On this day: February 25
Samuel Colt patents his revolver, the first black U.S. senator takes his seat, Muhammad Ali wins his first heavyweight title, and Ferdinand Marcos flees the Philippines, all on this day.
1870: Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first black person ever be seated in the U.S. Congress. Earlier in the year Revels had been elected by a vote of 81 to 15 in the Mississippi State Senate to finish the term of one of the state's two seats in the U.S. Senate, which had been left vacant since the Civil War. His seating was delayed by two days of debate after Southern Democrats opposed sitting him in the Senate.
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