Today in History, 2/5

1597: A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the government of Japan for being perceived as a threat to society.
1778: South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
1885: King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo as a personal possession. At 905 thousand square miles, it is the largest piece of property owned by one person.1889: Belle Starr, outlaw of the Old West, is born.1900: Adlai Stevenson is born.1906: John Carradine is born. I was just watching him in MST3K Episode 320: The Unearthly this morning as I was getting ready for work.
1914: William S. Burroughs is born.
1917: The US Congress passes a law banning most Asian immigration into the US.
1919: Red Buttons is born.
1919: Tim Holt is born. He was great in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, more than holding his own against the two powerhouses Walter Houston and Humphrey Bogart.1919: Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith form United Artists.
1924: The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signal known as the Greenwich Time Signal or "BBC pips."
1934: Hank Aaron is born.1937: FDR proposes a plan to pack the Supreme Court.
1940: H.R. Giger is born. I find him to be a one-note canary, but his designs for the Alien movie series are awesome.
1943: Speaking of one-note canaries, Nolan Bushnell is born. He founded Atari and pretty much the entire home video game market and has spent the rest of his career trying to duplicate that triumph, with little success.1945: Douglas MacArthur returns to Manilla.
1946: Charlotte Rampling is born. She was one of the many people to leave Zardoz off their resume.
1948: Christopher Guest is born. While he is mostly known today for his improv-based films, he was also one of the people behind the original National Lampoon Radio Hour. Here he is with Bill Murray at the 1976 Superbowl.

1958: A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Georgia. It is never recovered.1962: Jennifer Jason Leigh is born.1981: Ella Grasso dies.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up