TODAY IN HISTORY - FEBRUARY 25TH

1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for the Colt revolver.

1864 – Anna Harrison, American wife of William Henry Harrison, 9th First Lady of the United States (b. 1775) dies.

1866 – Miners in Calaveras County, California, discover what is now called the Calaveras Skull - human remains that supposedly indicated that man, mastodons, and elephants had co-existed.

1901 – J. P. Morgan incorporates the United States Steel Corporation.

1919 – Oregon places a one cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.

1921 – Andy Pafko, American baseball player and manager (d. 2013) is born.

1928 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C. becomes the first holder of a broadcast license for television 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.

1934 – John McGraw, American baseball player and manager (b. 1873) dies.

1940 – Ron Santo, American baseball player and sportscaster, Chicago Cubs (d. 2010) is born.

1943 – George Harrison, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (The Beatles, The Quarrymen, Traveling Wilburys, and Plastic Ono Band) (d. 2001) is born.

1951 – The first Pan American Games are held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1964 – U.S. Air Force launches a satellite employing a US Air Force Atlas/Agena combination from Point Arguello (LC-2-3) in California and from Cape Kennedy in Florida.

1983 – Tennessee Williams, American playwright and author (b. 1911) dies.

1986 – People Power Revolution: President of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos flees the nation after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the Philippines' first woman president.

1987 – Southern Methodist University's football program is the first college football program to receive the death penalty by the NCAA's Committee on Infractions. It was revealed that athletic officials and school administrators had knowledge of a "slush fund" used to make illegal payments to the school's football players as far back as 1981.

2013 – C. Everett Koop, American surgeon and admiral, 13th Surgeon General of the United States (b. 1916) dies.