Events in History
- Feb 2 8 of 9 planets align for 1st time in 400 years
- Feb 2 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
Event of Interest
Feb 3 US President John F. Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba except for food & drugs
John F. Kennedy
- Feb 4 US female Figure Skating championship won by Barbara Roles
- Feb 4 US male Figure Skating championship won by Monty Hoyt
- Feb 5 French President de Gaulle calls for Algeria's independence
- Feb 5 Suit to bar Englewood NJ from "racial segregated" schools, filed
- Feb 5 Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all within 16 degrees
- Feb 6 Schoolman Athletic Field in the Bronx named
- Feb 7 Gas explosion in Luisanthal coal mine Voelklingen Germany kills 298
- Feb 7 US President JFK begins blockade of Cuba by banning all Cuban imports and exports.
- Feb 8 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- Feb 8 In Paris, 8 people killed at a protest against independence for the French colony Algeria
- Feb 9 Jamaica signs agreement to become independent
- Feb 9 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- Feb 10 Jim Beatty sets American indoor mile record (3:58.9) in LA
- Feb 10 USSR swaps spy Francis Gary Power to US for Rudolph Abel
- Feb 12 Bus boycott starts in Macon, Georgia
Event of Interest
Feb 14 US 1st lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducts White House tour on TV
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
John Glenn Orbits Earth
Feb 20 John Glenn becomes the 1st American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7
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Event of Interest
Feb 25 Robert F. Kennedy visits Netherlands
Robert F. Kennedy
Assassination Attempt
Feb 27 South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm's palace bombed by dissident air pilots in a failed assassination attempt
Ngô Đình Diệm
- Feb 28 WMGM-AM in New York City changes call letters to WHN
Birthdays in History
- Feb 4 Alfred Twardecki, Polish historian
- Feb 9 Martin D Lascelles, grandson of English princess Mary
- Feb 11 Tammy Baldwin, American politician, born in Madison, Wisconsin
- Feb 13 Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, Puerto Rican politician and lawyer, born in San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Feb 14 Kevyn Aucoin, American cosmetologist, born in Shreveport, Louisiana (d. 2002)
- Feb 17 Alison Hargreaves, British mountaineer and 1st woman to climb Mount Everest alone without bottled oxygen (1995), born in Derbyshire, England (d. 1995)
- Feb 19 John Laroche, American orchid poacher
- Feb 20 Kenn Nesbitt, American children's author
- Feb 21 Chuck Palahniuk, American writer
- Feb 21 David Foster Wallace, American writer (Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System), born in Ithaca, New York (d. 2008)
- Feb 22 Lenda Murray, American body builder (4X Ms Olympia), born in Detroit, Michigan
- Feb 24 Kelly Craft, American diplomat, US ambassador to the UN (2019-), born in Lexington, Kentucky
Deaths in History
- Feb 3 Werner Bock, writer, dies
- Feb 7 Clara Nordström, German writer and translator (b. 1886)
- Feb 10 Willem Paerels, Neth/Belgian painter and graphic artist, dies at 83
- Feb 19 Georgios Papanikolaou, Greek doctor, inventor of the Pap smear (b. 1883)
- Feb 25 Wilhelm Pessler, German sociologist, dies at 81