February 20<\/p>\n
1521 \u2013 Juan Ponce de Le\u00f3n sets out from Spain for Florida with about 200 prospective colonists.<\/p>\n
1685 \u2013 Ren\u00e9-Robert Cavelier establishes Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, northeast of modern day Corpus Christi, becoming the basis for France’s claim to Texas.<\/p>\n
1792 \u2013 The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed into law by President Washington.<\/p>\n
1864 \u2013 The largest battle fought in Florida during the Civil War occurs near Ocean Pond in Olustee, Baker county Florida<\/p>\n
1872 \u2013 The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.<\/p>\n
1901 \u2013 The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.<\/p>\n
1905 \u2013 The Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Massachusetts’s mandatory smallpox vaccination program in Jacobson v. Massachusetts.<\/em><\/p>\n 1931 \u2013 Congress approves the construction of the San Francisco\u2013Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California.<\/p>\n 1933 \u2013 Congress approves the Blaine Act to repeal federal prohibition, sending the 21st Amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification to repeal the 18th Amendment.<\/p>\n 1942 \u2013 In the South Pacific off Bougainville Island, while flying a Grumman F4F3A from the carrier USS Lexington<\/em>\u00a0as part of a carrier defense intercept flight against 9 Japanese bombers, Navy Lieutenant Edward O’Hare is credited with shooting down 5 of the bombers, becoming the first U.S. Navy\u00a0 “Ace” of World War II and is later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.<\/p>\n 1943 \u2013 American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.<\/p>\n 1956 \u2013 The United States Merchant Marine Academy becomes a permanent Service Academy.<\/p>\n 1962 \u2013 While aboard Mercury capsule Friendship 7<\/em>, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making 3 orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.<\/p>\n 1965 \u2013 NASA’s Ranger 8<\/em> probe crashes into the Moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.<\/p>\n 1986 \u2013 The Soviet Union launches its Mir<\/em> space station, remaining in orbit for 15 years.<\/p>\n 1998 \u2013 American figure skater Tara Lipinski, at the age of 15, becomes the youngest Olympic figure skating gold medalist at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.<\/p>\n 2003 \u2013 During a concert performance in West Warwick, Rhode Island by the rock group Great White<\/em>, a pyrotechnics display sets The Station<\/em> nightclub ablaze, killing 100 people and injuring over 200 others.<\/p>\n 2016 \u2013 6 people are killed and 2 wounded by an Uber driver in multiple random shootings in Kalamazoo County, Michigan with the shooter finally being arrested the next day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 20 1521 \u2013 Juan Ponce de Le\u00f3n sets out from Spain for Florida with about 200 prospective colonists. 1685 \u2013 Ren\u00e9-Robert Cavelier establishes Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, northeast of modern day Corpus Christi, becoming the basis for France’s claim to Texas. 1792 \u2013 The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65040"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90231,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65040\/revisions\/90231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}