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From today's featured article

Alan Shepard on the Moon

Apollo 14 (January 31 – February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the third to land on the Moon. Commander Alan Shepard (pictured), Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell overcame malfunctions en route to the Moon that, after the failure of Apollo 13, might have resulted in a second consecutive aborted mission, and possibly the premature end of the Apollo program. Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February 5 in the Fra Mauro formation, where they undertook two extravehicular activities (EVAs or moonwalks). In Apollo 14's most famous incident, Shepard hit two golf balls he had brought with him with a makeshift club. Roosa remained in lunar orbit, where he took photographs of the Moon and performed experiments. After liftoff from the surface and a successful docking, the mission returned to Earth, splashing down safely in the Pacific Ocean. (Full article...)

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HOE hit-to-kill missile

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In the news

Tom Brady

In American football, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl (MVP Tom Brady pictured).
A glacial outburst flood in Uttarakhand, India, leaves at least 30 people dead and more than 200 others missing.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Counsellor of Myanmar, is detained by the military in a coup d'état.
A coordinated short squeeze targeting American hedge funds causes GameStop's stock price to spike.

On this day

February 9

Participants in the Mud March

1799 – Quasi-War: USS Constellation captured the French frigate Insurgente in a single-ship action in the Caribbean Sea.
1855 – A series of hoof-like marks were discovered in the snow in Devon, England, continuing throughout the countryside for some 40 to 100 miles (60 to 160 km).
1907 – More than 3,000 women in London participated in the Mud March (pictured), the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.
1971 – A 6.6 M_w earthquake struck the northern San Fernando Valley near the Los Angeles district of Sylmar, killing 65 people.
1996 – Breaking a seventeen-month ceasefire, the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a powerful truck bomb in Canary Wharf, London, killing two people and injuring more than a hundred others.

John Frederick, Duke of Pomerania (d. 1600)
Adele Spitzeder (b. 1832)
Masatoshi Gündüz Ikeda (d. 2003)

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Today's featured picture

William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 – April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States in 1841. He died of typhoid, pneumonia or paratyphoid fever 31 days into his term, becoming the first president to die in office. His death sparked a brief constitutional crisis regarding succession to the presidency. Vice President John Tyler claimed a constitutional mandate to become the new president and took the presidential oath of office, setting an important precedent for an orderly transfer of the presidency and its full powers when the previous president fails to complete the elected term.

Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew Shiva

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