This Day In History for February 1

1960, four black college students began a sit-in protest at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., which refused to serve them; similar protests sprang up across the South.


On this date:

In 1861, Texas voted to secede from the Union.

In 1920, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police came into existence, merging the Royal North West Mounted Police and the Dominion Police.

In 1943, one of America's most highly decorated military units of World War II, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made up almost exclusively of Japanese-Americans, was authorized.

In 1946, Norwegian statesman Trygve Lie (TRIG'-vuh lee) was chosen to be the first secretary-general of the United Nations.

In 1958, the United Arab Republic, a union of Egypt and Syria, was established. (Syria withdrew from the union in 1961.)

In 1959, men in Switzerland rejected giving women the right to vote by a more than 2-1 referendum margin. (Swiss women gained the right to vote in 1971.)

In 1968, during the Vietnam War, South Vietnam's police chief (Nguyen Ngoc Loan) executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head. Richard M. Nixon announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (hoh-MAY'-nee) received a tumultuous welcome in Tehran as he ended nearly 15 years of exile.

In 1991, 34 people were killed when a USAir jetliner crashed atop a commuter plane on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport.

In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, killing all seven of its crew members.