Daily List

Today in History, February 1st

On February 1, 1960, four students began the Greensboro sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter. Plus the Columbia disaster and Khomeini's return.

By Today in History Updated November 10, 2026 2 min read Sources checked

Published February 1, 2026 · Last updated November 10, 2026

February 1 is best known for the 1960 Greensboro sit-in, when four Black college students sat down at a whites-only Woolworth’s lunch counter in North Carolina and refused to leave. The date also saw the space shuttle Columbia lost on reentry in 2003 and Ayatollah Khomeini return to Iran in 1979.

The big story: The Greensboro Sit-In Begins (1960)

The plan was simple: buy a few things, then sit down and order coffee. On February 1, 1960, four freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond, took seats at the lunch counter of the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro. The counter served white customers only. Staff refused to serve them, and they stayed put until closing. The next day they came back with about 20 more students. Within days the seats were full and the crowd spilled onto the sidewalk. News coverage carried the idea across the South, and sit-ins spread to city after city, organized in part by the new Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It worked. By July 1960, the Greensboro Woolworth’s was serving Black customers, and lunch counters across the region began to integrate.

More events on February 1

Year	What happened
1865	President Abraham Lincoln approved the joint resolution sending the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, to the states for ratification.
1884	The first installment of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.
1887	Harvey Wilcox registered the name Hollywood for his land with the Los Angeles County recorder.
1896	Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème premiered in Turin, Italy.
1968	Richard Nixon announced he was running for president.
1978	Harriet Tubman became the first African American woman pictured on a U.S. postage stamp.
1979	Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran after about 15 years in exile.
2003	The space shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas while returning to Earth, killing all seven astronauts. Foam that struck the wing at launch was to blame.
2013	Netflix released House of Cards, the first major TV series to run only on a streaming service.

Born on February 1

1894: John Ford, film director of Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath and The Searchers.
1901: Clark Gable, Hollywood leading man best remembered as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.
1931: Boris Yeltsin, first elected president of Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse.