February 1

'February 1 in history:

• 1979: The Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in France, receiving a tumultuous welcome.

• 1963: The Communications Satellite Corporation (Comsat) was incorporated as a private U.S. company to establish, working with the telecommunications administrations of other countries, a commercial communications satellite system.

• 1960: Four African American students staged a sit-in at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina; by February 5, 300 students were participating, and a movement of sit-ins at public segregrated facilities was launched across the South.

• 1944: During World War II, after an effective preliminary bombardment, the first of 40,000 U.S. troops landed on the Marshall Island atoll of Kwajalein; within a week the atoll had been taken from the Japanese.

• 1896: La Bohème, the most enduringly popular of Giacomo Puccini's many operas, was first performed, at the Teatro Regio (Turin), under Arturo Toscanini.