660 BC, February 11
Traditional date recognized for Emperor Jimmu Tenno's founding of Japan.

197 AD, February 17
Battle of Lugdunum, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus defeats his rival Clodius Albinus, securing full control over the Roman Empire.

303 AD, February 24
Galerius publishes an edict that begins the persecution of Christians in his portion of the Roman Empire.

364 AD, February 28
Valentinian I is elevated as Roman Emperor.

385 AD, February 11
Pope St. Siricius, bishop of Tarragona, is elected.

421 AD, February 8
Constantius III becomes co-Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.

457 AD, February 7
Leo I becomes emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

474 AD, February 9
Zeno crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

607 AD, February 19
Boniface III becomes Pope.

731 AD, February 11
Gregory II ends his reign as Pope.

824 AD, February 11
Paschal I ends his reign as Pope.

962 AD, February 2
Pope John XII crowns Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor. [See also: Holy Roman Empire]

1014, February 14
Pope Benedict VIII recognizes Henry of Bavaria as King of Germany.

1032, February 2
Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, becomes King of Burgundy.

1076, February 14
Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

1119, February 2
Callixtus II becomes Pope.

1130, February 13
Innocent II is elected Pope.

1258, February 10 (or Feb. 28)
Mongols, led by Hulagu Khan, overrun Baghdad, burning it to the ground and killing 800,000 citizens.

1266, February 26
French forces under Charles of Anjou overcame a combined German-Sicilian force in the Battle of Benevento.

1301, February 7
Edward of Caernarvon (later King Edward II of England) becomes the first Prince of Wales.

1400, February 14
Death: King Richard II of England, murdered.

1405, February 14
Death: Timur (aka Tamerlane), Mongol monarch and conqueror.

1409, February 9
Born: Constantine XI, last Byzantine Emperor.

1431, February 21
The trial of Joan of Arc begins.

1455, February 23
Johannes Gutenberg prints the first Bible on a printing press.

1465, February 11
Born: Elizabeth of York, consort of King Henry VII of England. (She died: 1503).

1478, February 7:
Sir Thomas More, statesman and humanist, author of Utopia, was born on this date and died in 1535.

1488, February 3
Bartholomeu Diaz of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope of Africa, becoming the first known European to travel this far south.

1495, February 22
King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city's throne.

1513, February 21
Died: Pope Julius II (Pope Julius della Rovere).

1531, February 11
Henry VIII of England recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.

1536, February 2
Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1541, February 12
Santiago, Chile, is founded by Pedro de Valdivia.

1542, February 13
Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.

1543, February 11
Battle of Wayna Daga -- Ethiopian/Portuguese troops beat Muslim army.

1546, February 18
Died: Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany.

1547, February 20
Edward VI is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.

1554, February 12
Nine days after claiming the throne of England, Lady Jane Grey is overthrown and later she and her husband, Guildford Dudley, are beheaded "for treason."

1556, February 14
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, is declared a heretic and put to death, March 21, 1556.

1564, February 15
Born in Pisa, Italy: Galileo Galilei, astronomer, father of the Scientific method and "modern" Science.

1564, February 18
Died: Artist Michelangelo (Michelagnolo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni), in Rome.

1570, February 25
Pope Pius V excommunicated England's Queen Elizabeth I.

1587, February 8
Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

1550, February 7
Julius III becomes Pope.

1574, February 23
The 5th holy war against the Huguenots begins in France.

1576, February 5
Henry of Navarre converts to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France.

1582, February 24
Pope Gregory XIII announces the Gregorian calendar.

1613, February 7
Sixteen year-old Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov becomes Tsar of Russia.

1621, February 9
Gregory XV becomes Pope.

1621, February 17
Miles Standish is appointed as first commander of Plymouth colony.

1622, February 8
King James I of England disbands the English Parliament.

1630, February 22
Native American Quadequine introduces Popcorn to English colonists at their first Thanksgiving dinner.

1631, February 5
Clergyman Roger Williams and his wife arrived in Boston from England. (He was later banished from Massachusetts for his "separation of church and state" views and became the founder of Rhode Island.) [Alternate source.]

1632, February 22
Galileo Galilei's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published.

1633, February 13
Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.

1635, February 10
The Académie Française in Paris is expanded to become a national academy for the artistic elite.

1637, February 15
Ferdinand III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.

1650, February 11
Died: René Descartes, philosopher.

1653, February 2
New Amsterdam (later renamed New York City) was incorporated.

1668, February 13
Spain recognizes Portugal as an independent nation.

1674, February 19
England and the Netherlands sign the Peace of Westminster. A provision of the agreement transfers the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, which renamed it New York.

1685, February 6
Charles II, king of England, died on this date.

1689, February 13
William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.

1690, February 3
The first paper money in America was issued by the colony of Massachusetts. (The currency was used to pay soldiers fighting a war against Quebec.)

1692, February 8
A doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony declares that three teenaged girls are under domination of Satan, leading to the Salem witch trials.

1692, February 13
Massacre of Glencoe occurs. -- The infamous massacre of the Macdonalds by the Campbells in Scotland.

1693, February 8
The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a charter.

1704, February 29
Native Americans attack and destroy Deerfield, Massachusetts.

1709, February 2
Alexander Selkirk is rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

1710, February 15
Born: King Louis XV of France.

1720, February 11
Sweden & Prussia sign peace (2nd Treaty of Stockholm).

1720, February 29
Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden abdicated in favor of her husband who succeeded her on the throne, becoming King Frederick I.

1725, February 8
Died: Tsar Peter I (Peter the Great) of Russia.

1728, February 21
Born: Peter III, Tsar of Russia, husband of Catherine the Great.

1732, February 22
Born: George Washington, 1st U.S. president and "father of the country." [Note: February 22 is an adjusted date. Washington was born on February 11 of the Julian Calendar that was then in use. The Colonies switched to the Gregorian calendar in September, 1752.]

1733, February 12
English colonist James Oglethorpe founds Savannah, Georgia.

1743, February 14
Henry Pelham becomes Prime Minister of England.

1752, February 11
Pennsylvania Hospital opens; 1st hospital in the U.S.

1753, February 17
February 17 is followed by March 1 as Sweden moves to the Gregorian from the Julian calendar.

1756, February 6:
Born: Aaron Burr, U.S. Senator, V.P. under Thomas Jefferson, slayer of Alexander Hamilton (in a duel), conspirator against the United States (died 1836).

1763, February 10
France ceded Canada to Great Britain under the Treaty of Paris, which ended the French and Indian War.

1764, February 15
The American city of St. Louis is established.

1773, February 9:
"Old Tippecanoe," William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the U.S., was born in Charles City County, Virginia. [He died one month after taking office.]

1775, February 9
American Revolutionary War: English Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.

1775, February 12
Born: Louisa Adams, wife of President John Quincy Adams.

1778, February 5
South Carolina became the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

1778, February 6
American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the United States of America.

1778, February 14
The American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.

1778, February 23
American Revolution: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army.

1779, February 14
James Cook is killed by the natives of the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii).

