February 7 · This Day in America
Pan Am Flight 101 touches down at New York's Kennedy Airport, and the doors open onto a country eleven weeks past the murder of its president, still in mourning, still gray. Down the stairs come four young men from Liverpool in narrow suits and impossible hair, and waiting for them are thousands of screaming teenagers and two hundred reporters. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had hit number one six days earlier. Two nights later, seventy-three million Americans, nearly half the country, would crowd around television sets to watch them on Ed Sullivan. It is hard to explain how badly a grieving nation needed something to feel happy about. On a winter afternoon at an airport in Queens, joy came back, very loud, all at once.
Source: www.history.com
Also on this day · 1795
The Eleventh Amendment is ratified, the first time the Constitution is amended to overrule the Supreme Court. After the Court allowed a citizen to sue the state of Georgia in federal court, the states recoiled, and the country answered with new constitutional text shielding states from such suits. It is a small, technical amendment, and also a quiet reminder that the Constitution was built to be argued with, and changed.
Source: www.reaganlibrary.gov