Important Events From This day in History – 1st February

Today in History

• 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates on its way back to Earth

  The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts.

• 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 years in exile

  His triumphant return marked the beginning of the Iranian Revolution.

• 1968 Eddie Adams takes one of the Vietnam War’s best-known pictures

  The image of a Vietcong officer being executed in Saigon helped fuel opposition to the war.

• 1960 Four black students start the Greensboro sit-ins

  Their refusal to leave a “whites only” lunch counter was a watershed moment in the United States’ fight against racial segregation.

• 1884 The first fascicle of the “Oxford English Dictionary” is published

  The book contained entries A to Ant.