January 15th
 

41 ~ Death of 41 - Caligula, Roman Emperor.

1870 ~ A political cartoon for the first time symbolized the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly).

1892 ~ James Naismith published the rules for basketball.

1908 ~ Birthday of Edward Teller, Physicist.

1929 ~ Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., American civil rights leader.

1951 ~ Ilse Koch, The "Bitch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany.

1953 ~ At Joseph Stalin’s behest, East German authorities began a purge of senior Jewish officials.

1970 ~ After a 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria, Biafra surrendered.

1983 ~ Birthday of Meyer Lansky, mobster.

1991 ~ The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expired, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.

January 15th
 

1362 ~ A huge storm tide in the North Sea destroyed the German island of Strand and the city of Rungholt.

1492 ~ The first grammar of a modern language, in Spanish, was presented to Queen Isabella.

1581 ~ English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism.

1605 ~ The first edition of “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes was published in Madrid.

1777 ~ Vermont declared its independence from New York.

1794 ~ Death of Edward Gibbon, Historian

1809 ~ Peninsular War: The British defeated the French at the Battle of La Coruña.

1957 ~ Death of Arturo Toscanini, Conductor.

1979 ~ The Shah of Iran fled Iran with his family and relocated to Egypt.

2003 ~ Space Shuttle Columbia took off for mission STS-107 which was its final one.

January 17th
 

1773 ~ Captain James Cook became the first explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.

1751 ~ Death of Tomaso Albinoni, Italian composer.

1852 ~ U.K. recognized the independence of the Boer colonies of the Transvaal.

1886 ~ Death of Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer.

1899 ~ Birthday of Nevil Shute, Author.

1929 ~ Popeye the Sailor Man first appeared.

1942 ~ Birthday of Muhammad Ali, the world's greatest heavyweight boxer.

1964 ~ Death of T.H. White, author.

1985 ~ British Telecom announced the retirement of Britain's famous red telephone boxes.

1998 ~ Paula Jones accused President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.

January 18th
 

1535 ~ Lima, Peru founded by Francisco Pizarro.

1779 ~ Birthday of Peter Roget, Lexicographer.

1882 ~ Birthday of A. A. Milne, Author.

1892 ~ Birthday of Oliver Hardy, Comedian & Actor.

1896 ~ The X-ray machine was exhibited for the first time.

1936 ~ Death of Rudyard Kipling, British writer.


1944 ~ Birthday of Paul Keating, twenty-fourth Prime Minister of Australia.

1964 ~ Plans were revealed for the World Trade Center in New York City.

1978 ~ The European Court of Human Rights found the United Kingdom government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland, but not guilty of torture.

1998 ~ Matt Drudge published the Bill Clinton - Monica Lewinsky affair story on his website The Drudge Report.

January 19th
 

1736 ~ Birthday of James Watt, builder of steam engines.

1809 ~ Birthday of Edgar Allan Poe, Poet & short story author.

1813 ~ Birthday of Sir Henry Bessemer, inventor.

1829 ~ Goethe's Faust premiered.

1839 ~ Birthday of Paul Cézanne, Painter.

1853 ~ Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore premiered.

1920 ~ The United States Senate voted against joining the League of Nations.

1966 ~ Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of India.

1983 ~ The Apple Lisa, their first commercial personal computer from Apple Computer, Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, was announced.

2004 ~ Death of David Hookes, Australian cricketer and coach.

January 20th
 

1892 ~ At the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first official basketball game was played.

1907 ~ Death of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, Russian chemist and inventor of the Periodic table.

1930 ~ Birthday of Buzz Aldrin, Astronaut.

1937 ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. This was the first inauguration scheduled on January 20, following adoption of the 20th Amendment. Previous inaugurations were scheduled on March 4.

1942 ~ World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decided the "final solution to the Jewish problem".

1969 ~ The first pulsar is discovered, in the Crab Nebula.

1984 ~ Death of Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic swimming gold medalist & Actor (Tarzan).

1991 ~ Sudan's government imposes Islamic law nationwide, worsening the civil war between the country's Muslim north and Christian south.

1993 ~ Death of Audrey Hepburn, actress.

2005 ~ George W. Bush inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.

