On Feb. 20, 1792, President George Washington signed an act creating the United States Post Office Department, the predecessor of the U.S. Postal Service.

In 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, upheld, 7-2, compulsory vaccination laws intended to protect the public’s health.

In 1939, more than 20,000 people attended a rally held by the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization, at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard Project Mercury’s Friendship 7 spacecraft in a flight lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds.

In 2003, a fire sparked by pyrotechnics during a concert by the rock group Great White at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, killed 100 people and injured over 200 others.