Feburary 5th 1937. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes boosting the number of justices on the US Supreme Court. He pushes the plan after the court strikes down key parts of his new deal program during the Great Depression. “The Court itself can best undo what the Court has done.” But cirtics accuse Roosevelt of trying to pack the high court and he suffers his first major defeat in Congress.

1994. In Mississippi, Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of murdering civil rights leader Medgar Evers more than thirty years earlier. Beckwith, a white supremacist gets life in prison. He dies behind bars nearly seven years later.

1914. William S. Burroughs, one of the writers during the Beat Movement of the 1950s, is born in St. Louis.

1967. “Are we going to do a little didy that’s gonna make everybody have Me-time?” “Donald, you, I’m not.” The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the TV variety show for the sixties counterculture, premieres on CBS.

And 1934. “That ball is gonna be, oh, they’re here! It’s start!” Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron who holds the career record for the most home runs is born in Mobile, Alabama.

Today in history, Feburary 5th. Ross Simpson. The Associated Press.