January 21st
 

1561 ~ Birthday of Sir Francis Bacon, Philosopher, Statesman & Essayist.

1643 ~ Abel Tasman discovered Tonga.

1793 ~ After being found guilty for treason by the French Convention, Louis XVI of France was guillotined.

1899 ~ Opel Motors opened for business.

1924 ~ Death of Vladimir Lenin, first leader of the U.S.S.R.

1941 ~ Birthday of Plácido Domingo, opera singer.

1950 ~ Death of George Orwell, writer.

1950 ~ Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury.

1959 ~ Death of Cecil B. DeMille, Movie Director.

1977 ~ President Jimmy Carter pardoned nearly all Vietnam War draft evaders.

January 22nd

1788 ~ Birthday of George Gordon, Lord Byron, Poet.

1840 ~ British colonists reached New Zealand.

1879 ~ Zulu troops achieved a Pyrrhic victory over British troops at the Battle of Isandlwana.

1899 ~ Leaders of six Australian colonies met in Melbourne to discuss confederation.

1901 ~ Death of Queen Victoria I of the United Kingdom.

1931 ~ Sir Isaac Isaacs sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

1953 ~ The Crucible, a drama by Arthur Miller, opened on Broadway.

1973 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in Roe vs. Wade striking down state laws restricting abortion during the first six months of pregnancy.

1984 ~ The Apple Macintosh was introduced during Super Bowl XVIII with the famous television commercial "1984" (requires QuickTime and patience [but is generally considered one of the kickass commercials in history]).

1997 ~ Madeleine Albright became the first female secretary of state after confirmation by the United States Senate.

January 23rd
 

1556 ~ The Shaanxi earthquake, the deadliest earthquake in history, occured with its epicenter in Shaanxi province, China. 830,000 people may have been killed.

1832 ~ Birthday of Edouard Manet, Impressionist artist.

1849 ~ Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her MD by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, thus becoming the United States' first woman doctor.

1857 ~ Birthday of Andrija Mohorovičić, Croatian seismologist.

1862 ~ Birthday of David Hilbert, Mathematician.

1943 ~ World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeated the Japanese army in Papua.

1973 ~ U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.

1981 ~ Death of Samuel Barber, American composer.

1989 ~ Death of Salvador Dalí, Artist.

2002 ~ Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan.

January 24th
 

41 ~ Death of Caligula, Emperor of Rome (AD 37-41) (assassinated by his own guards).

1776 ~ Birthday of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Poet, Composer & Painter

1848 ~ California gold rush: James W. Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento.

1888 ~ Birthday of Ernst Heinkel, aircraft designer.

1908 ~ Robert Baden-Powell began the Boy Scout movement.

1962 ~ Brian Epstein signs to manage The Beatles.

1965 ~ Death of Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the U.K.

1987 ~ In Lebanon, gunmen kidnaped Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill and Mitheleshwar Singh.

1993 ~ Death of Thurgood Marshall, United States Supreme Court justice.

2003 ~ The U.S. Department of Homeland Security officially began operation.

January 25th
 

1627 ~ Birthday of Robert Boyle, Chemist.

1759 ~ Birthday of Robert Burns, Poet

1791 ~ The British Parliament split the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.

1882 ~ Birthday of Virginia Woolf, Writer.

1890 ~ Nellie Bly completed her round-the-world journey in 72 days.

1924 ~ The 1924 Winter Olympics opened in Chamonix, France, inaugurating the Winter Olympic Games.

1947 ~ Death of Al Capone, Gangster.

1971 ~ Idi Amin lead a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda's president.

1995 ~ The Norwegian Rocket Incident: Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, was mistaken for a US Trident missile by the Olenegorsk early-warning radar station.

1999 ~ Death of Robert Shaw, American conductor

January 26th
 

1785 ~ Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter expressing disappointment over the selection of the eagle as the symbol of the United States; he wanted the turkey.

1788 ~ A British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sailed into Sydney Harbour to establish the first permanent European settlement on the continent. Celebrated today as Australia Day.

1885 ~ Troops loyal to the Mahdi conquered Khartoum.

1905 ~ Birthday of Maria von Trapp, Singer

1925 ~ Birthday of Paul Newman, Actor.

