Today is Wednesday, Feb. 24, the 55th day of 2021. There are 310 days left in the year.
On this date:
In 1815, American engineer and inventor Robert Fulton, credited with building the first successful commercial steamboat, died in New York at 49.
In 1942, the SS Struma, a charter ship attempting to carry nearly 800 Jewish refugees from Romania to British-mandated Palestine, was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea; all but one of the refugees perished.
In 1961, the Federal Communications Commission authorized the nation’s first full-scale trial of pay television in Hartford, Connecticut.
In 1981, a jury in White Plains, New York, found Jean Harris guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of “Scarsdale Diet” author Dr. Herman Tarnower. (Sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, Harris was granted clemency by New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in December 1992.)
In 1988, in a ruling that expanded legal protections for parody and satire, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned a $150,000 award that the Rev. Jerry Falwell had won against Hustler magazine and its publisher, Larry Flynt.
In 1993, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (muhl-ROO’- nee) resigned after more than eight years in office.