8 Things You May Not Know About American Money

On February 25, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the National Banking Act (originally known as the National Currency Act), which for the first time in American history established the federal dollar as the sole currency of the United States. On the law’s 150th anniversary, explore eight surprising facts about American money.

TIMELIME OF AMERICAN BILLS:
https://www.uscurrency.gov/content/history-american-currency

1. The Constitution only authorized the federal government to issue coins, not paper money.
Article One of the Constitution granted the federal government the sole power “to coin money” and “regulate the value thereof.” However, it said nothing about paper money. This was largely because the founding fathers had seen the bills issued by the Continental Congress to finance the American Revolution—called “continentals”—become virtually worthless by the end of the war. The implosion of the continental eroded faith in paper currency to such an extent that the Constitutional Convention delegates decided to remain silent on the issue.

2. Prior to the Civil War, banks printed paper money.
For America’s first 70 years, private entities, and not the federal government, issued paper money. Notes printed by state-chartered banks, which could be exchanged for gold and silver, were the most common form of paper currency in circulation. From the founding of the United States to the passage of the National Banking Act, some 8,000 different entities issued currency, which created an unwieldy money supply and facilitated rampant counterfeiting. By establishing a single national currency, the National Banking Act eliminated the overwhelming variety of paper money circulating throughout the country and created a system of banks chartered by the federal government rather than by the states. The law also assisted the federal government in financing the Civil War.

3. Foreign coins were once acceptable legal tender in the United States.
Before gold and silver were discovered in the West in the mid-1800s, the United States lacked a sufficient quantity of precious metals for minting coins. Thus, a 1793 law permitted Spanish dollars and other foreign coins to be part of the American monetary system. Foreign coins were not banned as legal tender until 1857.

4. The highest-denomination note ever printed was worth $100,000.
The largest bill ever produced by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing was the $100,000 gold certificate. The currency notes were printed between December 18, 1934, and January 9, 1935, with the portrait of President Woodrow Wilson on the front. Don’t ask your bank teller for a $100,000 bill, though. The notes were never circulated to the public and were used solely for transactions among Federal Reserve banks.

5. You won’t find a president on the highest-denomination bill ever issued to the public.
The $10,000 bill is the highest denomination ever circulated by the federal government. In spite of its value, it is adorned not with a portrait of a president but with that of Salmon P. Chase, treasury secretary at the time of the passage of the National Banking Act. Chase later served as chief justice of the Supreme Court. The federal government stopped producing the $10,000 bill in 1969 along with these other high-end denominations: $5,000 (fronted by James Madison), $1,000 (fronted by Grover Cleveland) and $500 (fronted by William McKinley). (Although rare to find in your wallet, $2 bills are still printed periodically.)

6. Two American presidents appeared on Confederate dollars.
The Confederacy issued paper money worth approximately $1 billion during the Civil War—more than twice the amount circulated by the United States. While it’s not surprising that Confederate President Jefferson Davis and depictions of slaves at work in fields appeared on some dollar bills, so too did two Southern slave-holding presidents whom Confederates claimed as their own: George Washington (on a $50 and $100 bill) and Andrew Jackson (on a $1,000 bill).

7. Your house may literally have been built with old money.
When dollar bills are taken out of circulation or become worn, they are shredded by Federal Reserve banks. In some cases, the federal government has sold the shredded currency to companies that can recycle it and use it for the production of building materials such as roofing shingles or insulation. (The Bureau of Engraving and Printing also sells small souvenir bags of shredded currency that was destroyed during the printing process.)

8. The $10 bill has the shortest lifespan of any denomination.
According to the Federal Reserve, the estimated lifespan of a $10 bill is 3.6 years. The estimated lifespans of a $5 and $1 bill are 3.8 years and 4.8 years, respectively. The highest estimated lifespan is for a $100 bill at nearly 18 years. The federal government reports that approximately 4,000 double folds (forward, then backward) are required to tear a note.

resource: http://www.history.com

Following his beliefs: The Ralph Lazo Story

Following his beliefs led him to Manzanar

Ralph Lazo's decision to voluntarily join his Japanese American classmates in the internment camp still resonates 65 years later.

May 27, 2007|Cecilia Rasmussen | Times Staff Writerreprint: http://articles.latimes.com

Manzanar, Calif., May 1942.

