- 747 BC Epoch (origin) of Ptolemy's Nabonassar Era
- 364 Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor
- 1266 Battle of Benevento fought in Southern Italy between Manfred of Sicily and army of Charles of Anjou
- 1534 Pope Paul II affirms George van Egmond as bishop of Utrecht
- 1590 Mauritius of Nassaus sails to Breda
Event of Interest
1616 Roman Inquisition delivers injunction to Galileo demanding he abandon his belief in heliocentrism
Galileo Galilei
Event of Interest
1804 Vice-admiral William Bligh (of Bounty fame) ends siege of Fort Amsterdam, Willemstad
William Bligh
Event of Interest
1815 Napoleon Bonaparte and his supporters leave Elba to start a 100 day re-conquest of France
Napoléon Bonaparte
- 1832 Polish constitution abolished and replaced by Tsar Nicholas I
- 1834 1st US interstate crime compact (NY-NJ) ratified
- 1839 1st Grand National steeplechase race held at Aintree Racecourse, Jem Mason aboard Lottery wins in Liverpool, England (disputed)
- 1848 2nd French Republic proclaimed
- 1851 13th Grand National: T. Abbott aboard Abd-El-Kader IRE wins
- 1852 British troopship Birkenhead sinks off South Africa, 458 die, 193 survive
- 1859 Paul Morphy's chess match vs Augustus Mongredien begins; Morphy wins
- 1862 Battle of Woodburn, Kentucky
Event of Interest
1863 Abraham Lincoln signs National Currency Act, establishes single national US currency
Abraham Lincoln
Music Premiere
1869 Franz Schubert's Symphony number 4, "The Tragic", premieres
Franz Schubert
- 1870 Beach Pneumatic Transit - 1st attempt to demonstrate a subway in New York opens (pneumatic powered)
- 1881 -27] Natal: British troops under Major General Colley occupy Majuba Hill
- 1881 P&O's SS Ceylon begins world's 1st round-the-world pleasure cruise from Liverpool
- 1884 British & Portuguese treaty signed in Congo by Leopold II
- 1885 Berlin Conference gives Congo to Belgium and Nigeria to Great Britain
- 1887 George Lohmann took 1st 8-wkt haul in test cricket, 8-35 at SCG
- 1891 1st buffalo purchased for Golden Gate Park
- 1891 Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" premieres in Oslo
- 1893 2 Clydesdale horses set record by pulling 48 tons on a sledge, Mich
- 1893 Einar Halvorsen skates world record 500m (48 sec)
- 1895 Michael Owens of Toledo, Ohio, patents a glass-blowing machine
Event of Interest
1901 British General Kitchener confers with Boer general Louis Botha about peace conditions, which break down over the question of amnesty for some Boers
Horatio Kitchener
- 1907 Royal Oil & Shell merge to form British Petroleum (BP)
- 1907 US Congress raised their own salaries to $7,500
- 1907 Louis Botha Het Volk Party wins a majority in the election in Transvaal, South Africa
- 1909 Austria and Turkey conclude an agreement in which Turkey recognizes Austria's 1908 annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is to receive compensation
Event of Interest
1910 Gandhi supports the African People's Organisations resolution to declare the Prince of Wales day of arrival in South Africa a day of mourning, in protest against the South Africa Acts disenfranchisement of Indians, Coloureds and Africans
Mahatma Gandhi
- 1912 Coal miners strike in Britain (settle on 1st March)
- 1914 New York Museum of Science & Industry incorporated
- 1914 HMHS Britannic, sister to the Titanic, is launched at Harland & Wolff, Belfast
- 1915 Malancourt, Argonnen 1st (German) flame-thrower
- 1916 Germans sink French transport ship Provence II, killing 930
Contract of Interest
1916 Mutual signs Charlie Chaplin to a film contract
Charlie Chaplin
Event of Interest
1917 Russian February Revolution: Tsar Nicolas II orders army to quell civil unrest in Petrograd - army mutinies [NS Mar 11]
Nicholas II
- 1917 1st Annual fair at Utrecht Harbor (Netherlands)
- 1918 Stands at Hong Kong Jockey Club collapse & burn, killing 604
- 1919 Acadia National Park forms (as Lafayette N P), Maine
- 1919 Congress forms Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona
- 1921 The USSR signs treaties respecting the integrity of Persia and of Afghanistan
- 1923 Italian nationalist & fascists merge (blue-shirts & black-shirts)
Coup d'état
