TODAY IN HISTORY - FEBRUARY 5TH

62 – Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.

1784 – Nancy Lincoln, American mother of Abraham Lincoln (d. 1818) is born.

1849 – University of Wisconsin–Madison's first class meets at Madison Female Academy.

1900 – The United States and the United Kingdom sign a treaty for the Panama Canal.

1905 – in Mexico, the General Hospital of Mexico is inaugurated, started with 4 basic specialities.

1917 – The current constitution of Mexico is adopted, establishing a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 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.

1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane. It is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.

1918 – SS Tuscania is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.

1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the "BBC pips".

1934 – Hank Aaron. American baseball Hall of Famer is born.

1937 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.

1942 – Roger Staubach, American football player, HOF Dallas Cowboys, and sportscaster is born.

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.

1967 – Leon Leonwood Bean, American businessman, founded L.L.Bean (b. 1872) dies.

1969 – Bobby Brown, American singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor (New Edition) is born.

1971 – Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission.

1972 – Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor. He was the founder of the New York Renaissance basketball team. Nicknamed the "Father of Black Professional Basketball". Douglas owned and coached the Rens from 1923 to 1949, guiding them to a 2,318-381 record (.859).

1976 – The 1976 swine flu outbreak begins at Fort Dix, NJ.

1985 – Cristiano Ronaldo, Portuguese superstar footballer is born.

1997 – The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.