It's a warm morning at the dusty, inhospitable World War II internment camp on the bleak edge of the Owens Valley. Latino teenager Ralph Lazo arrives by bus to join his Japanese American friends from Belmont High School. Lazo, a 16-year-old Mexican-Irish American, was motivated by loyalty and outrage at the internment of his friends. He became the only known non-spouse, non-Japanese who voluntarily relocated to Manzanar. "Who can say that I haven't got Japanese blood in my veins?" Lazo told The Times in a 1981 interview. That sentiment is voiced by actor Alexis Cruz , who plays Lazo in a 33-minute docudrama, "Stand Up for Justice: The Ralph Lazo Story." The film, which also uses archival footage, is part of a project to make local history and civics lessons more interesting for high school students.

The Los Angeles Unified School District recognized Lazo's act of friendship and loyalty last week as the Board of Education presented his relatives with a certificate for his contributions to the Japanese American community. Film participants, teachers and members of the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress group were also awarded certificates for the project, part of the board's Asian Pacific Heritage Month Resolution. Lazo was "an individual who showed courage. He stood up for his neighbors, doing the right thing at a difficult time," said John Esaki, who wrote and directed the film and is program director at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. "This story has been told hundreds of times, but never through the eyes of a Mexican American. He was legendary, winning the hearts of everyone at Manzanar, and it was hard to ignore such a powerful and enduring character."

The film, made for about $100,000, was produced by Visual Communications, an Asian

Pacific media arts center, and funded by the California Civil Liberties Public Education Project. It recreates the period after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. More than two months later, on Feb. 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed an executive order for the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast, believing them to be a threat to national security.

Lazo, who was born in Los Angeles in 1925, grew up in the Temple Street neighborhood on Bunker Hill, a melting pot of Japanese, Basques, Jews, Latinos, Anglos, Filipinos, Koreans and African Americans. As he watched posters go up in community churches giving instructions for the internment process, "it really hit home," he told The Times in 1981. Anger overwhelmed him as he helped his friends hurriedly sell their belongings for a pittance. "Internment was immoral," he said. "It was wrong, and I couldn't accept it."

His father, John Houston Lazo, was a widower who supported Ralph and his sister, Virginia, by working for the Santa Fe Railroad and painting houses. When his father was on the road, Ralph Lazo often ate at the homes of Nisei friends -- second-generation Japanese Americans. He also played basketball on a Filipino community church team.  In May 1942, prodded by Japanese American classmates "to come along," Lazo slipped aboard a train. He'd told his father that he was going to camp with his Japanese American friends but was vague about the particulars. "I think he thought I meant weekend camp," Lazo told The Times. But when his father learned that his son was at Manzanar, he made no effort to bring him home. "He was a wise man," Lazo said. "He knew I was safe."

No government official asked about his ancestry, he said. "Being brown has its advantages." Despite Manzanar's name, Spanish for "apple orchard," the area had been left barren decades earlier when Owens Valley water was diverted to Los Angeles. But Lazo helped to make the place as attractive as possible by planting trees. He also delivered mail and kept spirits up by holding holiday parties that featured punch, deviled-egg sandwiches and the Jive Bombers, the camp's dance band. He even played cupid, matchmaking several friends, according to Esaki, the filmmaker. "He was enthusiastic. He spoke a little Japanese and was a cheerleader who fired up the crowd at all the sporting events," Esaki said. Lazo told The Times that camp inmates tried to make the best of their situation. "We didn't just sit around and complain," he said. "In the summer, the heat was unbearable; in the winter, the sparsely rationed oil didn't adequately heat the tarpaper-covered pine barracks with the knotholes in the floor. The wind would blow so hard, it would toss rocks around."

When everything looked grim, Toyo Miyatake, a renowned photographer who captured poignant scenes at Manzanar with his contraband homemade camera, "would always point out the beauty around us," Lazo said. In 1944, Lazo was elected class president of Manzanar High School, even though he graduated at the bottom of a class of 150. "I didn't mind being at the bottom of that group," he told The Times.  Government officials finally realized Lazo was not Japanese-American when he was drafted in August 1944. The U.S. Department of the Interior's War Relocation Authority touted the fact with a news release: "America's only non-Japanese evacuee, Ralph Lazo In fact, there were other non-Japanese at internment camps -- spouses of Japanese Americans and Japanese citizens.