1782, February 5
Spanish defeat British forces and capture Minorca.

1783, February 3
American Revolution: Spain recognized United States independence.

1783, February 4
American Revolution: The United Kingdom formally declared that it would cease hostilities with the United States of America.

1783, February 5
American Revolution: Sweden recognizes United States independence.

1787, February 3
Shays' Rebellion is crushed, ending an uprising that prompted neogiations for holding the Constitution Convention in May 1787. [Letters]

1788, February 1
Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet received a patent for the steamboat.

1788, February 6
Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1789, February 4
George Washington was unanimously elected to be the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.

1790, February 1
The U.S. Supreme Court convenes for the first time, in New York City.

1790, February 11
Society of Friends petitions U.S. Congress for abolition of slavery.

1790, February 20
Died: Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.

1792, February 20
The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, was signed by President George Washington.

1793, February 1
France declares war on the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

1793, February 25
The department heads of the U.S. government met with President Washington at his home for the first Cabinet meeting on record.

1794, February 11
First session of U.S. Senate open to the public.

1795, February 7
The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed.

1795, February 13
The University of North Carolina became the first U.S. state university to admit students with the arrival of Hinton James, who was the only student on campus for two weeks.

1797, February 26
The Bank of England issued the first one-pound note.

1801, February 4
John Marshall was sworn in as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1801, February 17
The House of Representatives finally broke an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson president; Burr became v.p.

1801, February 27
The District of Columbia was placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.

1803, February 14
Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of Congress which conflicts with the Constitution is void.

1803, February 15
Born: John Sutter, California pioneer. [See Gold Rush.]

1803, February 19
Congress voted to accept Ohio's borders and constitution.

1804, February 16
Lt. Stephen Decatur led a successful raid into Tripoli Harbor to burn the U.S. Navy frigate Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates.

1804, February 21
The first self-propelled steam engine is launched at the Pen-y-Darren (or Penydarren?) ironworks in Wales, it was built by Richard Trevithick.

1805, February 15
Harmony Society officially formed in the U.S.

1807, February 8
Battle of Eylau -- Napoleon defeats Russians under General Benigssen.

1807, February 19
Former V.P. of the U.S. Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. [He had been detained in Louisiana on a warrant issued by President Thomas Jefferson but jumped bail and headed for Spanish Florida. He was subsequently tried before Chief Justice John Marshall (a friend of Burr's who disliked Jefferson) for treason but was acquitted because the prosecutor could not produce "two witnesses to the same overt act" as required by the Constitution.]

1807, February 27
Born: Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in Portland, Maine.

1808, February 11
Anthracite coal first burned as fuel, experimentally.

1809, February 3, 11, 12, 20
-- Feb. 03: Illinois Territory is created.
-- Feb. 11: Robert Fulton patents the steamboat.
-- Feb. 12, Born: Charles Darwin, naturalist. | Abraham Lincoln, 16th President, in present-day Larue Co., Kentucky.
-- Feb. 20: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the power of the federal government is greater than any individual state.

1810, February 11
Napoleon marries Marie-Louise of Austria.

1810, February 22
Born: Frédéric Chopin, Polish composer (Died: 1849).

1812, February 2
Russia establishes a fur trading colony at Fort Ross, California.

1812, February 7
-- Born: Charles Dickens, in Portsmouth, England.
-- The strongest in a series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, Missouri.

1812, February 11
Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry signs a redistricting law favoring his party -- giving rise to the term "gerrymandering."

1814, February 1
In the Philippines, the Mayon Volcano has its most devastating eruption killing around 1,200 people.

1814, February 11
Norway's independence is proclaimed, marking the ultimate end of the Kalmar Union.

1815, February 3
The first commercial cheese factory is founded, in Switzerland.

1815, February 6
New Jersey grants John Stevens a charter for the first American railroad.

1815, February 26
Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from exile on the island of Elba and began his second conquest of France.

1817, February 12
Chilean patriotic army led by Bernardo O'Higgins, after crossing the Andes, defeat Spanish troops in the Battle of Chacabuco.

1817, February 17
A street in Baltimore became the first to be lighted with gas from America's first gas company.

1818, February 12
Bernardo O'Higgins signs for the Independence of Chile near Concepcion.

1819, February 6
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founds Singapore.

1819, February 17
The U.S. House passed the Missouri Compromise; the Senate approved in 1820.

1819, February 22
Spain signs the Adams-Onis Treaty ceding Florida to the United States.

1820, February 6
Eighty-six free African American colonists sail from New York City to Freeport, Sierra Leone.

1820, February 8
Born: William Tecumseh Sherman, Union general in Civil War. (He died 1891.)

1820, February 15
Born in Adams, Massachusetts: Susan B. Anthony, feminist and suffragist.

1821, February 24
Mexico declared its independence from Spain.

1822, February 23
Boston was granted a charter to incorporate as a city.

1825, February 9
After no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president. [Notice the wording: The House of Representatives ELECTED John Quincy Adams… That is what the Constitution provides.]

1825, February 12
The Creek Indians in Georgia cede the last of their lands to the U.S. government and migrate west.

1826, February 11
London University is founded.

1827, February 27
The first Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday," the day before Ash Wednesday) is held in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1827, February 28
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first U.S. railroad offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1828, February 8
Born: Jules Verne, famous fiction author. (He died 1905.)

1832, February 12
Ecuador annexes the Galapagos Islands.

1836, February 23
The siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas.

1836, February 25
Inventor Samuel Colt patented his revolver.

1837, February 8
Richard M. Johnson becomes the first V.P. of the United States chosen by the Senate.

1837, February 11
American Physiological Society organizes in Boston, Massachusetts.

1839, February 20
Congress outlawed dueling in the District of Columbia.

1840, February 6
Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, founding document of New Zealand.

1840, February 10
Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1840, February 11
Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Regiment premieres in Paris.

1842, February 21
John J. Greenough patents the sewing machine.

1843, February 6
The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels opens (Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City).

1843, February 11
Giuseppe Verdi's opera I Lombardi premieres in Milan.

1844, February 28
A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others.

1846, February 5
The Oregon Spectator becomes the first newspaper on the U.S. Pacific coast.

1846, February 10
Led by Brigham Young, the Mormon migration west to Utah began from Nauvoo, Illinois.

1846, February 19
The Texas state government was formally installed in Austin following admission as a state in December, 1845.

1847, February 11
Born: Inventor Thomas Alva Edison, in Milan, Ohio. (He died in 1931).

1847, February 19
The Donner Party was rescued from the the deep snow of the Sierra Nevada near Truckee, Calif. It is noted that some survivors seem to be remarkably well-fed considering their ordeal.

1847, February 22, 23
-- Feb. 22: In the Battle of Buena Vista of the Mexican-American War, 5,000 American troops under General Zachary Taylor use their superiority in artillery to drive off 15,000 Mexican troops under Antonio López de Santa Anna.
-- Feb. 23: American forces defeated Santa Anna.