1945 ~ Birthday of Jacqueline du Pré, Cellist

1972 ~ Death of Mahalia Jackson, Gospel Music singer.

1992 ~ Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia was to stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.

1996 ~ Whitewater scandal: First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton testified before a grand jury.

1998 ~ Lewinsky scandal: On television, U.S. President Bill Clinton denied he had "sexual relations" with former intern Monica Lewinsky.


Holidays and observances

Australia ~ Australia Day

Catholicism ~ Feast day of Ss. Timothy and Titus.

India ~ Republic Day

January 27th
 

1606 ~ Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators began and later ended in their execution on January 31

1756 ~ Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Composer.

1832 ~ Birthday of Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

1901 ~ Death of Giuseppe Verdi, Composer.

1944 ~ World War II: The two year Siege of Leningrad was lifted.

1945 ~ World War II: The Red Army arrived at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland and found the Nazi concentration camp where more than 1 million people were killed

1967 ~ Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during a test of the Apollo 1 spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center.

1978 ~ Lt Marilyn R. Koon, 161st Aerial Refueling Squadron, Arizona Air National Guard, became the first female Air National Guard Pilot.

1997 ~ It is revealed that French museums had retained nearly 2,000 pieces of art that were stolen by Nazis.

1998 ~ U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton appeared on the “Today Show” calling the attacks against her husband part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy".

January 28th
 

1596 ~ Death of Sir Francis Drake, Explorer & Soldier.

1788 ~ The first penal colony was founded at Botany Bay, Australia.

1833 ~ Birthday of Charles George 'Chinese' Gordon, British soldier and administrator.

1841 ~ Birthday of Henry Morton Stanley, Explorer & Journalist.

1887 ~ Birthday of Artur Rubinstein, Polish Pianist & Conductor.

1916 ~ Louis D. Brandeis became the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

1935 ~ Iceland became the first country to legalize abortion.

1939 ~ Death of William Butler Yeats, Writer.

1986 ~ Space Shuttle Challenger exploded just after takeoff killing all seven astronauts onboard.

2004 ~ September Dossier: Lord Hutton published his report into the death of Dr. David Kelly.



Holidays and observances

Catholicism ~ Feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas.

January 29th
 

1845 ~ ”The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe was published for the first time.

1856 ~ Queen Victoria instituted the Victoria Cross.

1862 ~ Birthday of Frederick Delius, Composer.

1880 ~ Birthday of W.C. Fields, Actor.

1933 ~ President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany.

1956 ~ Death of H. L. Mencken, Journalist.

1962 ~ Death of Fritz Kreisler, Austrian violinist.

1963 ~ Death of Robert Frost, Poet.

1986 ~ The Height 611 UFO Incident.

1996 ~ President Jacques Chirac announced a "definitive end" to French nuclear testing.

January 31st
 

1606 ~ Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes was executed for his plotting against Parliament and James I of England.

1797 ~ Birthday of Franz Schubert, Composer.

1915 ~ World War I: Germany used poison gas against Russians.

1929 ~ The Soviet Union exiled Leon Trotsky.

1950 ~ President Harry S. Truman announced a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.

1956 ~ Death of A. A. Milne, author (Winnie the Pooh).

1958 ~ James Van Allen discovered the Van Allen radiation belt.

1968 ~ Viet Cong attacked the United States embassy in Saigon.

1996 ~ An explosives-filled truck rammed into the gates of the Central Bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400.

2001 ~ In the Netherlands a Scottish court convicted a Libyan and acquitted another for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

February 1st
 

1851 ~ Death of Mary Shelley, English author (Frankenstein).

1896 ~ The opera La Bohème premiered in Turin.

1920 ~ The Royal Canadian Mounted Police began operations.

1929 ~ Frenchman Charles Rigoulet is the first weightlifter to lift over 400 pounds (181 kg) in the "clean and jerk" method.

1931 ~ Birthday of Boris Yeltsin, Russian president 1991-1999.

1978 ~ Director Roman Polanski skipped bail and fled to France after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

1979 ~ Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst was released from prison after her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.

2003 ~ Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas upon reentry killing all seven astronauts onboard.

2004 ~ At least 244 people trampled to death in a stampede at the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

2004 ~ Super Bowl XXXVIII: The New England Patriots defeated the Carolina Panthers, 32-29. During the half-time show Janet Jackson's right breast was bared.