Army Staff Sgt. Lazo served in the South Pacific during the campaign for the liberation of the Philippines. "The American G.I. couldn't tell the difference between a Japanese and a Filipino. That's why they assigned me." Soldiers "were killing the Filipinos and letting the Japanese go," he told The Times. He was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism in combat. After the war, Lazo graduated from UCLA and earned a master's degree from Cal State Northridge. He became a teacher and joined the struggle to win reparations for Japanese Americans, helping raise funds for a threatened class-action lawsuit. In 1988, Congress passed a law to award each surviving internee $20,000.

Lazo taught at San Fernando Junior High School, then at Grant and Monroe high schools before becoming a counselor at Valley College in 1970. There, he also mentored students who were disabled and worked to persuade more Latino parents to encourage their children to go to college and register to vote.

Dolores Huerta: Activist

“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.”

—Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta has worked to improve social and economic conditions for farm workers and to fight discrimination. To further her cause, she created the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA) in 1960 and co-founded what would become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta stepped down from the UFW in 1999, but she continues her efforts to improve the lives of workers, immigrants and women.

Early Life 

Activist and labor leader Dolores Fernández, better known as Dolores Huerta, was born April 10, 1930, in Dawson, New Mexico, the second child of Juan and Alicia (Chavez) Fernandez. The young family struggled, and by the time Dolores was three, her parents divorced and her mother moved Dolores and her two brothers to Stockton, California. Dolores maintained a relationship with her father, who later became a union activist and a New Mexico state assemblyman. Juan’s own political and labor activism later proved inspirational to Dolores.

Migrant Workers in Stockton, CA

When the family first arrived in Stockton, a farming community in the San Joaquin Valley, Alicia worked two jobs to provide for the family. Dolores’s grandfather, Herculano Chavez, took care of the children, serving as the children’s adult male figure. Dolores admired her mother, who was always encouraged her children to get involved in youth activities and become something. Alicia worked hard to provide music lessons and extracurricular activities for Dolores and her brothers. Dolores played violin and piano and took dance lessons. A good student, she was also a Girl Scout up until she turned 18, and she won second place in a national essay contest.

Despite her achievements, Dolores experienced the racism many Mexicans and Mexican Americans suffered from, especially those who were farm workers. At school she was sometimes treated with suspicion and scorn. She was once accused by a teacher of stealing another student’s work because the teacher was convinced that Dolores was incapable, due to her ethnic origin. However, with time, her family’s economic conditions improved. During World War II, Alicia ran a restaurant and then purchased a hotel in Stockton with her second husband, James Richards. The businesses served the farm workers and day laborers, offering affordable rates and welcoming the diversity of the area.

Dolores with her husband, Ventura

After graduating from Stockton High School, in 1947, Dolores Fernandez went through a marriage, the birth to two children and a divorce. After a series of unsatisfying jobs, she returned to school and eventually completed a teaching degree at Stockton College, part of the University of the Pacific. She briefly worked as an elementary school teacher, but resigned because she was so distraught over the poor living conditions of her students, many of them children of farm workers. Determined to help, in 1955, she and Fred Ross started the Stockton chapter of the Community Services Organization (CSO), a grassroots group that worked to end segregation, discrimination and police brutality and improve social and economic conditions of farm workers. During this time, Dolores married Ventura Huerta, another labor activist. The couple would go on to have five children.

A Life of Activism

Cesar Chavez

In 1960, Dolores Huerta started the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA). She set up voter registration drives and lobbied politicians to allow non–U.S. citizen migrant workers to receive public assistance and pensions and provide Spanish-language voting ballots and driver's tests. During this time, Dolores met Cesar Chavez, a fellow CSO official, who had become its director. In 1962, both Huerta and Chavez lobbied to have the CSO expand its efforts to help farm workers, but the organization was focused on urban issues and couldn’t move in that direction. Frustrated, they both left the organization and, with Gilbert Padilla, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). The two made a great team. Chavez was the dynamic leader and speaker; and Huerta the skilled organizer and tough negotiator.

