On This Day – February 1

• 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates on its way back to Earth

  All 7 astronauts were killed in the disaster.

• 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 years in exile

  His triumphant return marked the beginning of the Iranian Revolution.

• 1968 Eddie Adams takes one of the Vietnam War’s best-known pictures

  The image of the execution of a Vietcong officer in Saigon helped build opposition to the war.

• 1960 Four black students start the Greensboro sit-ins

  Their refusal to leave a “whites only” lunch counter was a milestone in the fight against racial segregation in the United States.

• 1884 The first fascicle of the “Oxford English Dictionary” is published

  The book contained entries A to Ant.