February 2nd
 

1650 ~ Birthday of Nell Gwynne, English actress, royal mistress.

1653 ~ New Amsterdam (later renamed New York City) was incorporated.

1709 ~ Alexander Selkirk was rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe.

1875 ~ Birthday of Fritz Kreisler, Austrian violinist.

1887 ~ In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day was observed.

1905 ~ Birthday of Ayn Rand, Author.

1947 ~ Birthday of Melanie, Singer.

1970 ~ Death of Bertrand Russell, Mathematician & Philosopher.

1982 ~ Hama Massacre: The government of Syria attacked the town of Hama and killed thousands of people

1989 ~ Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: The last Soviet Union armored column left Kabul ending nine years of military occupation.


Holidays and observances

United States & Canada ~ Groundhog Day

February 3rd
 

1468 ~ Death of Johannes Gutenberg, German publisher.

1783 ~ American Revolutionary War: Spain recognized United States independence.

1809 ~ Birthday of Felix Mendelssohn, Composer.

1870 ~ The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed.

1874 ~ Birthday of Gertrude Stein, American writer and patron of the arts.

1894 ~ Birthday of Norman Rockwell, American artist, illustrator

1916 ~ Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada burned down.

1959 ~ Plane crash killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. This date becomes known as "The Day The Music Died ".

1966 ~ The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft made the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.

1969 ~ In Cairo, Yasser Arafat was appointed Palestinian Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.

February 4th
 

1789 ~ George Washington was unanimously elected to be the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.

1861 ~ American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama the Confederate States of America was formed by delegates from six break-away United States.

1894 ~ Death of Adolphe Sax, instrument maker, inventor of the saxophone.

1902 ~ Birthday of Charles Lindbergh, U.S. aviator.

1913 ~ Birthday of Rosa Parks, U.S. civil rights activist.

1927 ~ The first talkie was released – ‘The Jazz Singer’ starring Al Jolson.

1928 ~ Death of Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate.

1974 ~ The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaped Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California.

1987 ~ Death of Liberace, U.S. musician.

1997 ~ O. J. Simpson was found to be civilly liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

February 5th
 

1878 ~ Birthday of André Citroën, automobile pioneer.

1885 ~ King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo as a personal possession.

1919 ~ Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launched United Artists.

1924 ~ The Royal Greenwich Observatory began to broadcast hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the "BBC pips".

1934 ~ Birthday of Hank Aaron, Athlete.

1958 ~ A hydrogen bomb known as Tybee Bomb was lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

1962 ~ French President Charles De Gaulle called for allowing Algeria to be an independent nation.

1968 ~ The Battle of Khe Sanh of the Vietnam War began.

1982 ~ Pioneering budget airliner Laker Airways collapsed owing £270 million to banks and other creditors.

1988 ~ Comic Relief held the first "Red Nose Day", which raised a £15 million in the United Kingdom for charity.

February 6th
 

1564 ~ Birthday of Christopher Marlowe, Playwright.

1819 ~ Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore.

1840 ~ Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, founding document of New Zealand.

1895 ~ Birthday of Babe Ruth, Athlete.

1903 ~ Birthday of Claudio Arrau, Pianist.

1913 ~ Birthday of Mary Leakey, Anthropologist.

1952 ~ Elizabeth II became Queen upon the death of her father George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a treehouse in a tree-top hotel in Kenya.

1959 ~ Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed the first patent for an integrated circuit.

1993 ~ Death of Arthur Ashe, Athlete.

2004 ~ In Russia, a Chechen suicide-attack in a Moscow metro killed 40 commuters, and injures a hundred and twenty-nine.


Holidays and observances

New Zealand ~ Waitangi day.

February 7th
 

1478 ~ Birthday of Sir Thomas More, Statesman & Author.

1812 ~ Birthday of Charles Dickens, Novelist.

1834 ~ Birthday of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, chemist and inventor of the Periodic table of the chemical elements.

1883 ~ Birthday of Eubie Blake, Musician, Composer.

1885 ~ Birthday of Sinclair Lewis, Author.

1900 ~ The British Labour Party was formed.

