- 60 St Paul thought to have been shipwrecked at Malta
- 1098 Crusaders defeat Prince Redwan of Aleppo at Antioch
- 1355 The St. Scholastica's Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 62 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.
Event of Interest
1525 Albert of Prussia pledges a personal oath to Sigismund I and is invested with the duchy for himself and his heirs
Albert of Prussia
- 1535 12 nude anabaptists run through Amsterdam streets
- 1549 Tomé de Sousa appointed governor general of Brazil
- 1635 The Académie française forms in Paris (by Cardinal Richelieu)
- 1676 Wampanoag Indians under King Philip kill all men in Lancaster Mass
- 1713 Netherlands & Britain sign accord concerning anti-French Barrier [OS=Jan 31]
- 1716 Scottish pretender to the throne James III Edward returns to France
Event of Interest
1720 Edmond Halley appointed as the second Astronomer Royal at the Greenwich Observatory
Edmond Halley
Event of Interest
1746 The Pelham brothers resign from the British government, but resume office when King George II backs down.
Henry Pelham
George II
Victory in Battle
1814 Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Champaubert, the French beat the Russians
Napoléon Bonaparte
Event of Interest
1824 Simón Bolívar named dictator by the Congress of Peru
Simón Bolívar
- 1837 Russian poet Alexander Pushkin is fatally injured in a duel with French officer Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès (1/29 OS)
- 1846 Beginning of Mormon march to western US
- 1846 British defeat Sikhs in battle of Sobraon, India
- 1855 US citizenship laws amended; all children of US parents born abroad granted US citizenship
The Indian Mutiny
1859 General Horsford defeats Begum of Oude and Nana Sahib in Indian Mutiny
Learn More >>
- 1860 Johannes Brahms' 2nd Serenade in A, premieres
- 1862 Dutch 2nd government of Thorbecke forms
- 1863 1st US fire extinguisher patent granted to Alanson Crane, Virginia
- 1866 Dutch government of Frans van der Putte forms
- 1868 Conservatives & military seize Convention Hall in Florida
- 1870 City of Anaheim in California incorporates for the 1st time, but disincorporates after two years as the tax burden was too high
- 1870 YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) forms (NYC)
- 1878 Pact of Zanjón signed between Cubans rebels and the Spanish bringing the 10 Years War to an end
- 1879 1st electric arc light used (California Theater)
Event of Interest
1879 Henry Morton Stanley departs for the Congo
Henry Morton Stanley
- 1880 Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Arcanum about Christian marriage
- 1883 Fire at un-insured New Hall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, kills 71
- 1890 Around 11 million acres ceded to US by Sioux Indians, then opened for settlement
- 1897 NY Times begins using slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print"
- 1898 Treaty of Paris which ended the Spanish-American War is signed by President McKinley; US acquires Philippines, Puerto Rico & Guam
- 1899 -39°F (-39°C), Milligan, Ohio (state lowest record temperature)
- 1900 Peter Ostlund skates world record 500m (45.2 sec)
- 1904 Japan and Russia declare war
- 1906 British battleship HMS Dreadnought launches after only 100 days, renders all other capital ships obsolete with its revolutionary design
- 1906 State of siege proclaimed in Zululand
- 1913 Edward Sheldon's "Romance" premieres in NYC
Event of Interest
1914 In accordance with the understanding reached by General J.C. Smuts and Mahatma Gandhi, 60 passive resistance prisoners released from Pietermaritzburg Prison; 40 passive resisters released in Durban, 8 in Newcastle, 11 in Port Elizabeth
Mahatma Gandhi
Event of Interest
1915 US President Woodrow Wilson warns Germany that the US will hold it 'to a strict accountability' for 'property endangered or lives lost'
Woodrow Wilson
- 1915 US President Woodrow Wilson protests to Britain on the use of US flags on British merchant ships to deceive the Germans
- 1916 Military conscription begins in Britain
Event of Interest
1916 Biggest oil well gusher ever - Edward L. Doheny's Cerro Azul No. 4 first gushes 600 feet in the air near Tampico, Mexico
Edward L. Doheny
- 1917 Johanna Westerdijk installed as the Netherlands' 1st female professor
Leon Trotsky
- 1918 In Finland, General Carl G. Von Mannerheim gathers an army known as the 'White Guard' to mount a counter revolution against the Bolshevik 'Red Guard'
- 1920 Jozef Haller de Hallenburg performs symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea
- 1923 Ink paste manufactured for 1st time by Standard Ink Company
- 1923 Owen Davis' "Icebound" premieres in NYC