1848, February 2
-- The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican-American War.
-- California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese emigrants seeking fortune in California's gold country arrived in San Francisco.

1848, February 5
Born: Belle Starr, outlaw (died: 1889).

1848, February 21
Karl Marx publishes the Communist Manifesto.

1848, February 23
Died: John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the U.S., of a stroke at age 80.

1848, February 26
The Second French Republic was proclaimed.

1849, February 14
In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first President of the United States to have his photograph taken.

1849, February 28
Regular steamboat service from the east to the west coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay carrying the first gold-seekers. The California left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848, rounded Cape Horn at the tip of South America, and arrived at San Francisco, California after the 4 month 21 day journey.

1852, February 15
Great Ormond St. Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits first patient.

1854, February 28
The U.S. Republican Party was organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

1858, February 11
Blessed Virgin Mary is said to appear to Saint Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes.

1859, February 14
Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.

1860, February 29
Born: Herman Hollerith, statistician and developer of a data encoding scheme used in IBM punched cards and the basis for early computer data encoding, i.e., ASCII. (Herman Hollerith died in 1929.)

1861, February 1
American Civil War: Texas secedes from the United States.

1861, February 4
American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, the Confederate States of America was formed by delegates from six break-away states.

1861, February 8-9
-- Feb. 8: American Civil War: The Confederate States of America is formed.
-- Feb. 9: Jefferson Davis elected first president of CSA with Alexander H. Stephens as vice president.

1861, February 11
-- In effort to head off secession, U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passes resolution to guarantee noninterference with slavery in any state.
-- President-elect Abe Lincoln departed Springfield, Ill., for Washington, D.C.

1861, February 18
In Montgomery, Alabama Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.

1861, February 23
President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C. after an assassination attempt in Baltimore, Maryland.

1861, February 28
The Terriory of Colorado was organized.

1862, February 1
Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is published for the first time (Atlantic Monthly).

1862, February 6
American Civil War: -- Ulysses S. Grant gives the United States its first victory of the war, by capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee.

1862, February 15, 16
-- Feb. 15: In the American Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant attacked Fort Donelson, Tennessee.
-- Feb. 16: Grant captured Fort Donelson with the surrender of 14,000 Confederate soldiers, earning him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant."

1863, February 10
-- The world-famous dwarf, General Tom Thumb, and Lavinia Warren get married in New York City.
-- Alanson Crane patents the fire extinguisher.

1863, February 24
Arizona was organized as a terrority.

1864, February 27
The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison in Andersonville, Georgia.

1865, February 17
American Civil War: Columbia, S.C., burned as the Confederates evacuated and Union forces moved in.

1865, February 18
Delaware voters rejected the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and voted to continue the practice of slavery. (The state legislature finally ratified the amendment on February 12, 1901.)

1866, February 13
Jesse James (Jesse Woodson James) robs his first bank.

1867, February 3
Prince Mutshuhito becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan.

1867, February 7
Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie, was born. (Died: 1957)

1867, February 17
The first ship passed through the Suez Canal.

1868, February 16
The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) was organized in NYC.

1868, February 24
The House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson following his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; Johnson was later acquitted by the Senate.

1870, February 2
It is revealed that the famed Cardiff Giant was just carved gypsum and not the petrified remains of a human.

1870, February 3
The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed.

1870, February 9
The U.S. Weather Bureau was established.

1870, February 12
Women in the Utah Territory gain the right to vote.

1870, February 23
Military control of Mississippi ends; readmitted to Union.

1873, February 11
Spanish Cortes fires king Amadeus I.

1876, February 2
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed in New York.

1876, February 14
Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone.

1878, February 2
Greece declares war on Turkey.

1878, February 18
The Lincoln County War began in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

1878, February 19
Thomas Edison received a patent for his phonograph.

1878, February 21
The world's first telephone directory was issued by the District Telephone Company of New Haven, Conn.

1879, February 12
NYC's Madison Square Garden opens, the first artificial ice rink in North America.

1879, February 14
The War of the Pacific broke out when Chilean armed forces occupied the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.

1879, February 15
President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

1879, February 22
In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores.

1880, February 2
The first electric streetlight is installed in Wabash, Indiana.

1880, February 13
Thomas Edison becomes the first person to observe the Edison Effect.

1881, February 19
Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.

1882, February 2
-- The Knights of Columbus was formed in New Haven, Connecticut.
-- Born: Irish poet and novelist James Joyce, near Dublin, Ireland.

1882, February 7
In Mississippi City, the last heavyweight boxing championship bare-knuckle fight took place.

1883, February 7:
Born: Composer, musician Eubie Blake (died: 1983). [Research conducted since his death indicates he may have been born in 1887 instead of 1883.]

1884, February 1
Edition one of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

1885, February 7
Born: Author Sinclair Lewis, in Sauk Centre, Minnesota (died: 1951).

1885, February 9
The first Japanese settlers arrived in Hawaii.

1885, February 18
Mark Twain's classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first published.

1885, February 21
The newly completed Washington Monument was dedicated.

1887, February 2
In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.

1889, February 9
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is established as a Cabinet-level agency.

1889, February 11
Meiji constitution of Japan was adopted.

1889, February 22
President Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and Washington state to the Union.

1892, February 12
Abraham Lincoln's birthday is declared a national holiday.

1893, February 1
In West Orange, New Jersey, Thomas A. Edison finished construction of the first motion picture studio.

1893, February 10
Born: Jimmy Durante, actor, singer, comedian, vaudevillean (died: 1980).

1893, February 12
Born: Omar Bradley, general (5 stars), WW II (died: 1981).

1893, February 20
Died in New Orleans: P.G.T. Beauregard, writer, civil servant, inventor, one of only eight full generals in the army of the Confederate States of America.

1893, February 23
Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine.

1894, February 7
Date once believed to be birthdate of Babe Ruth. See Feb. 6, 1895.

1894, February 13
Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector.

1894, February 14
Born: Jack Benny, actor, comedian (died: 1974).

1895, February 6:
Born: In Baltimore, Maryland, Babe Ruth, baseball Hall-of-Famer (died: Aug. 16, 1948). [For forty years, it was believed that Ruth's birthdate was Feb. 7, 1894. Therefore, most accounts will state an inaccurate date for his age.]

1895, February 9
W.G. Morgan invents volleyball.

1895, February 20
Died: Ex-slave abolitionist Frederick Douglass, in Washington, D.C.

1896, February 1
The opera "La Bohème" premiered in Turin, Italy.

1897, February 2
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the state capitol was destroyed by fire. (A new statehouse was dedicated on the same site 9 years later.)

1897, February 17
The forerunner of the National PTA, the National Congress of Mothers, was founded in Washington.

1898, February 7
Emile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuse.

1898, February 15
The USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor, Cuba, for then unknown reasons killing more than 260 and provoking the the Spanish-American War between the U.S. and Spain. [Recent investigation reveals that the ship may have sunk because of an accidental boiler explosion.]

1899, February 2
The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne agrees Australia's capital (Canberra) should be located between Sydney and Melbourne.