1904 ~ The Great Baltimore Fire destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.

1964 ~ The Beatles arrived on their first visit to the United States.

1990 ~ Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agreed to give up its monopoly of power.

1992 ~ The European Union was formed.

February 9th
 

1587 ~ Mary, Queen of Scots was executed.

1820 ~ Birthday of William Tecumseh Sherman, Soldier.

1828 ~ Birthday of Jules Verne, Author.

1855 ~ The Devil's Footprints mysteriously appeared in southern Devon.

1910 ~ The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated by William D. Boyce.

1925 ~ Birthday of Jack Lemmon, Actor & film director.

1932 ~ Birthday of John Williams, Composer & Conductor.

1949 ~ Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary sentenced for treason.

1957 ~ Death of John von Neumann, Mathematician & Quantum Physicist.

1993 ~ General Motors sued NBC after Dateline NBC rigged two crashes showing that some GM pickups could easily catch fire if hit in certain places. NBC settled the lawsuit the next day.

February 9th
 

1825 ~ After no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams President.

1881 ~ Death of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Author.

1885 ~ Birthday of Alban Berg, Composer.

1900 ~ Davis Cup competition established.

1906 ~ Death of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Poet.

1910 ~ Birthday of Jacques Monod, biochemist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965

1911 ~ Birthday of Gypsy Rose Lee, Author, Actress & Ecdysiast.

1950 ~ Red scare: Senator Joseph McCarthy accused more than 200 staff in the State Department of being Communists.

1971 ~ Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1997 ~ The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones as the longest-running prime-time animated series.

February 10th
 

1837 ~ Death of Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian Poet and Novelist.

1840 ~ Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1870 ~ The YWCA was founded in New York City.

1890 ~ Birthday of Boris Pasternak, Poet, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1958

1898 ~ Birthday of Bertolt Brecht, Author.

1927 ~ Birthday of Leontyne Price, Soprano.

1949 ~ Death of a Salesman opened at the Morocco Theatre in New York City.

1957 ~ Death of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Author.

1962 ~ Captured American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

1996 ~ Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov for the first time. :(

February 11th
 

1650 ~ Death of René Descartes, Philosopher.

1840 ~ Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Régiment received its first performance in Paris.

1847 ~ Birthday of Thomas Alva Edison, Inventor.

1898 ~ Birthday of Leó Szilárd, Physicist, peace activist.

1938 ~ BBC Television produced the world's first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of the Karel Capek play R.U.R. (This play coined the term 'robot.')

1961 ~ Trial of Adolf Eichmann began in Jerusalem.

1978 ~ Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, Shakespeare and Dickens.

1979 ~ Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran.

1986 ~ Death of Frank Herbert, Science Fiction author.

1990 ~ Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, was freed from prison outside Cape Town, South Africa.

February 12th
 

1544 ~ Death of Lady Jane Grey, briefly Queen of England.

1733 ~ Englishman James Oglethorpe founded the 13th and final American colony of Georgia, and its first city at Savannah.

1804 ~ Death of Immanuel Kant, German philosopher.

1809 ~ Birthday of Charles Darwin, Naturalist

1870 ~ Women gain the right to vote in Utah Territory.

1893 ~ Birthday of Omar Bradley, General.

1909 ~ The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.

1999 ~ President Bill Clinton was acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.

2000 ~ Death of Charles M. Schulz, creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip.

2002 ~ The trial of former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic began at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

February 13th
 

1542 ~ Death of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII of England.

1866 ~ Jesse James robbed his first bank.

1883 ~ Death of Richard Wagner, German composer.

1923 ~ Birthday of Chuck Yeager, pilot of first supersonic flight.

1935 ~ A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.

1945 ~ World War II: The Royal Air Force created a firestorm in Dresden, Germany which killed tens of thousands of civilians.

1974 ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, was exiled from the Soviet Union his book The Gulag Archipelago.

1978 ~ Hilton bombing: a bomb exploded in a garbage truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two garbage men and a policeman.

1990 ~ German reunification: An agreement is reached for a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.

1997 ~ Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope performed by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery.

February 14th
 

1766 ~ Birthday of Thomas Malthus, Economist.

1779 ~ James Cook was killed by the natives of the Sandwich Islands.

