Moments in Time – Jan. 24, 2018

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• On Feb. 11, 1858, in France, Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl, first claims to have seen the Virgin Mary. The 18 apparitions occurred in a grotto of a rock promontory near Lourdes.
• On Feb. 7, 1914, the silent film “Kid Auto Races at Venice” premieres featuring the actor Charlie Chaplin in his first screen appearance as the “Little Tramp.”
• On Feb. 9, 1942, the Normandie, the first major liner to cross the Atlantic in less than four days, burns and sinks in New York Harbor during its conversion to an Allied troop transport. A welder set fire to life preservers, and by early the next morning the ship lay smoking and capsized in the harbor.
• On Feb. 6, 1952, King George VI of Great Britain and Northern Ireland dies. Princess Elizabeth, the oldest of his two daughters, was crowned Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953, at age 27. Today, Elizabeth has reigned for almost 65 years.
• On Feb. 8, 1978, a classic “Nor’easter” storm that brought a severe blizzard to New England finally subsides. The blizzard, the worst to hit New England since 1888, was blamed for 56 deaths and dumped 55 inches of snow in some areas.
• On Feb. 5, 1988, in Miami, Panama military strongman Gen. Manuel Noriega is indicted for drug smuggling and assisting Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel in trafficking cocaine to America. Noriega was found guilty at his 1991 trial and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He later was imprisoned in France and Panama, where he died in 2017.
• On Feb. 10, 1996, world chess champion Garry Kasparov loses the first game of a six-game match against Deep Blue, an IBM computer. Man ultimately defeated machine, however, as Kasparov bested Deep Blue in the match with three wins and two ties and took home the $400,000 prize.

(c) 2018 King Features Syndicate, Inc.