Events in History
- Feb 1 Alphabet, Google's parent company surpasses Apple as the world's most valuable company ($568bn vs $535bn), after releasing income results
Election of Interest
Feb 1 Iowa Caucuses: Republican Ted Cruz defeats Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton beats Bernie Sanders by a coin toss
- Feb 1 Myanmar's first freely elected parliament in 50 years has its opening session in Nay Pyi Taw
- Feb 1 Poor weather conditions strand 100,000 Chinese New Year travelers at a railway station in Guangzhou, China
- Feb 1 WHO declares a global public health emergency over the rapid spread of zika-linked conditions
- Feb 2 First case of Zika contracted on US mainland (Texas) and second known sexually transmitted case confirmed in Texas
- Feb 3 Lord Lucan's death certificate is granted, 42 years after he disappeared following the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett
Event of Interest
Feb 3 US President Barack Obama visits his first US mosque - the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque in Maryland
- Feb 4 Morocco's Mohammed VI switches on world's largest solar plant near Ouarzazate. Planned to power 1 million homes when fully completed 2018
- Feb 5 Computer hackers try to steal 1 billion from Federal Reserve Bank of New York using Bangladesh banking codes, steal 81 million before a typo alerts authorities
- Feb 9 Two German passenger trains collide near Bad Aibling, Bavaria, killing 10 and seriously injuring 18
New Hampshire Primary
Feb 9 US primary elections: New Hampshire Primary, In Republican race Donald Trump wins (35%), John Kasich 2nd (16%), and Bernie Sanders (60%) defeats Hillary Clinton (38%) in Democratic race
- Feb 10 Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie suspend their campaigns
- Feb 10 Venezuelan government orders more than 100 malls to close early to save electricity, due to drought caused by El Niño
- Feb 11 Discover of gravitational waves (through collision of two black holes) announced by physicists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo)
- Feb 11 Last of Oregon militia occupying Malheur wildlife refuge surrenders to authorities after 41 days
- Feb 11 Riot between rival drug cartels at a prison in Monterrey, Mexico, leaves 52 dead
- Feb 12 Britain's Ordnance Survey, using NASA data posts map of Mars on Flickr
- Feb 12 Fiji becomes the first country to ratify the UN climate deal (signed Paris, December 2015)
Papal Visit
Feb 12 Pope Francis begins his visit to Mexico, arriving at “Benito Juarez” International Airport in Mexico City
- Feb 12 Pope Francis meets Patriarch Kirill in Havana - first meeting between Catholic and Russian Orthodox church heads for nearly 1,000 years
Event of Interest
Feb 12 Student leader Kanhaiya Kumar is arrested on “anti-nationalism” charges by Indian police at an anniversary event of the death of Afzal Guru, at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Feb 13 Ninth Republican presidential candidates debate held in Greenville, South Carolina
- Feb 16 China announces it will relocate 9,000 people in Guizhou province, before completion of world's largest telescope (FAST), designed to look for extraterrestrial life
- Feb 16 Former French President Nicholas Sarkozy is placed under investigation for campaign funds
- Feb 17 Car bomb attack on military convoy in Ankara, Turkey, by Kurdish militant eaves 28 dead
- Feb 17 Channing Dungey announced new President of ABC Entertainment Group, first African-American to lead a major US broadcast network
- Feb 17 Oldest known case of human-Neanderthal sex (100,000 yrs ago) revealed by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), 50,000 yr old Neanderthal woman's remains from Altai mountains show traces of Homo Sapiens DNA
- Feb 18 Pope Francis questions US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump's Christianity over his call to build a wall on the Mexican border
- Feb 20 Gunman goes on random killing spree in Kalamazoo, Michigan, killing 6
- Feb 20 Tropical Cyclone Winston hits Fiji, killing at least 29 - most powerful storm on record in Southern Hemisphere winds 296 kilometers per hour (184 mph)
- Feb 20 US primary elections: Nevada Democratic Primary - Hillary Clinton wins with 52.6%
Election of Interest
Feb 20 US primary elections: South Carolina Republican Primary - Donald Trump wins with 32.5%
- Feb 21 Bombings in the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus kill 140 people, Islamic State claims responsibility
- Feb 22 10 million people are without water in Delhi after caste protests in Jat sabotage the Munak water canal
- Feb 23 US primary elections: Nevada Republican Primary - Donald Trump wins with 45.9.5%
- Feb 24 Oldest Muslim graves in Europe, from the 8th century, identified at a burial site in Nimes, France
- Feb 26 Iranian elections: reformers and moderates win control of parliament
- Feb 28 Explosion at Severnaya coal mine in Vorkuta, Russia kills 36, including 5 rescuers
Birthdays in History
- Feb 5 Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck, heir to throne of Bhutan, born in Thimphu, Bhutan
Weddings in History
- Feb 27 "The Voice" winner RaeLynn Woodward weds Josh Davis in Nashville
Deaths in History
- Feb 2 Intizar Hussain, Pakistani and Urdu writer and columnist, dies in his early 90s
- Feb 4 Edgar Mitchell, American NASA astronaut (Apollo 14), dies at 85
- Feb 4 Edgar Whitcomb, American politician and Governor of Indiana (1969-73), dies at 98
- Feb 5 Bodil Malmsten, Swedish writer (The Price of Water in Finistère), dies at 71
- Feb 9 Sushil Koirala, Nepalese politician, Prime Minister of Nepal (2014-2015), dies at 76
- Feb 13 Antonin Scalia, American 105th Supreme Court Justice (1986-2016), dies at 79
Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1922-2016)
Feb 16 Egyptian politician and 6th Secretary-General of the United Nations (1992- 96), dies at 93
- Feb 19 Umberto Eco, Italian philosopher and writer (Name of the Rose), dies at 84
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists