On This Day

February 1870 in History

Events in History

  • Feb 2 Cardiff Giant (supposed petrified human) proved to be gypsum
  • Feb 3 US state of Iowa ratifies the 15th Amendment of the United States Constitution allowing suffrage for all races and colors
  • Feb 5 1st motion picture shown to a theater audience, Philadelphia
  • Feb 9 US Army establishes US National Weather Service
  • Feb 10 City of Anaheim in California incorporates for the 1st time, but disincorporates after two years as the tax burden was too high
  • Feb 10 The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) forms in NYC
  • Feb 12 Official proclamation sets April 15 as last day of grace for US silver coins to circulate in Canada
  • Feb 12 Utah becomes the second territory in the United States to pass a law allowing women the vote, after Wyoming in 1869
  • Feb 14 Esther Morris appointed US' first female in Justice of the Peace in South Pass City, Wyoming, after previous justice, R.S. Barr, resigned to protest passage of Wyoming Territory's women's suffrage amendment in 1869
  • Feb 14 Seraph Young becomes the first woman to legally vote in the modern United States, two days after the Utah legislature passed a law allowing women the vote
  • Feb 15 Ground broken for Northern Pacific Railway near Duluth, Minnesota
  • Feb 23 Mississippi is readmitted to US after the Civil War

1st African American Congressman

Feb 25 Hiram R. Revels is sworn in as 1st African American member of Congress as US Senator from Mississippi (R)

Hiram R. Revels
Minister and US Senator Hiram R. Revels
  • Feb 26 Beach Pneumatic Transit - 1st attempt to demonstrate a subway in New York opens (pneumatic powered)
  • Feb 28 The Bulgarian Exarchate (Orthodox Church) is established by decree of Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz of the Ottoman Empire

Birthdays in History

  • Feb 3 Ada Negri, Italian poet and author (Il Libro di Mara), born in Lodi, Italy (d. 1945)

Alfred AdlerAlfred Adler (1870-1937)

Feb 7 Austrian psychiatrist (Inferiority Complex), born in Penzing, Austria

Alfred Adler
  • Feb 10 Fritz Klimsch, German sculptor and painter, born in Frankfurt, Germany (d. 1960)
  • Feb 17 Louis de Raet, Belgian economist and founder of the Flemish People's Party, born in Brussels, Belgium (d. 1914)
  • Feb 18 William Laurel Harris, American mural painter, writer (d. 1924)
  • Feb 20 Pieter Cornelis Boutens, Dutch poet, classicist, and mystic (Voices, Carmina), born in Middelburg, Netherlands (d. 1943)

Weddings in History

Mark Twain

Feb 2 American writer (Huckleberry Finn) Samuel Langhorne Clemens, pen name Mark Twain, (34) marries Olivia Langdon (24) in Elmira, NY

Mark Twain

Deaths in History

  • Feb 11 Jacob de Kempenaer, Dutch lawyer and Minister of Internal Affairs (1848-49), dies at 76
  • Feb 14 St. John Richardson Liddell, American Civil War Confederate General, dies at 54
  • Feb 26 Wyatt Outlaw, African American Town Councillor and Constable, leader of Union League in NC, lynched by the Ku Klux Klan at about 50

Historical Figures

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