Today in History ~ February 5

AD 62 – Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.

1597 – A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.

1852 – The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public.

1869 – The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, called the “Welcome Stranger”, is found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia.

1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.

1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto.

1918 – SS Tuscania is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.

1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal.

1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

1971 – Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission.

2008 – A major tornado outbreak across the Southern United States kills 57.

976 – Sanjō, emperor of Japan (d. 1017)

1810 – Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist and composer (d. 1880)

1837 – Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist and publisher, founded Moody Church, Moody Bible Institute, and Moody Publishers (d. 1899)

1840 – John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish businessman, co-founded Dunlop Rubber (d. 1921)

1840 – Hiram Maxim, American engineer, invented the Maxim gun (d. 1916)

1878 – André Citroën, French engineer and businessman, founded Citroën (d. 1935)

1900 – Adlai Stevenson II, American soldier, politician, and diplomat, 5th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (d. 1965)

1934 – Hank Aaron, American baseball player

1944 – Al Kooper, American singer-songwriter and producer

1790 – William Cullen, Scottish physician and chemist (b. 1710)

1957 – Sami Ibrahim Haddad, Lebanese surgeon and author (b. 1890)

2008 – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founded Transcendental Meditation (b. 1918)