February 19 ...

In 1473 astronomer Nicolas Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland. In 1803 Congress voted to accept Ohio's borders and constitution. In 1807 former Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. (He was subsequently tried for treason and acquitted.) In 1846 the Texas state government was formally installed in Austin. In 1878 Thomas Edison received his patent for the phonograph. In 1881 Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages. In 1942 President Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans as well as Japanese nationals living in the US; also on this day, more than 150 Japanese warplanes attacked the northern Australian city of Darwin, killing at least 240 people (it was the first of over 60 Japanese attacks on the city during WWII). In 1943 the Battle of Kasserine Pass in Tunisia began (the Americans were roundly defeated by the Germans in the first large-scale battle between the two countries during WWII). In 1945 the Battle of Iwo Jima began. In 1986 the Soviet Union launched the Mir space station. In 1997 the last of China's major Communist revolutionaries, Deng Xiaoping, died. In 2002 NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft began using its thermal emission imaging system to map Mars.