Moments in Time: Waffle Trainer Shoes
The History Channel
On Feb. 24, 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn a $200,000 settlement awarded to the Reverend Jerry Falwell for the emotional distress he suffered after being parodied in the pornographic magazine Hustler, deciding that the satire, while in bad taste, was covered under the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech.
On Feb. 25, 1956, poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes met for the first time at a party. They married just four months later, but the union was rocked by Plath's discovery of her husband's adultery the same year their second child was born. After her suicide in 1963, Hughes edited several volumes of her poetry, one of which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982.
On Feb. 26, 1974, Nike received a U.S. patent for its waffle trainer running shoes. The company's co-founder, Bill Bowerman, invented the iconic soles by pouring polyurethane into a waffle iron at breakfast one morning.
On Feb. 27, 1935, 6-year-old rising Hollywood star Shirley Temple took home the first-ever kid-size "juvenile" Oscar, measuring roughly half the height of a standard Oscar.
On Feb. 28, 2013, 85-year-old Pope Benedict XVI officially resigned his position as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, citing his advanced age as the reason. He was the first pontiff to relinquish power in nearly six centuries.
On March 1, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to earn a medical degree. She also wrote one of the first medical manuals by an African American doctor -- and woman -- in the United States. Though she faced discrimination from fellow medical professionals due to her sex and race, she wrote that she cared for "a very large number of the indigent" in a "population of over 30,000."
On March 2, 1807, the U.S. Congress passed an act to "prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States ... from any foreign kingdom, place or country." It would go into effect at the start of 1808.
(c) 2025 King Features Synd., Inc.