Today is Monday, Feb. 9, the 40th day of 2026. There are 325 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On Feb. 9,1986, Halley’s Comet made its closest pass by Earth at 39 million miles in its first return to the solar system since 1910. (The comet’s next appearance will be in 2061).
Also on this date:
In 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.
In 1943, the World War II Battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an Allied victory over Japanese forces.
In 1950, in a speech to the Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists.
In 1964, the Beatles made their first live American television appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” broadcast from New York on CBS. The quartet played five songs, including “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” to a crowd of screaming teenagers in person and more than 70 million viewers across the country.
In 1971, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in California’s San Fernando Valley claimed 65 lives.
In 1984, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, 69, died 15 months after succeeding Leonid Brezhnev; he was followed by Konstantin Chernenko (chehr-NYEN’-koh), who would only be in power for 13 months before his own death in office.
In 2009, New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs, telling ESPN he’d used banned substances while with the Texas Rangers for three years.
In 2020, “Parasite,” a film from South Korea, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, becoming the first non-English language film to do so.
In 2021, the Senate moved ahead with a second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, rejecting arguments that the chamber could not proceed because Trump was no longer in office. (The Senate would vote to acquit him on Feb. 13.)
Today’s birthdays:
- Artist Gerhard Richter is 94.
- Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee is 86.
- Singer-songwriter Carole King is 84.
- Actor Joe Pesci is 83.
- Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is 83.
- Author Alice Walker is 82.
- Actor Mia Farrow is 81.
- Actor Judith Light is 77.
- Golf Hall of Famer Sandy Lyle is 68.
- Writer-producer David Simon (TV: “The Wire”) is 66.
- Country singer Travis Tritt is 63.
- Baseball Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero is 51.
- Actor Charlie Day is 50.
- Actor Zhang Ziyi is 47.
- Actor Tom Hiddleston is 45.
- Actor Michael B. Jordan is 39.
- Actor Rose Leslie is 39.
- NFL running back Saquon Barkley is 29.
- Actor Isabella Gomez is 28.
