On This Day: February 22

Today is Wednesday, February 22, 2012. This is the 53rd day of the year, with 313 days remaining in 2012.

Fact of the Day: peanut butter

It takes 3650 peanuts to fill a 5-pound container of peanut butter. Half of all edible peanuts consumed in the US are used to make peanut butter.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Baradates, St. Margaret of Cortona, and Saints Thalassius and Limnaeus.

St. Lucia: Independence Day.

Events

1613 - Mikhail Romanov was elected czar of Russia.

1630 - Popcorn was introduced to English colonists by Quadequine, brother of Massasoit.

1819 - Spain agreed to cede the remainder of its old province of Florida to the United States.

1879 - Frank Winfield Woolworth opened a five-cent store in Utica, New York.

1886 - "The Times" newspaper published a classified personal column, the first newspaper to do so.

1889 - President Grover Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas (which was divided into North Dakota and South Dakota at the same time), Montana, and Washington state to the Union.

1924 - Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.

1940 - Five-year-old Tenzin Gyatso was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama in Lhasa, Tibet.

1946 - Dr. Selman Abraham Waksman announced his discovery of streptomycin, an antibiotic.

1956 - Elvis Presley entered the music charts for the first time, with "Heartbreak Hotel."

1980 - In a dramatic upset, the underdog United States Olympic hockey team, made up of collegians and second-rate professional players, defeated the defending champion Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.

1984 - Census Bureau statistics showed that the State of Alaska was the fastest growing state of the decade with a population increase of 19.2 percent.

2006 - In Britain's largest cash robbery, thieves stole $96 million (£53 or €78 million) from a Bank of England depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

2006 - The government of Tajikistan began demolition of the Dushanbe synagogue to make way for a new presidential residence, the "Palace of Nations".

Births

1732 - George Washington, first President of the United States of America (1789-1797), Commander-in-chief of Continental forces during the American Revolution.

1819 - James Russell Lowell, American poet, critic, essayist.

1892 - Edna St. Vincent Millay, American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

1918 - Don Pardo (born Dominick George Pardo), American radio and television announcer.

1932 - Ted Kennedy, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.

1950 - Julius Erving, American basketball player.

1962 - Steve Irwin, Australian herpetologist.

1975 - Drew Barrymore, American actress.

Deaths

1512 - Amerigo Vespucci, Italian navigator after whom America is named.

1793 - Roger Sherman, an early American lawyer and politician.

1968 - Peter Arno, American cartoonist.

1987 - Andy Warhol, American Pop artist.

2002 - Roden Cutler, Australian diplomat and war hero.

2002 - Chuck Jones, American animator.