This Day…

1916 – British author of “The Lord of the Rings”, J.R.R. Tolkien marries Edith Mary Bratt at St. Mary Immaculate Roman Catholic Church, Warwick

1922 – British magistrates in India sentence Mahatma Gandhi to 6 years imprisonment for disobedience.

1826 – The first railroad in the U.S. was chartered. It was the Granite Railway in Quincy, MA.

1854 – Republican Party formally organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

1846 – 1st US woman telegrapher, Sarah G Bagley, Lowell, Massachusetts.

1953 – Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz signed a contract worth $8,000,000 to continue the “I Love Lucy” TV show through 1955.

1929 – St Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, 7 gangsters killed, allegedly on Al Capone‘s orders.

1854 – For the 1st time coal gas is used to light major streets in San Francisco.

1886 – US President Grover Cleveland declares a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese violence.

1894 – The Cripple Creek miners’ strike, led by the Western Federation of Miners, begins in Cripple Creek, Colorado.