World/nation trivia: The week of Feb. 1-8

Feb. 2:

1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, officially ending the Mexican-American War.

1925, the legendary Alaska Serum Run ended as the last of a series of dog mushers brought life-saving medication to Nome, the scene of a diphtheria epidemic, traveling 674 miles in just six days.

1990, in a dramatic concession to South Africa’s Black majority, President F.W. de Klerk lifted a ban on the African National Congress and promised to free Nelson Mandela.

Feb. 3:

1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting Black American men the right to vote, was ratified.

1913, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for a federal income tax, was ratified.

1959, which would become known as “the day the music died,” rock-and-roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died in a small plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.

2002, the New England Patriots won their first Super Bowl, defeating the St. Louis Rams 20-17.

Feb. 4:

1789, electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.

1974, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19, was kidnapped in Berkeley, California, by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army.

1997, a civil jury in Santa Monica, California, found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, ordering Simpson to pay $33.5 million to the victims’ families.

2013, British scientists announced that the skeletal remains they had discovered during an excavation beneath a Leicester, England parking lot were, beyond reasonable doubt, the remains of 15th-century monarch King Richard III.

Feb. 5:

1918, more than 200 people were killed during World War I when the Cunard liner SS Tuscania, which was transporting over 2,000 American troops to Europe, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Irish Sea.

1971, Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell stepped onto the surface of the moon in the first of two lunar excursions.

1994, white separatist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted in Jackson, Mississippi, of murdering civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963 and was sentenced to life in prison.

2020, the Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump, bringing to a close the third presidential trial in American history.

Feb. 6:

1778, during the American Revolutionary War, the United States won official recognition and military support from France with the signing of a Treaty of Alliance in Paris.

1899, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain was ratified by the U.S. Senate; the treaty ended the Spanish-American War and ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States.

1952, Britain’s King George VI, 56, died at Sandringham House in Norfolk, England; he was succeeded as monarch by his 25-year-old eldest daughter, who became Queen Elizabeth II.

2008, the Bush White House defended the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, saying it was legal, not torture, and had saved American lives.

Feb. 7:

1943, the government abruptly announced that wartime rationing of shoes made of leather would go into effect in two days, limiting consumers to buying three pairs per person per year. (This was reduced to two pairs per year in 1944; rationing was lifted in October 1945.)

1964, the Beatles were met by thousands of screaming fans at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport as they arrived to begin their first American tour.

1984, space shuttle Challenger astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart went on the first untethered spacewalk.

2013, Mississippi certified its ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, making it the last state to officially abolish slavery.

Feb. 8:

1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated by William D. Boyce.

1936, the first NFL draft was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia.

1968, three Black students were killed and 28 wounded as state troopers opened fire on student demonstrators on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg in the wake of protests over a whites-only bowling alley. The event would become known as the Orangeburg Massacre.

— Associated Press