Today is Saturday, February 20, the 51st day of 2010. There are 314 days left in the year.
1673 _ First recorded wine auction held (London)
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
1872 _ Hydraulic electric elevator patented by Cyrus Baldwin
1933 _ House of Representatives completes congressional action to repeal Prohibition
1938 _ U.K. Foreign Secretary Eden resigns, says P.M. Chamberlain appeased Germany
1950 _ Dylan Thomas arrives in New York City for his first U.S. poetry reading tour.
1975 _ Margaret Thatcher elected leader of British Conservative Party
1989 _ Total eclipse of the Moon