On this day: February 18
POSTED: 02:45 AM PST Feb 17, 2013
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PST Feb 17, 2013
Jefferson Davis becomes the president of the Confederacy, Pluto is discovered, a cow flies, the first Church of Scientology is formed, the Chicago Seven are found not guilty, and Dale Earnhardt dies at the Daytona 500, all on this day.
Library of Congress
1892: Wendell Willkie, a corporate lawyer and the Republican Party nominee for president in 1940, is born in Elwood, Ind. After losing the race to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he became an informal ambassador-at-large for Roosevelt, traveling to Great Britain and the Middle East in late 1941, and to the Soviet Union and China in 1942. He wrote a bestselling book, "One World," about his travels.
