Moments in Time: Price of progress costly

“ On Feb. 11, 1776, Georgia’s royal governor, Sir James Wright, escapes from his residence in Savannah to the safety of a waiting British warship and returns to London. Governor Wright had been taken into custody and placed under house arrest nearly a month earlier by Patriots of the Provincial Congress.

“ On Feb. 7, 1904, in Baltimore, a small fire in the business district is wind-whipped into an uncontrollable conflagration that engulfs an 80-block area of the downtown. More than 1,500 buildings were completely leveled and some 1,000 severely damaged.

“On Feb. 5, 1917, with more than a two-thirds majority, Congress overrides President Woodrow Wilson’s veto of the previous week and passes the Immigration Act. The law required a literacy test for immigrants. Subsequent immigration to the United States sharply declined.

“On Feb. 9, 1981, rock-music pioneer Bill Haley dies of a heart attack at age 56. Haley brought the existing genre of rock and roll into the spotlight with his chart-topping single “Rock Around the Clock” in 1955.