TODAY IN HISTORY - FEBRUARY 1ST

1861 – American Civil War: Texas secedes from the United States.

1865 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1884 – The first volume (A to Ant) of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

1893 – Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.

1901 – Clark Gable, American actor and singer (d. 1960) is born.

1918 – Russia adopts the Gregorian calendar.

1931 – Boris Yeltsin, Russian politician, 1st President of Russia (d. 2007) is born.

1940 – Philip Francis Nowlan, American author, created Buck Rogers (b. 1888) dies.

1942 – World War II: U.S. Navy conducts Marshalls–Gilberts raids, the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.

1960 – Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.

1964 – The Beatles have their first number one hit in the United States with "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

1966 – Hedda Hopper, American actress and journalist (b. 1885) dies.

1966 – Buster Keaton, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1895) dies.

1968 – Lisa Marie Presley, American singer-songwriter is born.

1968 – The New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad are merged to form Penn Central Transportation.

1978 – Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

1979 – The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.

1987 – Ronda Rousey, American mixed martial artist and actress is born.

1993 – Gary Bettman becomes the NHL's first commissioner

1994 – Punk rock band Green Day releases their album Dookie, which would eventually sell over 20 million copies worldwide.

1998 – Rear Admiral Lillian E. Fishburne becomes the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral.

2002 – Daniel Pearl, American journalist and South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped January 23, 2002, is beheaded and mutilated by his captors.

2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard; they were Michael P. Anderson, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1959), David M. Brown, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1956), Kalpana Chawla, Indian-American engineer and astronaut (b. 1961), Laurel Clark, American captain, surgeon, and astronaut (b. 1961), Rick Husband, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1957), William C. McCool, American commander, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1961) & Ilan Ramon, Israeli colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1954).

2004 – Janet Jackson's breast is exposed during the half-time show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, resulting in US broadcasters adopting a stronger adherence to Federal Communications Commission censorship guidelines.