Way back when: Today in history
BY GENE CURTIS
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
2/13/13 at 3:15 AM
1990 - German reunion proposed
A two-stage formula to reunite Germany was worked out 45 years after it was divided by World War II victors. The plan was formulated by the U.S. and its major European allies in a meeting with the Soviet Union and East Germany in Ottawa. It called for East and West Germany to meet on legal, economic and political issues and for the foreign ministers of the two Germanys to meet with their counterparts of the U.S., France, Britain and the Soviet Union.
2000 - 'Peanuts' creator dies
"Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz died at home in Santa Rosa, Calif., following a battle with cancer, a day after the last original Sunday cartoon of his half-century career was published worldwide. The 77-year-old Schulz's last strip showed Snoopy at his typewriter and other Peanuts regulars along with a "Dear Friends" letter thanking readers for their support. The last daily strip had been published on Jan. 3. At its peak of popularity, 2,600 newspapers, including the Tulsa World, published the strip that began in 1950.
2002 - Giuliani knighted
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his steadfastness after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The queen also named former New York Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen and former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik as honorary commanders of the British Empire among 104 people she honored in Buckingham Palace. Giuliani said that in the days after thousands died in lower Manhattan, he often thought of Londoners' fortitude during the Nazi bombing raids of World War II.
2003 - Smallpox vaccinations begin
The first smallpox vaccinations to Oklahoma civilians in more than 30 years were given to three members of the state Health Department's Bioterrorism Unit to protect them against a possible bioterrorism threat. President George H.W. Bush had announced plans for the vaccinations two months earlier.
"Our government has no information that a smallpox attack is imminent," he said. "Yet it is prudent to prepare for the possibility that terrorists who kill indiscriminately would use diseases as a weapon." Routine vaccinations for smallpox in the United States stopped in 1972. The world's last natural case of smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1977, and the last case in the United States was more than 50 years ago.
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Giuliani
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