Adolf Hitler
Erich Ludendorff
Event of Interest
1929 US President Calvin Coolidge establishes Grand Teton National Park
Calvin Coolidge
- 1930 "Green Pastures" opens at Mansfield Theater
- 1930 1st red & green traffic lights installed (Manhattan NYC)
- 1930 West Indies make 1st Test Cricket win, by 289 runs over England
- 1933 Golden Gate Bridge groundbreaking ceremony held at Crissy Field
- 1933 Marinus van der Lubbe kept overnight in a police cell
Event of Interest
1935 German Luftwaffe is re-formed under Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering
Hermann Goering
Event of Interest
1935 RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) first demonstrated by Robert Watson-Watt
Robert Watson-Watt
- 1935 Adolf Hitler secretly authorizes formation of the Luftwaffe with Hermann Göring commander-in-chief
- 1936 Adolf Hitler introduces Ferdinand Porsche's "Volkswagen"
- 1936 Military coup in Japan
- 1937 Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden's "Ascent of F6" premieres in London
- 1938 1st passenger ship equipped with radar
- 1938 Rie Van Veen swims world record 200m free style (2:24.6)
- 1938 US female Figure Skating championship won by Joan Tozzer
- 1938 US male Figure Skating championship won by Robin Lee
- 1940 US Air Defense Command forms at Mitchel Field, LI, NY
- 1941 2 fighters unable to continued slugfest, referee declares double KO
- 1941 Cowboys' Amateur Association of America organized (California)
- 1941 Utrecht & Zaandam strike against raid on Jews
- 1941 Vichy-France makes religious education in school mandatory
- 1942 German battle cruiser Gneisenau deactivated by bomb
- 1942 Radio Orange calls for March 1 day of prayer in Dutch Indies
- 1942 Werner Heisenberger informs nazis about uranium project "Wunderwaffen"
- 1943 German assault moves to Beja North Tunisia
- 1944 1st female US navy captain, Sue Dauser of nurse corps, appointed
- 1945 Very heavy bombing on Berlin by 8th US Air Force
- 1946 2 killed & 10 wounded in race riot in Columbia Tenn
Film and TV Awards
1947 4th Golden Globes: "The Best Years of Our Lives", Gregory Peck, & Rosalind Russell win
Gregory Peck
Event of Interest
1952 PM Winston Churchill announces Britain has its own atomic bomb
Winston Churchill
- 1953 Allen Dulles promoted from deputy to 5th director of CIA
Film and TV Awards
1953 10th Golden Globes: "The Greatest Show on Earth", Gary Cooper, & Shirley Booth win
Gary Cooper
Shirley Booth
- 1954 1st typesetting machine (photo engraving) used, Quincy Mass
- 1954 Michigan rep Ruth Thompson (R) introduces legislation to ban mailing "obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy" phonograph (rock & roll) records
- 1955 "Peter Pan" closes at Winter Garden Theater NYC after 149 performances
- 1955 1st aviator to bail out at supersonic speed-GF Smith
Event of Interest
1956 Writers and poets Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes meet at a party in Cambridge
Sylvia Plath
Ted Hughes
Event of Interest
1960 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev voices support for Indonesia
Nikita Khrushchev
Event of Interest
1960 Vera Miles stars in the famous "Mirror Image" episode of the classic CBS television series "The Twilight Zone"
Vera Miles
- 1961 3rd Daytona 500: Marvin Panch wins (149.601 MPH)
- 1962 Arthur Kopit's "Oh, Dad, Poor Dad . . ." premieres in NYC
- 1962 US Supreme court disallows race separation on public transportation
- 1965 Dutch government of Marijnen falls
- 1965 West Germany ceases military aid to Tanzania
- 1966 KBIM TV channel 10 in Roswell, NM (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1967 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1967 Verne Gagne beats Mad Dog Vachon in St Paul, to become NWA champ
Event of Interest
1967 9th Daytona 500: Mario Andretti wins (146.926 MPH)
Mario Andretti
- 1968 Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) final transmission
- 1970 "Georgy" opens at Winter Garden Theater NYC for 4 performances
- 1970 Beatles release "Beatles Again" aka "Hey Jude" album
- 1971 Secretary-General U Thant signs United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.
