Looking backward

10 years ago

Feb. 6, 2013: Canton: When her agency moves next week, Catherine E. Matthews will depend on muscle power to help carry bags and boxes two blocks down Main Street. Ms. Matthews, director of Canton’s Church 7 Community Program, is recruiting volunteers to carry food and other items from the third floor at 95 Main St. to the agency’s new home at Main Street and Riverside Drive.

25 years ago

Feb. 6, 1998: The Watertown city clerk’s office can now add passports to its list of available services for area residents. The office, which now handles marriage certificates, dog licenses and other documents, found itself in the position to take on the added responsibility of dealing with passports, said City Clerk Donna M. Dutton.

50 years ago

Feb. 6, 1973: Croghan: Richard Terillion, former manager of Woolworth’s Store in Norwich has purchased the Kirschnerville Grange Hall and remodeled the building into a tavern.

75 years ago

Feb. 6, 1948: The annual financial drive to provide funds for the Twin Villages weekday school of religious education will open Monday and continue throughout the week.

100 years ago

Feb. 6, 1923: Several men have been employed by village officials to help clear the streets of the snow that has been banked along the edge. Practically all of State Street has been cleaned off and the men are now busy clearing the side streets from the huge banks of snow that have accumulated on the sides.

125 years ago

Feb. 6, 1898: Potsdam: News has just reached here that the anchor ice has formed a bridge across the St. Lawrence River. The water has raised 5 feet and great damage is feared. Reports state that the ice bridge extends a considerable distance down the river and that dynamiting will do good to relieve the immediate danger.

150 years ago

Feb. 6, 1873: Watertown: A Carnival Party of the German Social Tarn Verein will take place on Tuesday evening at Mechanics Hall. A good time may be expected.

The world

1919 – The American Legion is founded.

1952 – Elizabeth II becomes Queen of the United Kingdom and her other Realms and Territories and Head of the Commonwealth upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.

1958 – Eight Manchester United F.C. players and 15 other passengers are killed in the Munich air disaster.

1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.

1959 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.

1973 – The Ms 7.6 Luhuo earthquake strikes Sichuan Province, causing widespread destruction and killing at least 2,199 people.

1976 – In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.

1978 – The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor’easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of 4 inches an hour.

1981 – The National Resistance Army of Uganda launches an attack on a Ugandan Army installation in the central Mubende District to begin the Ugandan Bush War.

1987 – Justice Mary Gaudron becomes the first woman to be appointed to the High Court of Australia.

1988 – Michael Jordan makes his signature slam dunk from the free throw line inspiring Air Jordan and the Jumpman logo.

1989 – The Round Table Talks start in Poland, thus marking the beginning of the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.

1996 – Willamette Valley Flood: Floods in the Willamette Valley of Oregon causes over US$500 million in property damage throughout the Pacific Northwest.

1996 – Birgenair Flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic, killing all 189 people on board. This is the deadliest aviation accident involving a Boeing 757.

1998 – Washington National Airport is renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport.

2000 – Second Chechen War: Russia captures Grozny, Chechnya, forcing the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria government into exile.

2006 – Stephen Harper becomes prime minister of Canada.

2012 – A magnitude 6.7 earthquake hits the central Philippine island of Negros, leaving 112 people dead.

2016 – An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 strikes southern Taiwan, killing 117 people.

2018 – SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, a super heavy launch vehicle, makes first flight.