February 3

Birthdays

1. 1950 Morgan Fairchild (Patsy McClenny) (actress)
2. 1947 Dave Davies (lead guitarist - kinks)
3. 1945 Bob Griese (footballer)
4. 1926 Shelley Berman (comedienne)
5. 1907 James A. Michener (novelist)
6. 1894 Norman Rockwell (artist)
7. 1874 Gertrude Stein (writer)
8. 1811 Horace Greeley (journalist)
9. 1809 Felix Mendelssohn (composer)
10. 1500 Johannes Gutenberg (Printing press Inventor)

February 3 in history:

• 1995: Astronaut Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a NASA spacecraft with the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on a mission that lasted until February 11.

• 1989: The repressive regime of Alfredo Stroessner, who had ruled Paraguay for 35 years, was overthrown in a military coup.

• 1966: The Soviet space probe Luna 9 made the first survivable landing on the Moon and sent several television images of the surface back to the Earth.

• 1959: A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, killed the rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "Big Bopper" Richardson, as well as their pilot.

• 1917: In response to the German announcement that it was resuming unrestricted submarine warfare, President Woodrow Wilson severed U.S. diplomatic relations with Germany; the United States was soon to enter World War I.

• 1821, Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to obtain (1849) a medical degree in the United States, was born in England.

• 1468: Johann Gutenberg, the German goldsmith who is credited with the invention and development in Europe of printing from movable type, died.