Today is Monday, Feb. 8, the 39th day of 2016. There are 327 days left in the year. This is the Chinese New Year of the Monkey.
Today’s birthdays: Composer-conductor John Williams is 84. Newscaster Ted Koppel is 76. Actor Nick Nolte is 75. Comedian Robert Klein is 74. Actress Mary Steenburgen is 63. Author John Grisham is 61. The president of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino III, is 56. Rock singer Vince Neil (Motley Crue) is 55. Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson is 54. Basketball Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning is 46. Actor Seth Green is 42. Folk singer Joey Ryan (Milk Carton Kids) is 34. Professional surfer Bethany Hamilton is 26.
In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.
In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.
In 1915, D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking as well as controversial silent movie epic about the Civil War, ‘‘The Birth of a Nation,’’ premiered in Los Angeles under its original title, ‘‘The Clansman.’’
In 1952, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed her accession to the British throne after the death of her father, King George VI.
In 1965, Eastern Air Lines Flight 663, a DC-7, crashed shortly after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport; all 84 people on board were killed.
Last year, Governor Charlie Baker ordered state offices to close as Massachusetts braced for more heavy snow, the third major storm in two weeks.