Today in History.....February 21

On this day in …

* 1885, the Washington Monument was dedicated

* 1916, the World War I Battle of Verdun began in France

* 1947, Edwin H. Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera, which could produce a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds

* 1965, former Black Muslim leader Malcolm X, 39, was shot to death in New York by assassins identified as Black Muslims

* 1972, President Nixon began his historic visit to China as he and his wife, Pat, arrived in Shanghai
And my 2nd Uncle, Don Laven, flew Nixon there in Air Force One!

* 1975, former Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to two and a half to eight years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up

* 1986, Larry Wu-tai Chin, the first American found guilty of spying for China, killed himself in his Virginia jail cell

* 1995, the Space Telescope Science Institute announced that photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the existence of a "black hole"
equal to the mass of 2 billion suns in a galaxy some 30 million light years away. ALSO: Chicago adventurer Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon, landing in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada

* 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that state workers cannot use an important federal disability-rights law to win money damages for on-the-job discrimination

2005, President Bush, in Belgium for a NATO summit, scolded Russia for backsliding on democracy and urged Mideast allies to take difficult steps for peace. ALSO: Israel freed 500 "Palestinian"
prisoners in a goodwill gesture. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush wrapped up their tour of tsunami-ravaged nations with a visit to the Maldives