1899, February 4
Philippine-American War erupts into open conflict.

1899, February 6
Spanish-American War: A peace treaty between the United States and Spain is ratified by the United States Senate.

1899, February 14
Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

1900, February 3
Gubernatorial candidate William Goebels is assassinated in Frankfort, Kentucky. Former-Secretary of State Caleb Powers was later found guilty in a conspiracy to kill Goebels.

1900, February 5
Born: Adlai Stevenson, Democrat politician (died: 1965)

1900, February 6
The international arbitration court at The Hague is created when the Netherlands' Senate ratifies an 1899 peace conference decree.

1900, February 7
The British Labour Party is formed.

1900, February 8
British troops are defeated by Boers at Ladysmith, South Africa.

1900, February 9
Davis Cup competition is established.

1900, February 14
-- Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country.
-- Boer War: In South Africa, 20,000 British troops invade the Orange Free State.

1900, February 22
Hawaii officially becomes a territory of the United States.

1901, February 25
United States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.

1902, February 4
Born: Charles Lindbergh, aviator (died: 1974).

1902, February 11
Police beat up universal suffrage demonstrators in Brussels.

1902, February 27
Born in Salinas, Calif.: Author John Steinbeck, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature for 1962.

1903, February 14
The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor was established. It was later split into the Dept. of Commerce and the Dept. of Labor.

1903, February 15
Morris Michtom and his wife Rose introduce the first teddy bear in America.

1903, February 23
Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity."

1904, February 7
A fire in Baltimore raged for about 30 hours and destroyed more than 1,500 buildings.

1904, February 8
Russo-Japanese War: Japanese surprise attack at Port Arthur, Manchuria, started the war. [The war ended in 1905 with The Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt.]

1904, February 23
For $10 million, the U.S. gains control of the Panama Canal Zone.

1905, February 11
Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical Vehementer nos.

1905, February 23
The first Rotary Club service organization was founded in Chicago by Paul Harris.

1906, February 15
The British Labor Party is organized.

1908, February 1
King Carlos I of Portugal and his son, Prince Luís Filipe, are killed in Terreiro do Paco, Lisbon.

1908, February 11
Australia regain the Ashes with a 308 run cricket victory over England.

1909, February 12
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.

1910, February 8
The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by William D. Boyce.

1911, February 6
Born: Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States.

1912, February 6
Born: Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's mistress (died: 1945).

1912, February 12
China adopts the Gregorian calendar.

1912, February 14
Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.

1912, February 14
In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned.

1913, February 1
New York City's Grand Central Station opens as the world's largest train station.

1913, February 3
A sad, dark Monday*: The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect income tax directly from individuals rather than through state legislatures as originally provided in the Constitution. [* Clearly, state legislators took advantage of apathetic citizens and let themselves off the hook.]

1913, February 19
Prizes are included in Cracker Jack candy boxes for the first time.

1913, February 25
Marking one of the darkest days in America, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect giving Congress the power to levy and collect individual income taxes. At a glance, the Amendment seems innocuous but when combined with the 17th Amendment the changes virtually eliminated state's rights and inserted direct central government control over individuals. [Before the 17th Amendment, U.S. Senators were appointed by state legislatures and the concept was that they would protect states from federal encroachment. Now they are just two more Representatives, except they are in office for SIX years before they have to face the voters again!]

1914, February 4
Born: Ida Lupino, actress, director, writer (died: 1995).

1914, February 13
In New York City, the ASCAP (for American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) was established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

1915, February 8
D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking and controversial silent movie epic about the Civil War, "The Birth of a Nation," premiered in Los Angeles.

1915, February 12
In Washington, D.C. the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

1915, February 23
Born: Paul Tibbets, pilot of the B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay" that was used to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II.

1916, February 3
Canada's original Parliament buildings, in Ottawa, burned down.

1916, February 11
Emma Goldman arrested for lecturing on birth control.

1916, February 21
World War I: In France, the Battle of Verdun began.

1917, February 3
World War I: The United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany a day after Germany announced a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.

1917, February 5
-- Congress passed, over President Wilson's veto, an immigration act limiting the immigration of Asians.
-- The constitution of Mexico was adopted.

1917, February 23
The Russia Revolution begins.

1918, February 1
Russia adopts the Gregorian Calendar.

1918, February 3
The Twin Peaks Tunnel begins service in San Francisco as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world (11,920 feet long).

1918, February 8
The Stars and Stripes newspaper publishes for the first time.

1918, February 14
The movie Tarzan of the Apes is released.

1918, February 14
The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (1 February according to the Julian calendar).

1918, February 16
Lithuania proclaimed its independence from both Russia and Germany.

1919, February 1
The first Miss America is crowned (New York City).

1919, February 5
Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1919, February 11
Friedrich Ebert (SPD), elected President of Germany.

1919, February 13
Born: Tennessee Ernie Ford, country singer, musician, (died: 1991).

1919, February 26
The Grand Canyon is designated: Grand Canyon National Park.

1920, February 1
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police came into existence.

1920, February 2
-- Estonia declares its independence from Russia.
-- France occupies Memel.

1920, February 13
-- The National Negro Baseball League is formed.
-- The League of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.

1920, February 14
The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago, Illinois; its first president was Maud Wood Park.

1920, February 20
Died: Robert Peary, explorer usually credited as the first person to reach the Geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909.

1920, February 24
A fledgling German political party held its first meeting of importance in Munich; it became known as the Nazi Party, and its chief spokesman was Adolf Hitler.

1922, February 6
Achille Ratti becomes Pope Pius XI.

1922, February 8
President Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio in the White House.

1922, February 27
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the 19th Amendment to the Constitution that guaranteed the right of women to vote. [The U.S.S.C. ruling is not remarkable but the challenge to the amendment is very revealing about humans. Its clear that once ratified the amendment was then part of the Constitution. The lawsuit challenging that fact was in effect asking the courts to rule that the Constitution itself was unconstitutional.]

1923, February 10
Death: Wilhelm Röntgen, discover of X-Rays.

1923, February 13
Born: Chuck Yeager, test pilot, 1st pilot to break the sound barrier.

1923, February 16
The burial chamber of King Tutankhamen's recently unearthed tomb was unsealed in Egypt.

1924, February 3
Died: The 28th president of the U.S., Woodrow Wilson, in Washington at age 67.

1924, February 5
Hourly time signals from the Royal Greenwich Observatory are first broadcast.

1924, February 8
The first death penalty execution in the U.S. using gas took place at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

1924, February 12
Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to deliver a political speech on radio.

1924, February 13
King Tut's sarcophagus is opened after tomb discovery by Howard Carter.

1924, February 14
IBM corporation founded.

1924, February 22
Calvin Coolidge becomes the first U.S. president to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.

1925, February 2
Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.

1925, February 21
The New Yorker magazine made its debut.

1927, February 4
The first talkie-movie is released; "The Jazz Singer" starring Al Jolson.

1927, February 23
The Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission - FCC) begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies.

