FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2009

Today is Friday, February 20, the 51st day of 2009. There are 314 days left in the year.

1811 _ Austria declares bankruptcy

1816 _ Rossini's opera ``The Barber of Seville" premieres in Rome

1869 _ Tennessee Governor W. .C Brownlow declares martial law in Ku Klux Klan crisis

1933 _ House of Representatives completes congressional action to repeal Prohibition

1950 _ Dylan Thomas arrives in New York City for his first U.S. poetry reading tour

1962 _ John Glenn is first American to orbit Earth (Friendship 7)

1971 _ Major General Idi Amin Dada appoints himself president of Uganda

1975 _ Margaret Thatcher elected leader of British Conservative Party

1977 _ ``My Fair Lady" closes at St. James Theater, NYC, after 384 performances

1989 _ Total eclipse of the Moon