In 1965, the AWA and the NFWA combined to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (later, simply the United Farm Workers). That year, the union took on the Coachella Valley grape growers, with Chavez organizing a strike of all farm workers and Huerta negotiating contracts. After five hard years, the United Farm Workers (now affiliated with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) signed an historic agreement with 26 grape growers that improved working conditions for farm workers, including reducing the use of harmful pesticides and initiating unemployment and healthcare benefits. In the 1970s, Huerta coordinated a national lettuce boycott and helped create the political climate for the passage of the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first law to recognize the rights of farm workers to bargain collectively.

During the 1980s, Dolores Huerta served as vice president of the UFW and co-founded the UFW’s radio station. She continued to speak for a variety of causes, advocating for a comprehensive immigration policy and better health conditions for farm workers. In 1988, she nearly lost her life when she was beaten by San Francisco police at a rally protesting the policies of then-presidential candidate George H. W. Bush. She suffered six broken ribs and a ruptured spleen.

Later Life

Dolores Huerta has been honored for her work as a fierce advocate for farm workers, immigration and women. She received the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award and was inducted in the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993. That year proved bitter-sweet for her as she also experienced the passing of her beloved friend Cesar Chavez. In 1998, she received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award, a year before she stepped down from her position at the United Farm Workers. In 2002, she received the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. The $100,000 award provided her the means to create the Dolores Huerta Foundation, whose purpose is to bring organizing and training skills to low-income communities. Huerta continues to lecture and speak out on a variety of social issues involving immigration, income inequality and the rights of women and Latinos.  

Resource: www.biography.com

In 2006, Dolores Huerta visits Tucson High School and makes a speech. Within the speech, she states "Republicans Hate Latinos." In 2010, Arizona Attorney Tom Horne and other politicians used these words as their rationale for passing HB-2281-The Ethnic Studies Ban. In this interview, Dolores Huerta discusses the statement and its affect. 

more about Latino History: rudyacuna.net

So, what's so important about the month of February?

Other than Valentine's Day, just what in the heck is so special about the month of February? There are only 28 days and it's in the middle of winter.  Let's take a recap on American history:

Feb. 1

• 1865 – President Lincoln sings the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, to the United States Constitution.
• 1893 – Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.
• 1960 – Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
• 2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

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Feb. 2

• 1653 – New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.
• 1848 – California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese immigrants arrives in San Francisco.
• 1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.
• 1935 – Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine.

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Feb. 3

• 1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
• 1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
• 1959 – Deaths of rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
• 1984 – John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.

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Feb. 4

• 1789 – George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
• 1899 – The Philippine–American War begins with the Battle of Manila.
• 1996 – Major snowstorm paralyzes Midwestern United States, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and ties all-time record low temperature at −26 °F (−32.2 °C).
• 2004 – Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg.

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Feb. 5

• 1900 – The United States and the United Kingdom sign a treaty for the Panama Canal.
• 1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.
• 1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
• 2008 – A major tornado outbreak across the Southern United States kills 57.

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Feb. 6

• 1843 – The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opens (Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City).
• 1919 – The five-day Seattle General Strike begins.
• 1951 – The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history.
•  1978 – The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Northeasters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of 4" an hour.

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Feb. 7

• 1812 – The strongest in a series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, Missouri.
• 1907 – The Mud March is the first large procession organized by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).
• 1935 – The classic board game Monopoly is invented.
• 1964 – The Beatles first arrive in the United States. Their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show two days later would mark the beginning of the British Invasion.

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Feb. 8

• 1865 – In the United States, Delaware voters reject the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and vote to continue the practice of slavery. (Delaware finally ratifies the amendment on February 12, 1901.)
• 1885 – The first government-approved Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii.
• 1915 – D.W. Griffith's controversial film The Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles.
• 1968 – American civil rights movement: The Orangeburg massacre: An attack on black students from South Carolina State University who are protesting racial segregation at the town's only bowling alley, leaves three or four dead in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

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Feb. 9

• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.
• 1870 – President Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.
• 1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.
• 1965 – Vietnam War: The first United States troops with a combat mission, a Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion, are sent to South Vietnam.

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Feb. 10

• 1861 – Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
• 1967 – The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified. This establishes procedures for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President. The office of Vice President had been vacant sixteen times due to the death or resignation of either the President or Vice President. For example, there was no Vice President for nearly four years after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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Feb. 11

• 1790 – The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions U.S. Congress for abolition of slavery.
• 1916 – Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control.
• 1937 – A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers.
• 1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower refuses a clemency appeal for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

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Jan. 12

• 1825 – The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.
• 1963 – Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
• 1999 – United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
• 2004 – The city of San Francisco, California begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

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Feb. 13

• 1914 – Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
• 1920 – The Negro National League is formed.
• 1971 – Vietnam War: Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos.
• 2011 – For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.

