Today

1864 - The Normandie burns and sinks in New York Harbor during its conversion to an Allied troop transport ship.

1950 - Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisc., accuses the State Department of communist infiltration.

1965 - The U.S. sends its first combat troops to South Vietnam.

Tomorrow

1846 - Mormons begin their journey to Utah.

1862 - Poet Dante Rossetti finds his wife dead from a laudanum overdose.

1965 - Viet Cong blow up U.S. barracks at Qui Nhon, Vietnam.

Wednesday

1945 - The Yalta Conference concludes.

1963 - The Beatles record Please Please Me, their first album.

1990 - Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, is released from prison after 27 years.

Thursday

1912 - Hsuan-T'ung, the last emperor of China, is forced to abdicate his office after Sun Yat-sen's republican revolution.

1924 - American composer George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" is performed for the first time. Gershwin played the piano in the concert in New York City.

1999 - The Senate votes to acquit President Clinton on both articles of impeachment: perjury and obstruction of justice.

Friday

1937 - John Steinbeck's novella "Of Mice and Men," the story of the bond between two migrant workers, is published.

1945 - The fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, begins.

1965 - President Lyndon Johnson approves Operation Rolling Thunder.