On This Day

February 1804 in History

Events in History

  • Feb 14 Karadjordje leads the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire
  • Feb 14 Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general who plotted to overthrow Napoleon in the Pichegru Conspiracy, arrested, and exiled to the United States
  • Feb 15 New Jersey becomes last northern state to abolish slavery
  • Feb 16 US Navy Lt Stephen Decatur raids Tripoli Harbor & burns Navy frigate "Philadelphia" after pirates seized it
  • Feb 18 1st US land-grant college, Ohio University, Athens Ohio, chartered
  • Feb 21 1st locomotive, Richard Trevithick's, runs for the 1st time, along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales
  • Feb 24 London's Drury Lane Theatre burns to the ground, leaving owner Richard Brinsley Sheridan destitute

Electoral defeatPresidential Convention

Feb 25 Thomas Jefferson nominated for US President at Democratic-Republican caucus

3rd US President Thomas Jefferson
3rd US President
Thomas Jefferson

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Feb 26 Vice-admiral William Bligh (of Bounty fame) ends siege of Fort Amsterdam, Willemstad

Naval Commander William Bligh
Naval Commander
William Bligh
  • Feb 28 Charles Pichegru, French army general and royalist who plotted to overthrow Napoleon in the Pichegru Conspiracy, arrested

Birthdays in History

  • Feb 5 Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finland, poet
  • Feb 6 Regnerus Livius van Andringa de Kempenaer, Dutch politician, born in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands (d. 1813)

Person of interestJohn Deere

Feb 7 John Deere, American blacksmith and manufacturer (founded Deere & Company), born in Rutland, Vermont (d. 1886)

Deere & Company Founder John Deere
Deere & Company Founder
John Deere
  • Feb 8 Richard Lemon Lander, British explorer, born in Truro, Cornwall (d. 1834)
  • Feb 12 Heinrich Lenz, German physicist (d. 1865)
  • Feb 14 Otis Tufts, American machinist & inventor who built printing machines, steam engines, firefighting equipment and invented the steam pile driver, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (d. 1869)
  • Feb 16 Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold, German physiologist (d. 1885)
  • Feb 17 Samuel Read Anderson, Brigadier General (Confederate Army), (d. 1883)
  • Feb 19 Carl Freiherr von Rokitansky, German physician (d. 1878)
  • Feb 19 David Wark, Canadian politician (d. 1905)

Deaths in History

  • Feb 2 Caesar Rodney, American judge (signed US Declaration of Independence), dies at 62
  • Feb 2 George Walton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1749-50)

Person of interestJoseph Priestley

Feb 6 Joseph Priestley, English chemist, theologian and author who discovered oxygen and carbonated water, dies at 70

Chemist, Theologian and Author Joseph Priestley
Chemist, Theologian and Author
Joseph Priestley

Person of interestImmanuel Kant

Feb 12 Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (Zum ewigen Frieden), dies at 79

Philosopher Immanuel Kant
Philosopher
Immanuel Kant