A devastating blizzard has paralyzed the Northeast, claiming over 30 lives and forcing thousands of commuters to sleep in offices, stores, and even the Massachusetts State House. The storm dumped up to two feet of snow from Pennsylvania to New England, with Boston bearing the worst of it — officials called it the worst snowstorm in a quarter century. Ships were trapped in harbors, trains ran hours late, and it will cost New York City alone $1 million just to dig out. Meanwhile, in a scene straight out of the Wild West, 15 masked bandits executed a precision train robbery near Henry, Illinois, making off with 600 gallons of grain alcohol worth $10,000 — a reminder that Prohibition had created a lucrative black market for booze.

These stories capture America in the midst of the Roaring Twenties' contradictions. While the country was experiencing unprecedented prosperity and technological advancement, Prohibition had spawned organized crime and brazen lawlessness. The massive train robbery for alcohol shows how the 'noble experiment' of banning liquor had created a criminal enterprise worth risking everything for. Meanwhile, the devastating blizzard revealed both the fragility of modern urban life and the community spirit that emerged when thousands of strangers opened their doors to stranded commuters.

• Mrs. F. K. Hoxall is collecting old silk stockings in London to put on donkeys in Algeria — she has official permission from governors to protect the animals' legs from fly bites with fashionable legwear
• A Soviet courier was murdered on a train in Latvia by two men trying to steal his diplomatic baggage, who were then shot dead by train guards in a gunfight
• The weather forecast promised temperatures would rise from a low of 26 degrees to about 33 degrees — which residents probably found laughably optimistic given the blizzard conditions
• Secretary of Labor Davis declined to speak at an education conference because he was only offered 5-7 minutes while other cabinet officers got much longer speaking slots
• In the Ukraine, a former prosecutor named Sergius Boyanovski was sentenced to death after hiding his identity and joining the Communist Party — betrayed by a former colleague

• The $10,000 alcohol shipment stolen in Illinois would be worth about $170,000 today — making it one of the most valuable train robberies of the Prohibition era
• Congressman Martin Madden, who was taken ill and rushed home by ambulance, controlled all federal spending as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee — he was approaching his 75th birthday and had suffered a major heart attack in 1923
• The blizzard trapped the Pollock Rip Lightship off Cape Cod, which broke from its moorings — this floating lighthouse was crucial for guiding ships around the dangerous shoals that had wrecked thousands of vessels
• Senator Couzens, fighting for income tax publicity, had previously chaired the committee that investigated the Internal Revenue Bureau — he would later break with the Republican Party over economic policy and support FDR's New Deal
• The storm's death toll of 30+ people made it one of the deadliest February blizzards in Northeast history, presaging the even more devastating hurricanes and blizzards that would hit the region in later decades