February 27 ...

In 1801 the city of Washington, DC, was placed under congressional jurisdiction. In 1807 poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, ME. In 1812 in his first address as a member of the House of Lords, the poet Lord Byron defended Luddite destruction of textile machines in his home county of Nottinghamshire. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln gave his famous speech at Cooper Union in New York City. In 1883 Oscar Hammerstein I, grandfather of composer Oscar Hammerstein II, patented the first cigar-rolling machine. In 1902 American author John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, CA. In 1922 the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guarantying the right of women to vote. In 1923 the great jazz tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon was born in Los Angeles, CA. In 1933 Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag, caught fire. The Nazis, blaming communists, used the fire as a pretext for suspending civil liberties. In 1951 the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office, was ratified. In 1960 the US Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets, 3-2, at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, CA. (The US team went on to win the gold medal.) In 1972 the Shanghai Communique, pledging that it was in the interest of all nations for the United States and China to work towards the normalization of their relations, was issued by US President Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai at the conclusion of Nixon's historic visit to China. In 1973 the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee in South Dakota. In 1974 People magazine was first issued by Time-Life (later known as Time-Warner). In 1979 Jane M. Byrne confounded Chicago's Democratic political machine, upsetting Mayor Michael Bilandic to win their party's mayoral primary. (Byrne went on to win in the general election.) In 1985 former ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who had served three terms as a US senator, and ran as the 1960 Republican vice-presidential nominee, died in Beverly, MA, at age 82. In 1986 the US Senate approved telecasts of its debates on a trial basis. In 1991 President George H.W. Bush declared that "Kuwait is liberated, Iraq's army is defeated," and announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight.