This week in history

Wed., Feb. 20, 2008

The History Channel King Features Syndicate

•On Feb. 20, 1725, a posse of New Hampshire volunteers comes across a band of encamped Native Americans and takes 10 “scalps” in the first significant appropriation of this Native American practice. The posse received a bounty of 100 pounds per scalp from the Colonial authorities in Boston.

•On Feb. 22, 1732, George Washington is born in Westmoreland County, Va. Part of his success in the Revolutionary War was due to his shrewd use of an “ungentlemanly,” but effective, tactic of “guerrilla” warfare, in which stealthy “hit-and-run” attacks foiled British armies.

• On Feb. 24, 1786, Wilhelm Karl Grimm, the younger of the two Brothers Grimm, is born in Hanau, Germany. The brothers’ collection of oral folktales includes “Hansel and Gretel,” “Snow White,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Rapunzel” and “Rumpelstiltskin.”

•On Feb. 18, 1885, Mark Twain publishes his famous — and famously controversial — novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) first introduced Huck Finn as the best friend of Tom Sawyer, hero of his novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876).

• On Feb. 19, 1914, Pittsburgh movie theaters are required to establish a seating section for unaccompanied women. Some women attending movies alone had complained of harassment.

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