- 1971 Two Royal Ulster Constabulary officers are shot and killed by the Irish Republican Army while on a mobile patrol in the Ardoyne area of Belfast, North Ireland
- 1972 Slag heap dam collapses above Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, kills 125
- 1973 Triple Crown horse Secretariat bought for a record $5.7m
Music Awards
1973 8th Academy of Country Music Awards: Merle Haggard and Donna Fargo win
Merle Haggard
- 1974 Gold hits record $188 an ounce in Paris
- 1975 "Night... Made America Famous" opens at Barrymore NYC for 75 performances
- 1975 1st televised kidney transplant (Today Show)
- 1976 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1977 1st flight of Space Shuttle (atop a Boeing 747)
- 1978 Ira Levin's "Deathtrap" premieres in NYC
- 1979 Last total eclipse of Sun in 20th century for continental US
- 1979 CBS' premiere of NYC sitcom "Flatbush", which received many derision phone calls about it from Brooklynites to CBS
- 1980 Egypt & Israel exchange ambassadors for 1st time
- 1980 Military coup under Desi Bouterse in Suriname
Event of Interest
1980 Richard Hadlee scores Test Cricket century v Roberts, Garner, Holding, Croft
Richard Hadlee
Event of Interest
1982 Test Cricket debut of batsman Martin Crowe, playing for New Zealand v Australia in Wellington, run out for 9
Martin Crowe
#1 in the Charts
1983 Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album goes #1 and stays #1 for 37 weeks
Michael Jackson
- 1983 Shortwave pirate Radio USA (Wellsville, NY) begins transmission
- 1984 Last US marines in multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon left Beirut
- 1984 Reverend Jesse Jackson acknowledges that he called NYC "Hymietown"
- 1984 Robert Penn Warren, Pulitzer Prize winner, named 1st US poet laureate
- 1985 27th Grammy Awards: Whats Love Got to Do With It, Cyndi Lauper wins
- 1986 Evert van Benthem wins 14th Frisian 11-Cities skating race (6:55:16)
- 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
- 1987 1st release of Beatles compact discs
- 1987 NASA launches GEOS-H
Event of Interest
1987 NBA's Michael Jordan's 58 points in one game is a Chicago Bulls record
Michael Jordan
Event of Interest
1989 Dallas Cowboys fire coach Tom Landry after a 29-year career
Tom Landry
- 1989 "Jerome Robbins' Broadway" opens at Imperial Theater NYC for 634 performances
- 1989 Lowest barometric pressure in Netherlands (95.5 hPa)
- 1989 NY Yankees announce that Tom Seaver is their new TV sportscaster
- 1989 California court throws out most of Margo Adams's $12 million breach-of- contract suit against Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs
- 1990 USSR agrees to withdraw all 73,500 troops from Czech by July, 1991
- 1990 The Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections.