1928, February 11
1928 Winter Olympic Games open in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

1929, February 1
Frenchman Charles Rigoulet (Charles Rigoulot) is the first weightlifter to lift over 400 pounds in the "clean and jerk" method.

1929, February 11
The Lateran Treaty is signed, with Italy recognizing the independence and sovereignty of Vatican City.

1929, February 14
St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven gangsters, rivals of the Al Capone gang, were murdered in a garage/warehouse in Chicago, Illinois.

1929, February 20
American Samoa becomes organized as a territory of the United States.

1929, February 26
President Coolidge signed a bill establishing Grand Teton National Park.

1930, February 3
For health resaons, the chief justice of the United States, William Howard Taft, stepped down from the Supreme Court.

1930, February 18
While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovered the ninth planet of our solar system, Pluto.

1931, February 10
New Delhi becomes the capital of India.

1932, February 4
World War II: Japan occupies Harbin, China.

1932, February 4
President Roosevelt opened the 1932 Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, N.Y.

1933, February 2
Adolf Hitler dissolves the German Parliament.

1933, February 6
The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution, the so called "lame duck" amendment, goes into effect.

1933, February 10
-- The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company introduces the first singing telegram.
-- In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City's Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf, killing him.

1933, February 15
In Miami, Florida a man attempted to assassinate President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead shot Chicago, Illinois, Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who died of his wounds on March 6, 1933.

1933, February 17
Newsweek (Magazine) was first published.

1933, February 20
The House of Representatives completed congressional action on an amendment to repeal Prohibition. [The proposal was thus ready for consideration by the states. It was ratified as Amendment XXI on December 5, 1933.]

1933, February 27
Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, caught fire. Nazis, blaming the communists, used the fire as a pretext to suspend civil liberties. (see: Reichstag fire).

1934, February 5
Born: Hank Aaron, Baseball Hall of Famer.

1934, February 12
The Export-Import Bank is incorporated.

1935, February 2
The polygraph machine is tested for the first time. Leonard Keeler conducted the experiment in Portage, Wisconsin.

1935, February 13
A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby boy.

1935, February 22
It became illegal for airplanes to fly over the White House.

1935, February 28
Nylon was discovered by Wallace Carothers.

1936, February 4
Radium E. becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.

1936, February 6
1936 Winter Olympic Games open in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

1936, February 7
President Roosevelt authorized a flag for the office of the Vice President.

1936, February 8
Jay Berwanger became the first person to be selected by a National Football League draft: the Philadelphia Eagles.

1936, February 19
Died: Billy Mitchell, military aviation pioneer.

1937, February 5
President Roosevelt proposed a plan to increase the number of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. (The idea was abandoned when critics decried it as an attempt to "pack" the court with a majority of justices sharing his ideology.)

1937, February 11
A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Automobile Workers Union.

1937, February 16
Wallace H. Carothers, a Dupont chemist, received a patent for nylon. Thought to suffer from manic-depresson, he committed suicide later in the year.

1938, February 4
Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town" opens, in New York City.

1938, February 12
World War II: German troops enter Austria.

1939, February 27
A Supreme Court ruling outlawed sit-down strikes (strikes within the confines of the work-place).

1940, February 2
Frank Sinatra debuts with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra.

1940, February 26
The United States Air Defense Command was created.

1940, February 29
For her role as Mammy in "Gone with the Wind," Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award (Best Supporting Actress).

1941, February 3
World War II: The Nazis forcibly restored Pierre Laval to office in occupied Vichy, France.

1941, February 4
World War II: The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.

1941, February 11
First Gold record presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo".
[Another source shows, Feb. 10, 1942: RCA Victor presented Glenn Miller and his Orchestra with a gold record for their recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo," which had sold more than a million copies. Help!]

1942, February 5
Born: Roger Staubach, QB of the Dallas Cowboys and Football Hall of Famer.

1942, February 9
-- World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discus American military strategy in the war.
-- Daylight-saving time goes into effect in the United States.

1942, February 10
-- The former French liner Normandie capsized in New York Harbor a day after it caught fire while being retrofitted for the U.S. Navy.
-- RCA Victor presented Glenn Miller and his Orchestra with a "gold record" for their recording of "Chattanooga Choo Choo," which had sold more than one million copies.

1942, February 15
World War II: Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces.

1942, February 19
-- World War II: About 150 Japanese war planes attack Darwin, Australia.
-- President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066 to relocate Japanese-Americans from "exclusion zones," i.e., parts of California. [Tens-of-thousands were forced by circumstances to confinement in internment camps. Those who had friends or relatives elsewhere were allowed to join them].

1942, February 22
World War II: President Franklin Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defenses of the nation collapse.

1942, February 24
The Voice of America went on the air for the first time.

1942, February 27
In World War II, the USS Langley, the first U.S. aircraft carrier, was sunk by Japanese war planes.

1943, February 1
-- World War II: The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, made up almost entirely of Japanese-Americans, was authorized. It became one of the most highly decorated units of American military history.
-- World War II: Vidkun Quisling appointed Premier of Norway by the Nazi occupiers.

1943, February 2
World War II: The last Nazi forces surrender to the Soviets following the Battle of Stalingrad.

1943, February 3
World War II: The U.S. transport ship Dorchester, which was carrying troops to Greenland, sank after being hit by a torpedo. (Four Army chaplains gave their life belts to four other men, and went down with the ship.)

1943, February 7
World War II: The United States announced that shoe rationing would go into effect in two days.

1943, February 8
World War II:
-- Battle of Kursk, the Russian army captures the city.
-- Battle of Guadalcanal begins in the southwest Pacific.

1943, February 9
World War II: U.S. forces defeat Japanese troops to end the Battle of Guadalcanal.

1943, February 11
General Dwight Eisenhower selected to command the allied armies in Europe.

1943, February 14
-- World War II: Rostov, Russia is liberated.
-- World War II: The Battle of the Kasserine Pass -- German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia; it is the United States' first major battle defeat of the war.

1943, February 22
Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.

1943, February 25
World War II: U.S. troops reoccupied the Kasserine Pass, Tunisia.

1944, February 3
United States troops capture the Marshall Islands.

1944, February 7
-- During World War II, the Germans launched a counteroffensive against Allied forces at Anzio, Italy.
-- Bing Crosby and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded "Swinging on a Star" for Decca Records in Los Angeles.

1944, February 14
World War II: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.

1944, February 15
World War II: Assault on Monte Cassino, Italy begins.

1944, February 20
-- World War II: "Big Week" begins with American bomber raids on Nazi aircraft manufacturing centers.
-- U.S. forces take Eniwetok Island in the Pacific.

1944, February 29
World War II: The Admiralty Islands are invaded by forces under General Douglas MacArthur in Operation Brewer.

1945, February 2
World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill left Malta to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference.

1945, February 3
World War II: Russia agrees to enter the Pacific Theatre conflict against Japan.

1945, February 4, 11
-- Feb. 4: World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin begin the Yalta Conference.
-- Feb. 11: Yalta Agreement is signed.