- 1923 SDAP speaks out against allied occupation of the Ruhr
- 1925 1st waterless gas storage tank put into service, Michigan City, Indiana
Conference of Interest
1927 US President Calvin Coolidge asks for 2nd disarmament conference
Calvin Coolidge
- 1929 Bishop Stephen Alencastre dedicates the beautiful Romanesque church of Saint Patrick in Honolulu
- 1930 Grain Stabilization Corporation authorized by Congress
- 1931 New Delhi becomes the capital of India
- 1933 -54°F (-48°C), Seneca, Oregon (state record)
- 1933 Delivery of 1st singing telegram (Postal Telegram Co NYC)
- 1933 Dutch seaplane bombs Dutch ship
Event of Interest
1933 Adolf Hitler proclaims end of Marxism
Adolf Hitler
- 1933 Mutiny on "7 Provinces" ends (began Feb 4th), 23 killed
- 1934 1st Jewish immigrant ship to break the English blockade in Palestine
- 1934 Byrd souvenir sheet issued, NYC; 1st unperforated ungummed US stamp
- 1938 King Carol II of Romania drives out dictator Goga
- 1940 US female Figure Skating championship won by Joan Tozzer
- 1940 US male Figure Skating championship won by Eugene Turner
- 1941 1st highway post office makes 1st trip, Washington, D.C. to Harrisonburg, Virginia
- 1941 Anti-Nazi "Het Parool" begins publishing in Netherlands
Historic Invention
1942 American chemist James Franklin Hyde is granted a patent for fused silica
James Franklin Hyde
- 1943 "Manifesto of Algerian People" calls for equality & self-determination
- 1943 British 8th Army sweeps through North Africa to Tunisia
- 1943 Van der Veen Resistance starts fire in Amsterdam employment bureau
- 1944 Belgian resistance fighter and author Kamiel van Baelen arrested
- 1944 U-666/U-545/U-283 sink off Ireland
Event of Interest
1946 Charles "Lucky" Luciano is deported to Italy, and never returns to the United States
Charles "Lucky" Luciano
Election of Interest
1952 India holds its first general election: Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru remains in power
Jawaharlal Nehru
Event of Interest
1954 Eisenhower warns against US intervention in Vietnam
Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 1954 Ice Pairs Championship at Oslo won by Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden of Canada
- 1954 Ladies' Figure Skating Championship in Oslo won by Gundi Busch GER
- 1954 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Oslo won by Hayes Alan Jenkins US
- 1955 The US Navy evacuate 1000s from Tachen Islands in the Pacific
- 1959 Dutch Princess Wilhelmina publishes "Lonely, but not alone"
- 1959 Tornado in St Louis kills 19 & injures 265
- 1960 Charles Ives' "Lincoln, the Great Commoner" premieres
- 1961 Niagara Falls hydroelectric project begins producing power
- 1962 Jim Beatty sets American indoor mile record (3:58.9) in LA
- 1962 USSR swaps spy Francis Gary Power to US for Rudolph Abel
- 1963 US female Figure Skating championship won by Lorraine Hanlon
- 1963 US male Figure Skating championship won by Thomas Litz
- 1964 Australian destroyer HMAS Voyager sinks after colliding with aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne, killing 82
- 1966 Harmel government in Belgium resigns
Historic Publication
1966 "Valley of the Dolls" by Jacqueline Susann is published by Bernard Geis Associates in the US - sold over 31 million copies
Jacqueline Susann
- 1967 25th Amendment (US Presidential Disability & Succession) ratified
- 1970 26.4 cm precipitation falls on Mount Washington NH (state record)
- 1970 Dry powder avalanche moving at 120 mph smashes into youth hostel at Val d'Isere, France, killing 40 Belgian, French, & German youths
- 1971 American Mensa Ltd incorporates in New York
- 1971 John Guares "House of Blue Leaves" premieres in NYC
- 1971 Royal Albert Hall bans scheduled concert featuring Frank Zappa
- 1971 "Tapestry", second album by Carole King, is released (Grammy Award Album of the Year 1972)
- 1972 Ras al Khaima joins United Arab Emirates
- 1972 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1972 Two British soldiers are killed in a land mine attack near Cullyhanna, County Armagh; an IRA member is shot dead during an exchange of gunfire with RUC officers
- 1973 83m wide gas tank on Staten Island explodes, 40 die
- 1974 Iran / Iraqi border fight breaks out
- 1974 Silver futures hit record $4.81½ an ounce in London
- 1975 The Provisional Irish Republican Army agrees to a truce and ceasefire with the British government and the Northern Ireland Office; Seven "incident centres" are established in nationalist areas to monitor the ceasefire
- 1977 Bomb explosion in Moscow metro
- 1977 Jonathan Netanyahu Lane in the Bronx, New York, named in honor of the Bronx-born Israeli soldier who died freeing hostages in Entebbe Raid in Uganda in 1976
