Today is Thursday, February 12th
The 043rd day of 2009.
There are 322 days left in the year.
Today's Highlights in History
On Feb. 12, 1973, the first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict took place.
On Feb. 12, 1809, Charles Darwin, who originated the theory of evolution by natural selection, was born.
On this date in:
1554 - Lady Jane Grey, who had claimed the throne of England for nine days, was beheaded after being charged with treason.
1733 - English colonists led by James Oglethorpe founded Savannah, Ga.
1809 - Naturalist Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England.
1809 - Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was born in present-day Larue County, Ky.
1870 - Women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote.
1909 - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in New York.
1912 - Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, abdicated, marking the end of the Qing Dynasty.
1915 - The cornerstone for the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, D.C.
1924 - George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" premiered in New York City.
1993 - Two 10-year-old boys lured 2-year-old James Bulger from his mother at a shopping mall in Liverpool, England, then beat him to death.
1999 - The Senate voted to acquit President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
2000 - Charles M. Schulz, creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip, died at age 77.
2000 - Hall of Fame football coach Tom Landry died at age 75.
2001 - The NEAR spacecraft touched down on Eros, completing the first landing on an asteroid.
2002 - The war crimes trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic began in The Hague.
2002 - Pakistan charged three men in connection with the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
2004 - Defying a California law, San Francisco officials began performing weddings for same-sex couples.
2006 - A record 26.9 inches of snow fell in New York's Central Park.
2008 - General Motors reported losing $38.7 billion in 2007 and offered buyouts to 74,000 hourly workers.