1945, February 5
World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.

1945, February 8
World War II: U.S. bombs Dresden, Germany with fire-bombs. (135,000 deaths.) [The Germans had earlier fire-bombed Coventry, England.]

1945, February 11
Yalta Conference ends.

1945, February 13
During World War II, Soviet Union forces capture Budapest, Hungary from the Nazis. -- Also, the British Air Force bombed Dresden, Germany.

1945, February 14
Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations.

1945, February 16
World War II: American troops landed on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines.

1945, February 19, 23, 24
-- Feb. 19: World War II: 30,000 U.S. Marines landed on Iwo Jima and began a monthlong battle to seize control of the island from Japan.
-- Feb. 23: A group of U.S. Marines reach the top of Mount Surabachi on Iwo Jima and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo later wins a Pulitzer Prize.
-- Feb. 24: Meanwhile, in the Philippines, Manila was liberated.

1945, February 26
World War II: A midnight curfew on night clubs, bars and other places of entertainment was set to go into effect across the nation.

1946, February 1
Trygve Lie of Norway is picked to be the first United Nations Secretary General.

1946, February 14
The Bank of England is nationalized.

1946, February 14
ENIAC ("Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer"), the first general-purpose electronic computer, is unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania.

1947, February 3
Percival Prattis becomes the first African American news correspondent allowed in the United States House and Senate press gallery.

1947, February 4
Born: Dan Quayle, V.P. of the U.S. under President George H.W. Bush.

1947, February 10
Italy cedes most of Venezia Giulia to Yugoslavia.

1947, February 17
The Voice of America begins to transmit radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union.

1947, February 21
In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrated the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America. The camera produced a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds.

1948, February 4
Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.

1948, February 16
NBC-TV began airing its first nightly newscast, "The Camel Newsreel Theatre," which consisted of Fox Movietone newsreels.

1948, February 21
NASCAR is incorporated.

1948, February 25
Communist seize power in Czechoslovakia.

1949, February 8
Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary sentenced for treason.

1949, February 10
"Death of a Salesman" opened at the Morocco Theatre in New York City.

1949, February 14
The Knesset (Israeli parliament) first convenes.

1950, February 9
In a speech in Wheeling, W.Va., U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the U.S. State Department of being filled with Communists.

1950, February 15
The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China sign a mutual defense treaty.

1951, February 3
Dick Button wins the American figure skating championship for the sixth time.

1951, February 26
The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office, was ratified.

1951, February 28
The Senate committee headed by Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., issued a preliminary report saying that at least two major crime syndicates were operating in the U.S.

1952, February 6
Died: Britain's George VI; he was immediately succeeded as reigning monarch by his daughter, Elizabeth II.

1952, February 14
1952 Winter Olympic Games open in Oslo, Norway.

1952, February 26
Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Great Britain had developed its own atomic bomb.

1953, February 5
The movie "Peter Pan" premieres at the Roxy Theatre, New York City.

1953, February 11
-- President Dwight Eisenhower refuses clemency appeal for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
-- The Soviet Union breaks diplomatic relations with Israel.

1953, February 15
17-year-old Tenley Albright becomes the first American to win the world figure skating championship.

1953, February 28
Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the double-helix structure of the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule.

1954, February 10
President Dwight Eisenhower warns against U.S. intervention in Vietnam. (But before he left office, he did just that.)

1954, February 23
The first mass vaccination against polio in children begins in Pittsburgh, Pa.

1955, February 13
Israel obtained 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.

1955, February 23
First meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). [SEATO expired from apathy in early 1977.]

1956, February 22
Elvis Presley enters the music charts for the first time, with "Heartbreak Hotel."

1957, February 10
Died: Laura Ingalls Wilder, author.

1958, February 1
Merger of Egypt and Syria to form the United Arab Republic (UAR), which lasted until 1961.

1958, February 5
Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the new United Arab Republic.

1958, February 6
Munich Air Disaster occurs when British European Flight 609 crashed in a blizzard with the players and staff of Manchester United F.C. football team on board.

1959, February 3
News of the February 2 late-night plane crash that killed Buddy Holly (Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holley), Richie Valens (Richie Valenzuela) and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson (Jiles Perry Richardson) becomes widely known. This date became known as "The Day The Music Died" as memorialized by Don McLean in his classic, "American Pie".

1959, February 6
At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.

1959, February 16
Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.

1960, February 1
Four black college students began a sit-in protest at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they'd been refused service because of their race.

1960, February 13
Nuclear testing: France tests its first atomic bomb.

1960, February 18
The 1960 Winter Olympic Games were opened in Squaw Valley, Calif., by Vice President Richard Nixon.

1960, February 27
The U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets, 3 goals to 2, at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, Calif. (The U.S. team went on to win the gold medal.)

1961, February 11
Trial of WW II war criminal Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem.

1961, February 14
Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized (Berkeley, California).

1961, February 15
A Boeing 707 crashed in Belgium killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.

1962, February 2
For the first time in 400 years Neptune and Pluto align.

1962, February 5
French President Charles de Gaulle called for Algeria's independence.

1962, February 7
The United States Government bans all US-related Cuban imports and exports.

1962, February 10
Captured American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel.

1962, February 14
First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.

1962, February 20
John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth. A culmination of NASA's manned-spaceflight Mercury program, Glenn circled the earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes aboard Friendship 7.

1963, February 8
Travel, financial and commercial transactions by United States citizens to Cuba are made illegal by the John F. Kennedy administration.

1963, February 11
The Beatles tape 10 tracks for their first album, including "Please, Please Me".

1963, February 19
Responding to U.S. pressure, the Soviet Union informed President Kennedy it would withdraw "several thousand" of an estimated 17,000 Soviet troops from Cuba.

1964, February 7, 9
-- Feb. 7: The Beatles arrived on their first visit to the United States.
-- Feb. 9: The Beatles made their first live American television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS.

1964, February 11
-- At the Washington, D.C. Coliseum, The Beatles have their 1st live appearance in the United States.
-- Greeks and Turks begin fighting in Limassol, Cyprus.
-- The Republic of China (Taiwan) drops diplomatic relations with France.

1964, February 17
In Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), the Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts (within each state) have to be approximately equal in population. [The U.S.S.C. failed, however, to order the immediate beheading of those who caused such an outrageous situation in the first place. -- In Connecticut, one district had 191 people and another had 81,000!]

1964, February 25
Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) became world heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, Fla.

1965, February 9
The first U.S. combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.

1965, February 15
A new red and white maple leaf design was adopted as the flag of Canada replacing the old Red Ensign standard.

1965, February 20
Ranger 8 crashed into the moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.

1965, February 21
Malcolm X was assassinated at his mosque in NYC by Black Muslims.

1965, February 23
Died: Stan Laurel, the "skinny" partner in a comedy team with Oliver Hardy.

1966, February 3
The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.

1966, February 4
All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 jet plunges into Tokyo Bay killing 133.

1966, February 20
Chester Nimitz, American admiral and Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces in World War II, died at his home near San Francisco.

