Events in History
- Feb 1 14 people are killed after Mount Sinabung erupts in Indonesia
Event of Interest
Feb 1 Janet Yellen becomes Chair of the US Federal Reserve, succeeding Ben Bernanke
- Feb 1 Syrian civil war death toll reaches 130,000, while 4 million are displaced
- Feb 2 Protests in Ukraine turn violent after parliament passes legislation that outlaws protest
- Feb 3 2 students are shot & killed in a school shooting in Moscow
- Feb 4 10 people are killed & 35 injured after a bus falls into a ravine in Pune, India
- Feb 4 Same-sex marriage is legalized in Scotland
Event of Interest
Feb 4 Satya Nadella succeeds Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft
- Feb 5 Archaeologists decrypt the 13th C Viking jötunvillur runic code
Event of Interest
Feb 5 US President Obama and journalists globally call for the release of 3 Al Jazeera journalists detained in Egypt
- Feb 6 The Taliban and Pakistani government begin peace negotiations
- Feb 7 German treasurer Helmut Linssen resigns amid a scandal involving offshore banking accounts in the Bahamas and Panama
- Feb 8 15 people are killed & 130 injured in a hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia
- Feb 8 17 people are killed after a truck & bus collide in Mendoza, Argentina
- Feb 9 Australian National University scientists discover the oldest known star at 13.6 billion years old
- Feb 9 Protest erupt in Sarajevo and other cities in Bosnia-Herzegovina; the unemployment rate remains at 40% (57% for youth)
- Feb 9 Switzerland votes to return immigration quotas
- Feb 11 77 people are killed after a military transport plane crashes in Algeria
- Feb 11 Peace talks resume in Geneva as leaders attempt to bring an end to the civil war in Syria
Event of Interest
Feb 17 US Secretary of State John Kerry claims climate change requires urgent action and that only a small "window of time" remained open
- Feb 18 Police clash with protesters in Bangkok, Thailand
Revolution in Ukraine
Feb 18 Ukrainian Revolution of 2014 begins as protesters, riot police and unknown shooters take part in violent events in the capital, Kiev, culminating after five days in the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych
- Feb 19 Death toll in Ukraine reaches 26 after Government crackdown on protesters
- Feb 21 10 words from the 15th C Voynich manuscript have been decoded
- Feb 21 11 people are killed after a Libyan Air Force plan crashes in Tunisia
- Feb 21 Police in Kiev open fire on protesters: 27 killed and around 570 injured
Meeting of Interest
Feb 21 US President Barack Obama meets with the Dalai Lama
- Feb 22 Matteo Renzi becomes Prime Minister of Italy
Yanukovych Ousted
Feb 22 Viktor Yanukovych is ousted as President of Ukraine by the parliament following the Euromaidan revolution
- Feb 23 A pro-Euromaidan rally is held in Simferopol, Ukraine, while in Kerch, protesters attempt to replace the Ukrainian flag from city hall with a Russian flag
- Feb 24 7 people are killed & 37 are injured after a bridge collapses in Vietnam
- Feb 24 A 4.4 billion-year-old Crystal is discovered to be the oldest known fragment from the earth's crust
Event of Interest
Feb 24 Pope Francis creates a second Secretariat with the power to audit any Vatican agency at any time
- Feb 25 50 students are killed in a Boko Harem attack on a college in Buni, Nigeria
- Feb 25 Hundreds of pro-Russian protesters block the Crimean parliament and demand a referendum on Crimea's independence
- Feb 27 Arseniy Yatsenyuk appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine
- Feb 27 Chaos erupts after the Swedish Public Employment Service mistakenly invites 61,000 people to a job interview in Stockholm
- Feb 27 Republic of Crimea announces a referendum and ousts its regional government
- Feb 27 US Republican Governor Jan Brewer vetoes a "religious freedom" bill that would have allowed businesses to turn away gay customers
- Feb 28 Russia moves troops into the Crimea to protect its interests against Ukraine
Deaths in History
- Feb 3 Joan Mondale (née Adams;), American artist, author, and wife of US vice-president Walter Mondale, dies of Alzheimer's disease at 83
- Feb 9 Graham Hills, English physical scientist and principal (Strathclyde University, England), dies at 87
- Feb 12 Diarmuid Downs, British automotive engineer, dies at 91
- Feb 16 Michael Shea, American sci-fi author (World Fantasy Award: Nifft the Lean, Growlimb), dies at 67
- Feb 19 Dale Gardner, American astronaut, dies from a brain aneurysm at 65
Valery Kubasov (1935-2014)
Feb 19 Soviet-Russian cosmonaut (Soyuz 6, 19, 36/35) who performed the 1st welding experiments in space, dies at 79
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists