Today:
1. 1706: Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He would go on to become one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
2. 1929: The first Popeye comic strip, created by Elzie Segar, was published.
3. 1991: Operation Desert Storm began, as the United States and its allies launched airstrikes against Iraq in response to its invasion of Kuwait.
4. 1994: The Northridge earthquake, a magnitude 6.7 quake, struck the Los Angeles area in California, causing widespread damage and resulting in dozens of deaths.
5. 2013: The Algerian hostage crisis ended with a military assault on a natural gas facility. The crisis had begun when Islamist militants attacked the facility and took hostages.