€ 102 years ago (Feb. 8, 1902, Weekly Coast Mail) - The paper was filled with miscellaneous news briefs from around the world. In Utah, the Southern Pacific planned to bridge the Great Salt Lake with 23 miles of rail line, 12 miles of which would be built on trestling through deep water. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations favored the purchase of the Danish West Indies for $5.7 million. The North Atlantic squadron, which included the Alabama, Kearsarge, Potomac and Indiana, were set to sail to Guantanamo Bay over concerns of insurgency in Venezuela and Colombia.

€ 81 years ago (Feb. 3, 1923, Coos Bay Times) - The new Marshfield city hall was expected to be complete by mid-summer. The building would front Central Avenue and the fire department, Fourth Street. The architects, Tourtellotte & Hummel, expected the building's cost to be around $50,000. Also, city council members inspected downtown streets to see which one required paving - considering Donnelly, Fifth, Elrod and Highland - and came to the conclusion that a sewer must be built to take the place of the Old Mill Slough drain. Debate remained over whether a concrete or cedar box sewer system would be more cost efficient.

€ 39 years ago (Feb. 4, 1965, The World) - Compiled by United Press International reporters, the paper ran an article listing the "great decisions" that would face Americans during 1965. The eight decisions in question included: China becoming the fifth nation in the "atomic club"; the continued defense of West Germany; agricultural trade policies with Europe; apartheid in South Africa; the end of the satellite era in Russia; whether or not the global population boom could be controlled; if a victory in Vietnam and the freedom of South Vietnam were possible; and whether the United Nations was an asset or liability.

€ 25 years ago (Feb. 5, 1979, The World) - Via a protest note to Moscow, Japan demanded that the Soviet Union remove its forces from military bases in the North Pacific islands. The action came after the disclosure that bases had been built on Kunashiri and Etorofu, the Soviet-held island claimed by Japan at the end of World War II. More than 5,000 ground troops also had been deployed on the two islands. The Soviet Union had seized them during the war and claimed the island group as its own. The buildup had begun in May 1978.