1803 ~ Chief Justice John Marshall declared that any act of U.S. Congress which conflicts with the Constitution is void.

1895 ~ First showing of Oscar Wilde's last play “The Importance of Being Earnest” at St James's Theatre in London.

1943 ~ World War II: The Battle of the Kasserine Pass - German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps defeat the Americans under General Lloyd Fredendall.

1945 ~ President Franklin Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially starting the US-Saudi diplomatic relationship.

1946 ~ The Bank of England was nationalized.

1966 ~ Australian currency was decimalized.

1989 ~ Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.

2003 ~ Death of Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal.


Holidays and observances

Catholicism ~ Feast day of Saint Valentine.

February 15th
 

1564 ~ Birthday of Galileo Galilei, Tuscan astronomer, father of the scientific method, born in Pisa.

1820 ~ Birthday of Susan B. Anthony, feminist and suffragist.

1874 ~ Birthday of Sir Ernest Shackleton, British polar explorer.

1898 ~ Spanish-American War: The USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor, for then unknown reasons killing more than 260. This event led the United States to declare war on Spain.

1942 ~ World War II: Singapore surrendered to Japanese forces. About 130,000 Indian, Australian and British troops became prisoners of war. The fall of Singapore was the largest surrender of British military personnel in history.

1965 ~ Death of Nat King Cole, Singer.

1965 ~ A new red and white maple leaf design was adopted as the flag of Canada replacing the old Canadian Red Ensign banner.

1971 ~ Decimalization of British coinage completed on Decimal Day.

1988 ~ Death of Richard Feynman, Physicist.

1989 ~ Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan: The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had left Afghanistan.


Holidays and observances

Canada ~ Flag Day.

January 23rd
 

1923 ~ Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

1935 ~ Birthday of Sonny Bono, singer, music producer, television producer, Congressman.

1937 ~ Wallace H. Carothers received a patent for nylon.

1942 ~ Birthday of Kim Jong Il, North Korean leader.

1959 ~ Fidel Castro became Premier of Cuba after President Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.

1978 ~ The first computer bulletin board system, CBBS, was created in Chicago, Illinois.

1986 ~ The Soviet liner Mikhail Lermontov ran aground in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand.

1989 ~ Pan Am flight 103: Investigators announced that the cause of the crash was a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player.

1999 ~ Across Europe, Kurdish rebels took over embassies and held hostages after Turkey arrested one of their rebel leaders, Abdullah Öcalan.

2005 ~ The Kyoto Protocol comes into effect.

February 17th
 

1653 ~ Birthday of Arcangelo Corelli, Composer.

1801 ~ An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr was resolved when Jefferson was elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the U.S. House of Representatives.

1867 ~ The first ship passed through the Suez Canal.

1895 ~ Swan Lake, one of the most famous ballets, with music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was first performed at full length in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

1909 ~ Death of Geronimo, Apache leader.

1934 ~ Birthday of Barry Humphries (aka "Dame Edna Everage"), Actor & Comedian.

1947 ~ Propaganda: The Voice of America began to transmit radio broadcasts into the Soviet Union.

1962 ~ Death of Bruno Walter, Conductor.

1992 ~ A court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin sentenced serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to life in prison.

1996 ~ World champion Garry Kasparov beat the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.

February 18th
 

1546 ~ Death of Martin Luther, religious reformer.

1745 ~ Birthday of Alessandro Volta, physicist, eponym for the unit of the electric potential.

1838 ~ Birthday of Ernst Mach, Austrian Physicist & Philosopher.

1861 ~ In Montgomery, Alabama Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.

1885 ~ Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published for the first time.

1930 ~ While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.

1933 ~ Birthday of Yoko Ono, Singer, Artist, wife of John Lennon.

1965 ~ The Gambia became independent from the United Kingdom.

1967 ~ Death of J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist.

2005 ~ The United Kingdom law banning fox hunting, hare coursing and other sports which kill wild mammals is enforced from this date.

February 19th
 

1473 ~ Birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus, Astronomer.

1743 ~ Birthday of Luigi Boccherini, Italian Composer.

1847 ~ The Donner Party was rescued. It was noted that some of the survivors seemed to be remarkably well-fed considering their ordeal.

