Today in History - History - February 21st

1953F Crick & J Watson discover structure of DNA-molecule

2003Bill Maher's political talk show "Real Time with Bill Maher" debuts on HBO

1991Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers," premieres in NYC

1986Tennis star Jimmy Connors fined $20,000 & suspended for 10 weeks

1969Ted Williams signs 5-year contract to manage Wash Senators

1874Benjamin Disraeli succeeds William Gladstone as British premier

1972Richard Nixon becomes 1st US president to visit China

1965Rights activist Malcolm X is shot dead by Nation of Islam followers at Audubon Ballroom in New York

1852George Bancroft becomes the American Geographical Society's first president

1895NC Legislature, adjourns for day to mark death of Frederick Douglass

1924Robert Mugabe, president (Zimbabwe, 1988- )

1946Alan Rickman, actor (Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Harry Potter)

1952Actress Elizabeth Taylor (19) marries for the 2nd time to actor Michael Wilding (39)

1988Actor Dudley Moore (53) weds actress Brogan Lane at the Little Chapel of the West in Las Vegas

1807US President Martin Van Buren (24) weds highschool sweetheart Hannah Hoes (23) in Catskill, New York

1954Actor Leonard Nimoy (22) weds actress Sandra Zober

1974Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player and co-founder of Tim Hortons, dies in a car crash at 44

1965Malcolm X, [Little], black Moslem leader and human rights activist, assassinated in NYC at 39

1968Howard Florey, pharmacologist/Pathologist, Nobel Prize Laureate, dies at 69

1437King James I of Scotland dies at 42

1941Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1891)

1513Julius II, [Giuliano dellea Rovere], Pope (1503-13), dies at 69