions. The courtlater upheld most of the restrictions while reaffirming womens' constitutional right to abortion.

In 1993 Two U.S. warplanes bomb a defense site in northern Iraq after radar was turned on them.

In 1994 Lorena Bobbit is found temporarily insane and not guilty of malicious wounding for severing her husband's penis by a jury in Manassas, VA.

In 1995 President Clinton, addressing a meeting of the Democratic National Committee, implores members of his party to "bear down and go forward" despite the results of the 1994 elections.

In 1996 With 88 percent of the vote, Yasser Arafat wins first Palestinian election.

In 1997 Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is censured and fined as House votes for first time in history to discipline its leader forethical misconduct.

In 1997 Florida's crop losses from a surprise freeze climb to nearly $300 million.

In 1998 Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky says on tape she had affair with President Clinton, which he denies.

In 1998 Pope John Paul II begins a historic visit to Cuba.

In 1998 Actor Jack Lord ("Hawaii Five-O") dies in Honolulu at age 77.

In 2000 Grandmothers of Elian Gonzalez fly to U.S. to plead for the boy's return to Cuba.

In 2001 Byron De La Beckwith, a white supremacist convicted three decades after the fact for assassinating civil rights leader Medgar Evers, dies in Jackson, MS, at age 80.

In 2003 The Census Bureau announces that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as America's largest minority group.

In 2003 A powerful earthquake shakes west-central Mexico, killing 28 people and leaving 10,000 homeless.

In 2008 The Eyak language in Alaska becomes extinct as its last nativespeaker dies.

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