1861 ~ Serfdom was abolished in Russia.

1878 ~ The phonograph was patented by Thomas Edison.

1915 ~ World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli began.

1942 ~ World War II: About 150 Japanese warplanes attacked Darwin, Australia.

1964 ~ Paul Simon wrote "The Sounds of Silence," the song which, in a year and a half, catapulted him and Art Garfunkel to stardom as Simon & Garfunkel.

1986 ~ The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station.

1997 ~ Death of Deng Xiaoping, Chinese Communist political leader and revolutionary

February 20th
 

1626 ~ Death of John Dowland, Composer and lutenist.

1742 ~ The premiere of Giulio Cesare, an opera by George Frideric Handel, took place in London.

1835 ~ Concepción, Chile was destroyed by an earthquake

19002 ~ Birthday of Ansel Adams, Photographer.

1904 ~ Birthday of Alexei Kosygin, Premier of the Soviet Union.

1927 ~ Birthday of Sidney Poitier, Actor.

1952 ~ The film The African Queen opened in New York City.

1962 ~ Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn orbited the earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes, to become the first American to orbit the earth.

1966 ~ Death of Chester Nimitz, American admiral.

2001 ~ FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 15 years.

February 21st
 

1743 ~ The premiere in London of George Frideric Handel's oratorio, Samson.

1875 ~ Birthday of Jeanne Calment. She then went on to live for 122 years 164 days, the longest confirmed lifespan for any human being in history.

1893 ~ Birthday of Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist.

1903 ~ Birthday of Anaïs Nin, Writer.

1907 ~ Birthday of W. H. Auden, Poet.

1916 ~ World War I: The Battle of Verdun began. The battle was fought between February 21 and 19 December 1916, and resulted in nearly one million deaths and an additional 450,000 wounded and missing.

1947 ~ Edwin Land demonstrated the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.

1965 ~ Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam..

1975 ~ Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to prison.

1991 ~ Death of Dame Margot Fonteyn, ballet dancer.

February 22nd
 

1732 ~ Birthday of George Washington, 1st President of the U.S.

1819 ~ Spain ceded Florida to the U.S.

1857 ~ Birthday of Robert Baden-Powell, Chief Scout of the World.

1879 ~ Frank Woolworth opened his first "Five Cent Store" in Utica, New York.

1935 ~ Airplanes were no longer permitted to fly over the White House.

1946 ~ George Kennan, the American charge d'affaires in Moscow, sent an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union, and U.S. policy toward the communist state. Kennan's analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for America's Cold War policy of containment.

1967 ~ General Suharto takes full power in Indonesia

1980 ~ U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets 4–3 at Lake Placid, N.Y.

(I watched it happen. It really was a "Miracle on Ice")

1994 ~ Double agent Aldrich Ames was arrested.

1997 ~ Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute announced that a sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned.

February 23rd
 

1633 ~ Birthday of Samuel Pepys, Diarist.

1685 ~ Birthday of Georg Friederich Händel, Composer.

1732 ~ First performance of Händel's Orlando, in London.

1855 ~ Death of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Mathematician, Astronomer, Physicist.

1893 ~ Rudolf Diesel received a patent for the diesel engine.

1915 ~ Birthday of Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay

1927 ~ The Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) began to regulate the use of radio frequencies.

1945 ~ WWII - US flag raised over Iwo Jima: The 28th Regiment of the 5th Marines take Mount Suribachi

1965 ~ Death of Stan Laurel, Actor & Comedian

1998 ~ Osama bin Laden published a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders.

February 24th
 

303 ~ Galerius, Roman Emperor, published his edict that begins the persecution of Christians in his portion of the Empire.

1786 ~ Birthday of Wilhelm Grimm, Philologist & Folklorist.

1803 ~ The Supreme Court of the United States, in Marbury v. Madison, established the principle of judicial review

1856 ~ Death of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Russian mathematician.

1943 ~ Birthday of George Harrison, member of The Beatles.

1946 ~ Juan Perón was elected president of Argentina.

1955 ~ Birthday of Steve Jobs, Computer Pioneer.

1981 ~ Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.

1989 ~ Ayatollah Khomeini offered a $3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.

2001 ~ Death of Claude E. Shannon, "father of information theory".