1967, February 2
The American Basketball Association is formed.

1967, February 10
The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was ratified (went into effect).

1968, February 1
Vietnam War: A Viet Cong officer was executed by Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. The execution was videotaped and photographed and helped sway public opinion against the war.

1968, February 6
Winter Olympic Games opened in Grenoble, France.

1968, February 8
A civil rights protest staged at a whites-only bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina was broken-up by highway patrolmen leading to the deaths of three college students.

1968, February 10
Peggy Fleming of the U.S. won the gold medal in ladies' figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.

1968, February 11
-- Israeli-Jordanian border clashes.
-- Madison Square Garden III closes and Madison Square Garden IV opens in New York City.

1968, February 16
The nation's first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated, in Haleyville, Ala.

1968, February 17
In Springfield, Massachusetts the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.

1969, February 3
In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is appointed Palestinian Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.

1969, February 4
Yasser Arafat takes over as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

1969, February 8
The last issue of The Saturday Evening Post hits magazine stands.

1969, February 9
Died: George Francis "Gabby" Hayes, actor (1885-1969).

1970, February 15
A Dominican DC-9 crashes into the sea during takeoff from Santo Domingo killing 102.

1970, February 18
The Chicago Eight (or Chicago Seven) were found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democrat's national convention.

1971, February 2
In Uganda after a coup, Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader.

1971, February 5
Apollo 14 makes man's third landing on the moon.

1971, February 7
Women gained the right to vote in Switzerland.

1971, February 8
A new stock-market index called the Nasdaq debuts.

1971, February 9
-- An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale hits the San Fernando Valley area of California.
-- Apollo 14 returned to Earth after man's third moon landing.
-- Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1971, February 11
US, UK, USSR, others sign Seabed Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons in international waters.

1971, February 13
In the Vietnam War, American air and artillery support provided cover for South Vietnamese troops to invade Laos.

1971, February 15
Decimalization of British coinage completed.

1972, February 3
The first Winter Olympics to be held in Asia open in Sapporo, Japan.

1972, February 5
Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1972, February 17
President Nixon departed on his historic trip to China.

1972, February 18
The California Supreme Court invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life in prison thereby sparing the life of Charles Manson and his "family."

1972, February 21
President Richard Nixon arrived for his visit to the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations.

1972, February 27
President Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai issued the Shanghai Communique at the conclusion of Nixon's historic visit to China.

1973, February 5
Services were held at Arlington National Cemetery for Army Lt. Col. William B. Nolde, the last American soldier killed before the Vietnam War cease-fire.

1973, February 12
-- Ohio becomes the first U.S. state to post distance in metric on signs.
-- The first American POW's are released by North Vietnam.

1973, February 21
Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan Airlines jet over the Sinai Desert, killing more than 100 people.

1973, February 22
The United States and China agreed to establish liaison offices.

1974, February 4
The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California. [Some people believe that the whole thing was a hoax to extort money from her father because the heiress was later shown on security cameras helping the gang with a bank robbery.]

1974, February 7
Grenada gained independence from the United Kingdom.

1974, February 8
After 84 days in space, the crew of the temporary American space station Skylab return to Earth.

1974, February 28
After 7 years, the U.S. and Egypt re-establish diplomatic relations.

1975, February 9
The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.

1975, February 21
Watergate scandal: Former Attorney General of the United States John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to prison. The trio got from 2½ to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up.

1975, February 28
A major tube train crash at Moorgate tube station, London, killed 43 people.

1976, February 4
-- In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake killed more than 22,000.
-- Winter Olympics opened in Innsbruck, Austria.

1977, February 7
The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 24.

1977, February 18
The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle went on its "maiden flight" sitting atop a Boeing 747 over the Mojave Desert.

1978, February 8
Proceedings of the U.S. Senate are broadcasted on radio for the first time.

1978, February 11
Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, Shakespeare and Dickens.

1979, February 1
-- Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst was released from prison after her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.
-- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was welcomed back into Tehran, Iran, after nearly 15 years of exile. His return plunged Iran back into the dark ages, as an Islamic state.

1979, February 11
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seizes power in Iran.

1979, February 14
In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnapped American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who was later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and the police.

1979, February 26
A total solar eclipse cast a moving shadow 175 miles wide from Oregon to North Dakota before moving into Canada.

1979, February 27
Jane M. Byrne confounded Chicago's Democratic political machine as she upset Mayor Michael A. Bilandic to win their party's mayoral primary. (Byrne went on to win the election.)

1980, February 2
Abscam: Reports surface that FBI personnel were targeting members of the United States Congress in a sting operation.

1980, February 4
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini names Abolhassan Bani-Sadr as president of Iran.

1980, February 14
1980 Winter Olympic Games open in Lake Placid, New York.

1980, February 22
The U.S. hockey team upset the U.S.S.R. team 4-3 at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games, Lake Placid, New York.

1981, February 5
A military jury in North Carolina convicted Marine Pfc. Robert Garwood of collaborating with the enemy while a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

1981, February 10
A fire at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino killed eight and injured 198.

1981, February 11
100,000 gallons of radioactive coolant leaks into the containment building of TVA Sequoyah 1 nuclear plant in Tennessee, contaiminating 8 workers.

1981, February 23
An attempted coup began in Spain as 200 members of the Civil Guard invaded the Parliament, taking lawmakers hostage. (The attempt collapsed in 18 hours.)

1982, February 1
Senegal and Gambia form a loose confederation known as Senegambia.

1982, February 15
The drilling rig Ocean Ranger sank during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 84 rig workers.

1983, February 5
Former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie, expelled from Bolivia, was brought to Lyon, France, to stand trial. (He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He died in 1991.)

1983, February 7
Elizabeth H. Dole was sworn in as the first female secretary of transportation by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1983, February 23
The Environmental Protection Agency announced a plan to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.

1984, February 3
Space Shuttle Challenger is launched; the tenth space shuttle mission.

1984, February 7
Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.

1984, February 8
Winter Olympics open in Saravejo.

1984, February 9
Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov died at age 69, less than 15 months after succeeding Leonid Brezhnev; he was succeeded by Konstantin U. Chernenko.

1984, February 13
Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1984, February 13/14
Six-year-old Stormie Jones became the world's first heart-liver transplant recipient at Children's Hospital of Pittsburg (she lived until November 1990).

1985, February 6
Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer with Steve Jobs, leaves the company.

1985, February 7
"New York, New York" becomes the official city anthem of New York City.

1985, February 8
After 6½ years, the television series The Dukes of Hazzard went off the air.

1985, February 14
Cable News Network reporter Jeremy Levin, who was being held hostage by extremists in Lebanon, was freed.

1985, February 17
Murray P. Haydon became the third person to receive a permanent artificial heart as doctors at Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville, Ky., implanted the device. (Haydon lived 488 days with the heart.)

1985, February 27
Died: Former ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who had served three terms as a U.S. senator and ran as the 1960 Republican vice-presidential nominee, in Beverly, Mass., at age 82.

