Astronauts replace Hubble sensor
1997 - Astronauts from the shuttle Discovery carefully slotted a new targeting device into the Hubble Space Telescope to improve its aim at distant celestial objects. Greg Harbaugh and Joe Tanner, wearing bulky white spacesuits, carefully removed an ageing guidance sensor and replaced it with a new device fitted with special optics to correct for Hubble’s misshapen mirror. “Ever so gently,” cautioned Harbaugh, as Tanner gingerly manoeuvred the delicate 223-kg sensor, about the size of a baby grand piano. Tanner worked perched on the end of the shuttle’s 15-metre robot arm, while Harbaugh assisted, tethered to the four-storey telescope like a mountain climber. The new guidance sensor will give the telescope unprecedented pointing accuracy, comparable to focusing a laser beam on a small coin from 320km away.
February 15
1879 - US President Rutherford Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court.
1898 - US battleship Maine explodes in Havana harbour, Cuba, killing 260 seamen.
1933 - US President-elect Franklin Roosevelt escapes an assassination attempt in Miami.
1942 - The British surrender the colony of Singapore to Japanese forces during the Second World War.
1964 - Muhammad Ali becomes the world heavyweight boxing champion.
1965 - Canada adopts its national flag, the red-and-white maple leaf design.
1972 - Sound recordings are granted US federal copyright protection for the first time.
1973 - The US and Cuba sign agreement calling for the prosecution or extradition of hijackers of airplanes and ships.
1983 - The UAE’s biggest dam is opened in Fujairah.
1989 - The last Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan after a 10-year occupation.
1990 - Britain and Argentina restore diplomatic relations.
1993 - Two car bombs shatter a downtown district in Bogota, Colombia, killing four and injuring more than 120.
1994 - A passenger stampede in a crowded railway station kills 43 people in Hengyang, China.
1995 - At least 64 people are killed and 18 others injured when a fire guts a two-storey restaurant in the central Taiwan city of Taichung.
1999 - Abdullah Ocalan, a Kurdish rebel leader, is captured by Turkish commandos in Kenya.
2004 - US administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, opens the nation’s first human rights ministry.
2007 - The first freehold apartment in Dubai is registered in owner’s name.
2010 - Two trains collide and kill 12 passengers, injuring more in the suburbs of Brussels, Belgium.
2011 - An Italian judge orders prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to stand trial on charges of prostitution and abuse of power.
2013 - A meteor travelling at a speed of at least 54,000 km/h strikes over the Chelyabinsk region in Russia, leaving more than 1,000 people injured.
2014 - Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam forms unity cabinet.