- 1978 Frank C. Carlucci succeeds John F. Blake as deputy director of CIA
- 1980 Ianford Wilsons "Talley's Folly" premieres in NYC
- 1981 8 killed & 198 injured by fire at Las Vegas Hilton
- 1982 28 skiers perform backflips while holding hands, Bromont, Quebec
- 1983 Anglican synod vote 338-100 against unilateral UK nuclear disarmament
- 1985 Andrea Schöne skates ladies world record 5 km (7:32.82)
- 1985 Challenger moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating of STS 51-E mission
- 1985 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1987 Philippine troops murder 17 civilians in Lupao Massacre
- 1988 Rocky Malebane-Metsing coup in Bophuthatswana fails
- 1988 3-judge panel of 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco strikes down Army's ban on homosexuals (later overturned by appeal)
- 1989 Miami Vice's 100th episode seen on TV
- 1989 Ron Brown chosen 1st African American chairman of a major US party (Democrats)
- 1989 Tony Robinson of Jamaica becomes Nottingham's 1st black sheriff
- 1989 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1990 Perrier Water pulls product from shelf due to benzine in water
Event of Interest
1990 South African President F. W. de Klerk announces Nelson Mandela will be freed on Feburary 11th
Nelson Mandela
F. W. de Klerk
- 1990 US female Figure Skating championship won by Jill Trenary
- 1991 Johann Koss skates world record 10 km (13:43.54)
- 1991 Lithuania votes for independence from USSR
- 1992 "Dangerous Women" final episode on WWOR-TV
- 1993 US officially backs peace plan in Bosnia
- 1995 US female Figure Skating championship won by Nicole Bobek
- 1996 A bomb explodes in Docklands area of London, ending the 17-month ceasefire; James McArdle is eventually found guilty and jailed for 25 years
- 1997 5th ESPY Awards: Michael Johnson, Amy Van Dyken Lobo win
- 1997 Comet Shoemaker-Holt 2 Closest Approach to Earth (1.9245 AU)
- 1997 Soyuz TM-25 launches to the MIR
- 1997 Lemrick Nelson found guilty in the fatal stabbing on Hasidic Jew Yankel Rosenbaum in Crown Heights Brooklyn in 1991
- 1998 AOL raises monthly flat rate internet access from $19.95 to $21.95
- 1998 Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997 becoming the first U.S. state to abandon the law
- 2003 France and Belgium break the NATO procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq.
Engagement of Interest
2005 His Royal Highness Charles, Prince of Wales announces engagement to Camilla Parker Bowles
Camilla Parker Bowles
Prince Charles
- 2008 The 2008 Namdaemun fire severely damages Namdaemun, the first National Treasure of South Korea.
- 2013 36 people are killed and 39 are injured in a stampede at a train station in Allahabad, India
- 2013 5 people are killed by a falling lifeboat from the cruise ship Thomson Majesty in the Canary islands
- 2013 Nigeria defeat Burkina Faso 1-0 to win the football 2013 Africa Cup of Nations
- 2016 Venezuelan government orders more than 100 malls to close early to save electricity, due to drought caused by El Niño
- 2016 Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie suspend their campaigns
- 2019 Sexual abuse investigation into US Southern Baptist churches reveals 400 church members implicated with over 700 victims, according to The Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News
- 2019 Insect populations are collapsing worldwide threatening a“catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems” according to a global review saying 40% declining, 30% endangered
- 2019 Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar announces her 2020 presidential campaign
- 2019 Number of women alleging sexual assault by former Costa Rica President Óscar Arias Sánchez grows to nine
- 2019 Mine collapse at an illegal gold mine in north-eastern Liberia traps about 40 people underground
February in History
2,000-year-old Glass Treasure Shattered by a Drunk
One of the British Museum's treasured pieces of Roman antiquity was shattered on this day by a drunken visitor.
February 7, 1845Earthquakes and a Book Rock London
In the 18th Century, Englishmen went into a panic when London, of all places, was hit by earthquakes. But was there a stronger force than Mother Nature at work?
February 8, 1750Why 'SuperMac' was Banished From Number 10
War hero, Edwardian gentleman, academic, friend of the Kennedys, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was born on this day.
February 10, 1894Ancient Dresden Reduced to Rubble
The blanket bombing of Dresden in East Germany which began on this day, cost thousands of lives and remains highly controversial.
February 13, 1945