1986, February 7
28 years of one-family rule ended in Haiti, when President-for-life Jean-Claude Duvalier fled the Caribbean nation.

1986, February 11
Soviet dissident and rights activist Natan Sharansky (born Anatoly Scharansky), released by the Soviet Union after nine years of captivity as part of an East-West prisoner exchange; leaves the country.

1986, February 19
-- The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station.
-- The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide, 37 years after the pact had first been submitted for ratification.

1986, February 21
Larry Wu-tai Chin, the first American found guilty of spying for China, killed himself in his Virginia jail cell.

1986, February 28
Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot to death in central Stockholm.

1987, February 11
Philippines constitution goes into effect.

1987, February 23
A supernova is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud (see Supernova 1987a).

1987, February 26
The Tower Commission, which probed the Iran-Contra affair, issued its report, which rebuked President Reagan for failing to control his national security staff.

1988, February 3
Iran-Contra Affair: The United States House of Representatives rejects President Ronald Reagan's request for $36.25 million to aid Nicaraguan Contras.

1988, February 5
Manuel Noriega, military dictator of Panama, is indicted by U.S. DOJ on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

1988, February 13
1988 Winter Olympic Games opened in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

1988, February 18
Anthony M. Kennedy was sworn in as the 104th justice of the United States Supreme Court.

1988, February 21
TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart tearfully confessed to his congregation in Baton Rouge, La., that he was guilty of an unspecified sin, and said he was leaving the pulpit temporarily. (Reports linked Swaggart to an admitted prostitute, Debra Murphree.)

1989, February 2
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The last Soviet Union armored column leaves Kabul ending nine years of military occupation.

1989, February 3
After a stroke, P.W. Botha resigns party leadership and the presidency of South Africa.

1989, February 8
An Independent Air Boeing 707 crashed into Santa Maria mountain in the Azores Islands off the coast of Portugal killing 144.

1989, February 10
Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming the first black to lead a major American political party.

1989, February 11
The Rev. Barbara C. Harris became the first woman consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, in a ceremony held in Boston.

1989, February 14
-- Union Carbide agrees to pay USD $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal Disaster.
-- Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini encourages Muslims to kill the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.
-- The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit.

1989, February 15
Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan: The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had left Afghanistan.

1990, February 2
In South Africa, President F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to legally function again and promises to set Nelson Mandela free.

1990, February 7
Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly of power.

1990, February 10
South African President F.W. de Klerk announces that Nelson Mandela would be released the next day.

1990, February 11
-- James "Buster" Douglas KOs Mike Tyson to win heavyweight boxing crown.
-- Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, is freed from Victor Verster prison outside Cape Town, South Africa.

1990, February 13
An agreement is reached for a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.

1990, February 26
The Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections.

1991, February 4
The Baseball Hall of Fame votes to ban Pete Rose.

1991, February 5
A Michigan court bars Dr. Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides.

1991, February 6
Danny Thomas -- singer, comedian, actor -- died on this date.

1991, February 7
Haiti's first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in.

1991, February 9
Voters in Lithuania vote for independence.

1991, February 11
UNPO, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, forms in The Hague, Netherlands.

1991, February 13
During the Gulf War, two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroyed an underground bunker in Baghdad killing hundreds of Iraqis. Iraqi officials claimed that the bunker was a bomb shelter but U.S. military intelligence had identified it as an operational Command and Control military facility.

1991, February 15
The Visegard Agreement, establishing cooperation to move toward free-market systems, is signed by the leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland.

1991, February 23
Persian Gulf War: American ground troops crossed the Saudi Arabia border and enter Iraq, thus starting the ground-phase of the war.

1991, February 25
Persian Gulf War: 28 Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

1991, February 26
Tim Berners-Lee inventor of the World Wide Web (http://www.), introduces the first web browser.

1992, February 1
The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal court declares Warren Anderson, ex-CEO of Union Carbide, a fugitive under Indian law for failing to appear in the Bhopal Disaster case and orders the government to press for his extradition from the U.S. [The Bhopal Disaster was an industrial accident where deadly chemicals spilled from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal and killed over 2000 people.]

1992, February 7
The European Union is formed.

1992, February 8
The 16th Winter Olympic Games opened in Albertville, France.

1992, February 10
In Indianapolis, Indiana, heavyweight champion boxer Mike Tyson was convicted of raping Miss Black American contestant, Desiree Washington.

1992, February 17
Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison (however, he was beaten to death in prison in November 1994).

1993, February 6
Died: Arthur Ashe, tennis Hall-of-Famer and human rights advocate, in NYC, age 49. [Ashe contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion administered during surgery before blood supplies were screened for the AIDS-HIV viruses.]

1993, February 8
General Motors sues NBC after Dateline NBC allegedly rigged two crashes showing that some GM pickups can easily catch fire if hit in certain places. NBC settled the lawsuit the next day.

1993, February 26
World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center exploded, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand.

1993, February 28
A gun battle erupted at a compound near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to serve warrants on the Branch Davidians; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began.

1994, February 1
In Portland, Oregon Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly pleads guilty for his role in attacking figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. He accepts a plea bargain admitting to racketeering charges in exchange for testimony against Harding.

1994, February 3
The space shuttle Discovery lifted off, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a U.S. spacecraft.

1994, February 5
Byron De La Beckwith was finally convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and immediately sentenced to life in prison. (Beckwith died Jan. 21, 2001, at age 80.)

1994, February 9
Vance-Owen peace plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina announced.

1994, February 12
1994 Winter Olympic Games open in Lillehammer, Norway.

1994, February 16
At least 217 people were killed when a powerful earthquake shook Indonesia's Sumatra island. [This is near the epicenter of the quake that set off the deadly tsunamis in December, 2004.]

1994, February 22
Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union. Ames would later be convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment and his wife would receive 5-years in prison.

1995, February 3
The space shuttle Discovery lifted off, with a woman, Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins, in the pilot's seat for the first time in NASA history.

1995, February 4
A standoff between the United States and China escalated into a trade war, with each country ordering stiff tariffs against the other.

1995, February 7
Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan, after two years as a fugitive.

1995, February 8
The U.N. Security Council approved sending 7,000 peacekeepers to Angola to cement an accord ending 19 years of civil war.

1995, February 9
Died: Former Sen. J. William Fulbright ("Fulbright Fellowships"), in Washington at age 89.

1995, February 15
Kevin Mitnick was arrested by the FBI and charged with breaking into some of the U.S.' most "secure" computer systems. (He served five years in prison.)

1995, February 18
The NAACP replaced veteran chairman William Gibson with Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, after the rank-and-file declared no confidence in Gibson's leadership.

1995, February 21
Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

1996, February 1
Communications Decency Act is passed by the United States Congress.

1996, February 6
A Turkish Airlines Boeing 757 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast off Dominican Republic killing 189.

1996, February 10, 17
-- Feb. 10: Deep Blue, the IBM supercomputer computer, defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the first time to win game-one in the match.
-- Feb. 17: In Philadelphia, Kasparov beats