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Feb. 14

• 1849 – In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.

• 1899 – Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

• 2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source for viral videos.

• 2008 – Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 21 injuries.
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  Feb. 15
• 
• 1764 – The city of St. Louis, Missouri is established.

• 1879 – Women's rights: American President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

• 2003 – Protests against the Iraq war take place in over 600 cities worldwide. It is estimated that between 8 million to 30 million people participate, making this the largest peace demonstration in history.
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  Feb. 16

• 1874 – Silver Dollar becomes legal US tender.
• 1961 – Explorer program: Explorer 9 (S-56a) is launched.
• 2006 – The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.

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Feb. 17

• 1801 – An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
• 1864 – American Civil War: The  H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.
• 1933 – The Blaine Act ends Prohibition in the United States.
• 1974 – Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House in a stolen helicopter.

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Feb. 18

• 1885 – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States.
• 1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
• 1972 – The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, (6 Cal.3d 628) invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment.

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Feb. 19

• 1807 – Former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr is arrested for treason in Wakefield, Alabama and confined to Fort Stoddert. Burr had tried to secure money and to conceal his true designs, which was to help Mexico overthrow Spanish power in the Southwest. He intended to found a dynasty in what would have become former Mexican territory. This was a misdemeanor, based on the Neutrality Act of 1794. Although the subsequent trial resulted in acquittal, Burr's western schemes left him with large debts and few influential friends.
• 1847 – The first group of rescuers reaches the Donner Party.
• 1953 – Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States.
• 2001 – The Oklahoma City bombing museum is dedicated at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

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Feb. 20

• 1792 – The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by United States President George Washington.
• 1872 – In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.
• 1943 – American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
• 1987 – Unabomber: In Salt Lake City, a bomb explodes in a computer store.

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Feb. 21

• 1828 – Initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is the first periodical to use the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah.
• 1878 – The first telephone book is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
• 1925 – The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
• 1986 – The Legend of Zelda, the first game of The Legend of Zelda series, was released in Japan on the Famicom Disk System.

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Feb. 22

• 1847 – Mexican–American War: The Battle of Buena Vista – 5,000 American troops defeat 15,000 Mexicans.
• 1856 – The Republican Party opens its first national meeting in Pittsburgh.
• 1974 – Samuel Byck tries and fails to assassinate U.S. President Richard Nixon.
• 1980 – Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3.

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Feb. 23

• 1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.
• 1883 – Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an anti-trust law; a law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement.
• 1991 – Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the war.

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Feb. 24

• 1831 – The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, is proclaimed. The Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West.
• 1868 – Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. He is later acquitted in the Senate.
• 1983 – A special commission of the U.S. Congress releases a report that condemns the practice of Japanese internment during World War II.
• 1984 – Tyrone Mitchell perpetrates the 49th Street Elementary School shooting in Los Angeles, killing two children and injuring 12 more.

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Feb. 25

• 1928 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C. becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.
• 1933 – The USS Ranger is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be built solely as an aircraft carrier.
• 1968 – Vietnam War: 135 unarmed citizens of Hà My village in South Vietnam's Quảng Nam Province are killed and buried en masse by South Korean troops in what would come to be known as the Hà My massacre.

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Feb. 26

• 1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs an act of the U.S. Congress establishing most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park - the Grand Canyon National Park.
• 1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signs an Executive Order establishing the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
• 1972 – The Buffalo Creek Flood caused by a burst dam kills 125 in West Virginia.

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Feb. 27

• 1782 – American Revolutionary War: The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.
• 1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency.
• 1973 – The American Indian Movement (AIM) occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
• 1991 – Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated".

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Feb. 28

• 1844 – A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing eight people, including two United States Cabinet members.
• 1954 – The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.
• 1959 – Discoverer 1, an American spy satellite that is the first object intended to achieve a polar orbit, is launched. It failed to achieve orbit.
• 1972 – Sino-American relations: The United States and People's Republic of China sign the Shanghai Communiqué