Today is Friday, Feb. 19, the 50th day of 2016. There are 316 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Feb. 19, 1986, the U.S. Senate approved, 83-11, the Genocide Convention, an international treaty outlawing “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” nearly 37 years after the pact had first been submitted for ratification.

On this date:

In 1881, Kansas prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.

In 1915, during World War I, British and French warships launched their initial attack on Ottoman forces in the Dardanelles, a strait in northwestern Turkey. (The Gallipoli Campaign that followed proved disastrous for the Allies.)

In 1934, a blizzard began inundating the northeastern United States, with the heaviest snowfall occurring in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, clearing the way for the U.S. military to relocate and intern people of Japanese ancestry (including U.S.-born citizens) during World War II.

In 1945, Operation Detachment began during World War II as some 30,000 U.S. Marines began landing on Iwo Jima, where they commenced a successful month-long battle to seize control of the island from Japanese forces.

In 1959, an agreement was signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting Cyprus its independence.

In 1963, “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan was first published by W.W. Norton & Co.

In 1976, calling the issuing of Executive Order 9066 “a sad day in American history,” President Gerald R. Ford issued a proclamation confirming that the order had been terminated with the formal cessation of hostilities of World War II.

In 1984, the Winter Olympics closed in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

In 1997, Deng Xiaoping, the last of China’s major Communist revolutionaries, died at age 92.

In 2001, President George W. Bush opened a museum dedicated to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Movie producer-director Stanley Kramer died in Woodland Hills, California, at age 87.

In 2008, an ailing Fidel Castro resigned the Cuban presidency after nearly a half-century in power; his brother Raul was later named to succeed him.

Ten years ago: A gas explosion in northern Mexico killed 65 miners. Israel halted the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money to the Palestinians after Hamas took control of the Palestinian parliament.

The Associated Press