History for February 1

History for February 1 - On-This-Day.com:
John Ford (Sean Aloysius O’Feeney) 1894 - Director, Clark Gable 1901 - Actor ("It Happened One Night", "Gone with the Wind"), Stuart Whitman 1928 - Actor ("Cimarron Strip", "The Longest Day")


Boris Yeltsin 1931 - Russian president 1991-1999, Garrett Morris 1937 - Actor, comedian, Sherman Hemsley 1938 - Actor ("The Jeffersons")


1862 - "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," by Julia Ward Howe was first published in the "Atlantic Monthly."


1884 - The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.


1900 - Eastman Kodak Co. introduced the $1 Brownie box camera.


1919 - The first Miss America was crowned in New York City.


1953 - CBS-TV debuted "Private Secretary."


1968 - During the Vietnam War, South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head. The scene was captured in a news photograph.


1979 - Patty Hearst was released from prison after serving 22 months of a seven-year sentence for bank robbery. Her sentence had been commuted by U.S. President Carter.


2003 - NASA's space shuttle Columbia exploded while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. All seven astronauts on board were killed.