On February 22, the whites were convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery

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On February 22, the whites were convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery

Today is Sunday, Feb. 22, the 53rd day of 2026. There are 312 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 22, 2022, three white men were convicted of hate crimes for killing Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging in his neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, when he was attacked in 2020. (These men are serving life sentences after being convicted of murder in a state court.)

And on this day:

In 1732, the first president of the United States, George Washington, was born in Westmoreland County in the Virginia Colony.

In 1784, a US merchant ship, the Empress of China, departed New York on the first commercial voyage of an American ship to China.

In 1819, a weakened Spain, faced with rebellions in Latin America, signed a treaty returning Florida to the United States.

In 1862, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated for a full six-year term as president of the Confederate States of America after his election the previous November. He previously served as interim president of the Confederacy.

In 1959, the first Daytona 500 race was held; although Johnny Beauchamp was initially declared the winner, the victory was awarded to Lee Petty.

In 1967, more than 25,000 US and South Vietnamese troops launched Operation Junction City, aimed at destroying a Viet Cong stronghold near the Cambodian border.

In 1997, Scottish scientists announced that they had successfully produced the first adult mammal, a sheep they named “Dolly.”

In 1980, the “Miracle on Ice” happened at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, as the US hockey team upset the Soviet Union, 4-3. (Team USA went on to win the gold medal two days later, 4-2, defeating Finland.)

In 2010, Najibullah Zazi, who is accused of buying products from beauty shops to make subway bombs in New York City, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. (He spent nearly a decade after his arrest helping the US identify and prosecute terrorists and was given a 10-year sentence.)

In 2020, pioneering black mathematician Katherine Johnson, who calculated rocket trajectories and Earth orbits for NASA space missions and was later featured in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” died at age 101.

In 2024, an autonomous spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines made the first US touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years, but the spacecraft managed only a weak signal and spotty communication with flight controllers.