TODAY'S HISTORY: In 1861, Texas voted to secede from the Union, as pro-Union Governor Sam Houston stormed out of the session in protest. In 1920, Canada created the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. and more than 700 other demonstrators were arrested at a protest in Selma, Alabama. In 2003, the U.S. space shuttle Columbia fell apart minutes before it was due to land, killing its seven-member crew.
TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS: John Ford (1895-1973), film director; Clark Gable (1901-1960), actor; Langston Hughes (1902-1967), poet; Renata Tebaldi (1922-2004), opera singer; Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007), Russian president; Princess Stephanie of Monaco (1965- ) is 43.
TODAY'S SPORTS: In 1995, Utah Jazz guard John Stockton broke Magic Johnson's record for all-time assists, finishing the game with a career total of 9,227.
TODAY'S QUOTE: "Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it." - Langston Hughes
TODAY'S FACT: Before February was Black History Month, Harvard scholar Carter G. Woodson created "Negro History Week" in 1926, for the second week in February, when both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were born.
TODAY'S NUMBER: 12,345,678,987,654,321 - number that results from multiplying 111,111,111 by 111,111,111.
TODAY'S MOON: Between last quarter (January 30) and new moon (February 6).
