This Dayiin History for February 18

1885, Mark Twain's ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' was published in the U.S. for the first time (it had been published in Canada and England the previous December).

On this date:

In 1546, Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, died in Eisleben.
In 1564, artist Michelangelo died in Rome.
In 1735, the first opera presented in America, ''Flora, or Hob in the Well,'' was performed in present-day Charleston, S.C.
In 1861, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Ala.
In 1930, photographic evidence of Pluto (now designated a ''dwarf planet'') was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.
In 1960, the 8th Winter Olympic Games were formally opened in Squaw Valley, Calif., by Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
In 1970, the ''Chicago Seven'' defendants were found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention; five were convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968 (those convictions were later reversed).
In 1977, the space shuttle Enterprise, sitting atop a Boeing 747, went on its maiden ''flight'' above the Mojave (moh-HAH'-vee) Desert.
In 1984, Italy and the Vatican signed an accord under which Roman Catholicism ceased to be the state religion of Italy.
In 2001, auto racing star Dale Earnhardt, Sr. died from injuries Advertisement

suffered in a crash at the Advertisement
Daytona 500; he was 49.