By The Associated Press

                     - Today is Wednesday, Feb. 17, the 48th day of 1999. There are 317
                       days left in the year.

                     - On Feb. 17, 1801, the House of Representatives broke an electoral
                       tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson
                       president. Burr became vice president.
                     - In 1817, a street in Baltimore became the first to be lighted with
                       gas from America's first gas company.
                     - In 1865, Columbia, S.C., burned as the Confederates evacuated and
                       Union forces moved in.
                     - In 1897, the forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress
                       of Mothers, was founded in Washington.
                     - In 1933, Newsweek was first published.
                     - In 1947, the Voice of America began broadcasting to the Soviet
                       Union.
                     - In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts
                       within each state had to be roughly equal in population.
                     - In 1972, President Nixon departed on his historic trip to China.
                     - In 1988, Lt. Col. William Higgins, an American officer serving
                       with a United Nations truce monitoring group, was kidnapped in
                       southern Lebanon. He was later slain by his captors.
                     - Ten years ago: Iran's President Ali Khamenei said Salman
                       Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," could save himself from
                       a death sentence pronounced by Ayatollah Khomeini if he were to
                       apologize for his book, which was regarded as blasphemous.
                     - Five years ago: Bosnian Serbs began large-scale withdrawal of
                       its heavy guns from the hills around Sarajevo under pressure from
                       Russia. The U.S. government reported a record trade deficit with
                       Japan the previous year.
                     - One year ago: President Clinton, preparing Americans for
                       possible air strikes against Iraq, said military force is never the
                       first answer "but sometimes it's the only answer." A jury in Fort
                       Worth, Texas, convicted former Naval Academy midshipman Diane
                       Zamora of killing a 16-year-old romantic rival. An Iranian crowd
                       cheered as U.S. wrestlers carried the Stars and Stripes into an
                       international meet in Tehran. The U.S. women's hockey team won the
                       gold medal at Nagano, Japan, defeating Canada 3-1.

                     *Happy Birthday*
                     ----------------
                     - Actor Hal Holbrook is 74.
                     - Singer Bobby Lewis is 66.
                     - Actor Alan Bates is 65.
                     - Football Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown is 63.
                     - Actress Mary Ann Mobley is 60.
                     - Singer Gene Pitney is 58.
                     - Actress Brenda Fricker is 54.
                     - Actor Richard Karn is 43.
                     - Actor Lou Diamond Phillips is 37.
                     - Basketball legend Michael Jordan is 36.
                     - Rock singer-musician Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) is 27.
                     - Country singer Bryan White is 25.