On Feb. 7, 1812, author Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England.
In 1827 America’s first ballet, “The Deserter,” was performed at the Bowery Theater in New York.
In 1861 the general council of the Choctaw Indian nation tentatively declared allegiance with the South.
In 1885 author Sinclair Lewis was born in Sauk Centre, Minn.
In 1943 the government announced wartime shoe rationing.
In 1964 the Beatles began their first American tour.
In 1971 women in Switzerland won the right to vote.
In 1974 the island nation of Grenada won independence from Britain.
In 1983 Elizabeth Dole was sworn in as the first female secretary of transportation by the first female justice on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor.
In 1984 shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert Stewart went on the first untethered spacewalk.
In 1986 Haitian President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier fled his country, ending 28 years of family rule.
In 1991 Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti’s first democratically elected president.
In 1995 Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.
In 1998 the Winter Olympics opened in Nagano, Japan.
In 1999 Jordan’s King Hussein died of cancer at age 63.
In 2000 magician Doug Henning died at 52 in Los Angeles.
In 2001 actress Dale Evans died at 88 in Apple Valley, Calif. Also, author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh, died at 94 in Passumpsic, Vt.
