Today in History - February 20 | In a week, farmer's flat cornfield becomes a massive mountain
In recent weeks, Pulido and others in his village had been hearing thunder, but not seeing any clouds in the sky.
But he soon learned what was happening.
Suddenly the ground in his field cracked open, forming a sulfurous crater.
His flat field was soon covered with lava and rock.
Within a week, the previously flat field was a volcano almost 150 metres high.
For the next few years, the volcano, which was named Paricutin, continued to erupt, spewing lava and rocks.
By the time it finished eruption in 1952, the mountain was 424 metres high, and more than 200 square kilometres of nearby land had been damaged.
Thousands of people were displaced by the eruption, and the area is now largely uninhabited.
It came at a time when fear of nuclear attack was very real and the alert, which played for near 40 minutes only stoked that concern.
But the message was sent in error after a civilian teletype operator inadvertently inserted the wrong tape.
It contained the code word "hatefulness" to authenticate the message.
More than 20,000 Americans packed New York's Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939, for a Nazi rally.
The speeches were laced with vitriolic attacks on Jewish-Americans, and on politicians deemed to be too sympathetic to Jews.
On the stage was a giant portrait of George Washington flanked by swastikas on each side.
The rally was organised by the German American Bund, a powerful organisation formed to promote Nazism and Adolf Hitler in the United States.
But protesters outside Madison Square Garden outnumbered attendees five-to-one.
Within a year, keynote speaker and Bund leader Fritz Kuhn had been jailed for embezzling money raised from the rally.
Sixteen-year-old guitarist Jimi Hendrix was fired midway through his first gig on February 20, 1959.
Hendrix had been hired to play at a concert at a synagogue in Seattle.
But his "wild playing and show-off style" saw him booted before the second set.
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