Moments in Time: Snowboard Marvel
The History Channel
On Feb. 9, 2022, snowboard marvel Chloe Kim made history as the first athlete to earn a gold medal in the women's snowboard halfpipe event in two consecutive Winter Olympics. Four years earlier, she had also become the youngest winner of that event at age 17.
On Feb. 10, 1943, duct tape was born when factory worker Vesta Stoudt, who packed WWII munitions, sent a letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlining, with drawings, her idea to replace weak paper packing tape with a tougher and waterproof cloth version. The president was impressed enough to launch the suggestion into production.
On Feb. 11, 2012, singer Whitney Houston was found dead in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The cause of death was determined to be accidental drowning, with contributing factors of heart disease and cocaine.
On Feb. 12, 1970, Joseph Searles III became the first Black member of the New York Stock Exchange, following in the footsteps of Clarence B. Jones, who three years previously was the first African American to become an allied NYSE member, but without trading floor access.
On Feb. 13, 1861, Col. Bernard J.D. Irwin, an assistant army surgeon serving in the first major U.S.-Apache conflict, volunteered to go to the rescue of 2nd Lt. George N. Bascom, who was trapped with 60 men of the U.S. Seventh Infantry by the Chiricahua Apaches in southeastern Arizona, in what became the earliest military action to be awarded a Medal of Honor.
On Feb. 14, 1980, playwright Lillian Hellman sued novelist and critic Mary McCarthy for libel, demanding $2.25 million in damages. The case posed the tricky question of where the legal line stands between a critic's free speech and malicious libel.
On Feb. 15, 1961, the entire 18 member U.S. figure skating team was killed in a plane crash in Berg-Kampenhout, Belgium, while on their way to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Investigators were unable to determine the exact cause of the crash, though mechanical difficulties were suspected.
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