GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS SUNDAY, February 25, the 56th day of 2018 with 309 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 6:28 and sunset is @ 5:26. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are stars are Jupiter, Saturn & Mercury. The evening stars are Mars, Neptune, Uranus & Venus.

ON THIS DAY IN: 1570 – England’s Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.

1751 – Edward Willet displayed the first trained monkey act in the U.S.

1791 – First Bank of the United States (The President, Directors and Company, of the Bank of the United States) was chartered by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Washington.

1793 – The department heads of the U.S. government met with U.S. President Washington for the first Cabinet meeting on U.S. record.

1836 – Samuel Colt received U.S. Patent No. 138 (later 9430X) for a “revolving-cylinder pistol.” It was his first patent.

1901 – The United States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.

1913 – The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It authorized a graduated income tax.

1919 – The state of Oregon became the first state to place a tax on gasoline. The tax was 1 cent per gallon.

1928 – The Federal Radio Commission issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, DC.

1930 – The bank check photographing device was patented.

1933 – The aircraft carrier Ranger was launched. It was the first ship in the U.S. Navy to be designed and built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier.

1837 – Thomas Davenport patented the first commercial electrical motor. There was no practical electical distribution system available and Davenport went bankrupt.

1940 – The New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens played in the first hockey game to be televised in the U.S. The game was aired on W2WBS in New York with one camera in a fixed position. The Rangers beat the Canadiens 6-2.

1948 – Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.

1950 – “Your Show of Shows” debuted on NBC.

1956 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.

1972 – Germany gave a $5 million ransom to Arab terrorists who had hijacked a jumbo jet.

1986 – Filippino President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule after a tainted election.

1999 – William King was sentenced to death for the racial murder of James Byrd Jr in Jasper, TX. Two other men charged were later convicted for their involvement.

1999 – In Moscow, China’s Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin discussed trade and other issues.

2000 – In Albany, NY, a jury acquitted four New York City police officers of second-degree murder and lesser charges in the February 1999 shooting death of Amadou Diallo.

2005 – Dennis Rader was arrested for the BTK serial killings in Wichita, KS. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 life prison terms.