Today is Wednesday, Feb. 6, the 37th day of 2013. There are 328
days left in the year. Today’s highlight in history: On Feb. 6,
1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the U.S.
Constitution. On this date: In 1778, the United States won
official recognition from France with the signing of a Treaty of
Alliance in Paris. In 1899, a peace treaty between the United
States and Spain was ratified by the U.S. Senate. In 1911,
Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States,
was born in Tampico, Ill. In 1922, Cardinal Archille Ratti was
elected pope; he took the name Pius XI. In 1933, the 20th
Amendment to the Constitution, the so-called “lame duck”
amendment, was proclaimed in effect by Secretary of State Henry
Stimson. In 1943, a Los Angeles jury acquitted actor Errol Flynn
of three counts of statutory rape. In 1952, Britain’s King
George VI died at Sandringham House in Norfolk, England; he was
succeeded as monarch by his daughter, who became Queen Elizabeth
II. In 1959, the United States