February 18

February 18 in history:

• 1685, Fort St. Louis is established by a Frenchman at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas

• 1841, the first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins and lasts until March 11

• 1885, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published for the first time

• 1901, Winston Churchill makes his maiden speech in the British House of Commons

• 1911, the first official flight with air mail takes place in Allahabad, British India, when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivers 6,500 letters to Naini, about 10 km away

• 1930, while studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.

• 1930, Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft

• 1970, the Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic Party national convention. Five were convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968. (Those convictions were later reversed)

• 1972, the California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, 6 Cal.3d 628 invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life in prison

• 1977, the Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle goes on its maiden "flight" while sitting on top of a Boeing 747

• 1979, snow fell in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the first and only recorded time in history

• 1983, 13 people die and one is seriously injured in the Wah Mee Massacre in Seattle, Washington, said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in American history

• 1998, two white separatists are arrested in Nevada and accused of plotting a biological attack on New York City subways

• 2001, FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

• 2001, Dale Earnhardt is killed in a crash during the final lap of the Daytona 500, which was won by Michael Waltrip, driving in a car that Earnhardt owned. His son, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. finished second

• 2003, nearly 200 people die in the Daegu subway fire in South Korea