- 1991 Asanka Gurusinha scores twin Test Cricket tons v NZ (119 & 102)
- 1991 Bill Veeck & Tony Lazzeri elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
- 1991 Kuwaiti resistance leaders declare they have control of their capital
- 1991 NY-NJ Knights (WLAF) players 1st come together
- 1991 Signs of Iran crude now an option for US refiners, but no imports from Iran likely in near future
Highway of Death
1991 Coalition planes bomb Iraqi forces retreating from Kuwait during the Gulf War, killing hundreds and creating the so-called 'Highway of Death'
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- 1992 "Search & Destroy" opens at Circle in Sq Theater NYC for 46 performances
- 1992 Irish Supreme Court rules 14 year old rape victim may get an abortion
- 1993 "World Trade Center bombing of 1993": truck bomb explodes in parking garage of NYC World Trade Center at 12:18pm, killing 6 and injuring over 1,000 in what was the deadliest act of terrorism perpetrated on US soil at the time
- 1993 9th Soap Opera Digest Awards - Days of Our Lives wins
- 1993 Allan Border beats Gavaskar's record for most Test Cricket runs 10,123
- 1994 St Louis Blues beat Ottawa Senators 11-1
- 1995 London finance house Barings collapses after huge losses in Singapore by rogue trader Nick Leeson
- 1997 39th Grammy Awards: Change the World Babyface, Beck & LeAnn Rimes wins
Event of Interest
1998 Oprah Winfrey found not guilty in beef defamation trial brought by Texas cattlemen
Oprah Winfrey
- 1998 Steven M Gluckstern completes sale of NY Islanders
- 1998 Total solar eclipse in Venezuela-Pacific Ocean (4m09)
- 1999 15th Soap Opera Digest Awards - General Hospital wins
- 2001 The Taliban destroy two giant Buddha statues in Bamyan, Afghanistan.
- 2004 Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- 2004 The United States lifts a ban on travel to Libya, ending travel restrictions to the nation that had lasted for 23 years.
Event of Interest
2005 Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, orders the constitution changed to allow multi-candidate presidential elections, asking Egyptian parliament to amend Article 76
Hosni Mubarak
- 2005 25th Golden Raspberry Awards: "Catwoman" wins
- 2006 XX Winter Olympic Games close in Turin, Italy
- 2010 41st NAACP Image Awards: "Precious" wins Outstanding Motion Picture
- 2011 31st Golden Raspberry Awards: "The Last Airbender" wins
- 2012 Bus plunges off a cliff in Shanxi, China causing 15 deaths
- 2012 Train derailment kills 3 and injures 45 in Burlington, Ontario
Film Awards
2012 84th Academy Awards: "The Artist" wins five Oscars and becomes the first silent film to win since 1927, Jean Dujardin & Meryl Streep also win
Meryl Streep
Jean Dujardin
- 2012 61st NBA All-Star Game: West beats East 152-149 at Orlando
- 2013 A rocket launched from the Gaza strip into Israel ends the ceasefire since November 2012
- 2013 A hot air balloon crashes in Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 tourists
- 2013 A flexible battery capable of being charged wirelessly and folded and stretched is developed
Event of Interest
2014 Seth Rogen testifies about Alzheimer's disease before the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services
Seth Rogen
- 2016 Iranian elections: reformers and moderates win control of parliament
Film Awards
2017 89th Academy Awards: Best Picture "Moonlight" (after mix-up), Best Director Damien Chazelle, Best Actor Casey Affleck, Best Actress Emma Stone
Emma Stone
Casey Affleck
- 2017 59th Daytona 500: Kurt Busch in a Ford leads for just a single lap to win from Ryan Blaney
- 2018 Cold weather nicknamed "the Beast from the East" hits Europe, killing 7 and covering Pompeii in snow
- 2018 Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, receives its 1 millionth seed on 10 year anniversary
- 2018 Global Seed Vault opens in Svalbard, Norway, to help preserve diversity and loss from other genebanks
- 2018 7.5 magnitude earthquake in central Papa New Guinea kills at least 100
February in History
Wonder of Woolworths Begins its Meteoric Rise
It was a simple idea: opening a store where nothing cost more than five cents. The idea caught on so quickly that Woolworth’s became a retail phenomenon.
February 22, 1878
The Man Who Re-wrote 'Offensive' Shakespeare
Thomas Bowdler, the man who re-wrote Shakespeare to remove the "offensive" bits, died on this day and added a new word – bowdlerise – to the language.
February 24, 1825
The 'Baronet' From Wagga Wagga
In the bizarre Tichborne case, a claim by a butcher from Wagga Wagga to be a missing baronet fell apart on this day after the longest trial in English history.
February 28, 1874
Crafty Columbus Plays a Leap Year Trick
Many people born on February 29th curse their luck but it can also bring luck and benefits as explorer Christopher Columbus demonstrated over 400 years ago.
February 29, 1504