Death of Pope Honorius II
French lay siege to Granson, Switzerland
Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded
The fifth wife of England's King Henry the Eighth, Catherine Howard, was executed for adultery.
Founding of St. Augustine, Florida
End of the Massacre of Novgorod
Death of Benvenuto Cellini, silversmith and sculptor
Murder of Pommier, French peasant rebel leader
Death of St. Katherine de'Ricci
Death of Jacopo da Ponte, known as "Bassano," painter
Alexander VII, Roman Catholic Pope born
John Lancaster leads 1st East India Company voyage from London
Bessie Harlow, Bessie Chalmers, Beatrice Mundie, Christiane Hamyltoun, Margaret Kent, and Marioun Chatto tried for witchcraft in Inverkiething, Scotland
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition.
The oldest public school in the United States, the Boston Public Latin School, was founded.
Giovanni Piazzetta, painter born
British Parliament adopts the Bill of Rights.
"The American Magazine," the first magazine in the United States was published in Philadelphia. It beat Benjamin Franklin's "General Magazine" off the presses by three days.
Talleyrand, Napoleon's foreign minister born
The University of North Carolina became the first United States state university to open its doors to students.
David Dudley Field, lawyer whose advocacy of law codification had international effects. born
Lord Randolph Churchill, English politician, Winston's father born
The Confederacy approves the recruitment of slaves as soldiers, as long as the approval of their owners is gained.
Jesse James holds up his first bank. Another outlaw legend, Charles "Black Bart" Boles baffled Wells Fargo detectives during an eight year stint of stagecoach robberies.
Johann Strauss' magnificent "Blue Danube Waltz" was played for the first time at a public concert in Vienna, Austria.
Mrs. Edna Krause of Watertown, Wisconsin, gave birth to America's first quintuplets. Sadly, all five of the baby boys died within two weeks.
Bess Truman, married to President Harry Truman born
Artist Grant Wood (Anamosa, Iowa) Wood his remembered for his realistic paintings portraying the architecture, landscape and people of 1930's Midwestern United States. born
Musician Wingy (Joseph) Manone (Nickel in the Slot, Flat Foot Floogie, Annie Laurie) born
Actress Jean (Fullarton) Muir born
College football coach Woody (Wayne) Hayes (Ohio State head coach for 33 years) born
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, known as ASCAP, was founded in New York.
The League of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.
Singer Eileen Farrell born
The National Negro Baseball League was organized.
Former test pilot Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager born
Singer Gene Ames (The Ames Brothers Rag Mop, Sentimental Me, Undecided, You You You, The Man with the Banjo, The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane, Tammy, Melodie d'Amour) born
Folk singer Jim McReynolds (with Jim & Jesse Diesel on My Tail, Ballad of Thunder Road, Golden Rocket) born
Singer Dotty McGuire (with McGuire Sisters Something's Gotta Give, He, Sugartime) born
Actress (Marilyn) Kim Novak (Picnic, The Man with the Golden Arm, Bell Book and Candle, Vertigo) born
Actor George Segal (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Touch of Class, King Rat, Look Who's Talking Now, Taking the Heat, The Bridge at Remagen) born
A jury in Flemington, New Jersey, found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of first-degree murder in the kidnap-death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed.
First social security checks are put in the mail.
"Prince Valiant" comic strip appears; known for historical detail and fine detail drawing.
Actor Oliver Reed (The Prince and the Pauper, Women in Love, Oliver!) born
Virginia Payne, already popular as the voice of "Ma Perkins", took on a new character in the soap opera, "The Carter's of Elm Street." The show was heard on NBC Radio.
Earl 'Fatha' Hines and his Orchestra recorded the classic "Boogie Woogie On St. Louis Blues".
Actor Bo Svenson (Delta Force, Heartbreak Ridge, Private Obsession) born
Actress Carol (Jones) Lynley (The Poseidon Adventure, Return to Peyton Place, The Stripper, Fantasy Island, Spirits) born
Singer-musician Peter (Torkelson) Tork (The Monkees to Clarksville, I'm a Believer, Daydream Believer)(Some sources 1944) born
Talk show host Jerry Springer born
Actress Stockard Channing born
Allied planes began bombing the German city of Dresden.
During World War Two, the Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the Germans.
A mob burns a radio station in Ecuador after the broadcast of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds."
Singer Peter Gabriel born
Albania recognizes Ho Chi Minh's Vietnamese government, becoming the sixth Eastern bloc country to do so.
Actor David Naughton born
The Pope asks the U.S. to grant clemency to convicted spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.
Rock musician Peter Hook born
France exploded its first atomic bomb in the Sahara desert.
Singer Henry Rollins born
Sixteen-year-old Peggy Fleming won the ladies senior figure skating title at Lake Placid, New York. She was elected to the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame and the Olympic Hall of Fame.
Singer Freedom Williams born
The U.S. sends 10,500 more combat troops to Vietnam. While the military is responsible for fighting a war, its civilian superiors determine how it will be fought.
G.M. is reportedly redesigning automobiles to run on unleaded fuel.
The Osmonds, a family singing group from Ogden, Utah, began a five-week stay at the top of the pop music charts with the hit, "One Bad Apple". The song, featured the voice of little Donny Osmond.
Enemy attacks, in Vietnam, decline for the third day as the U.S. continues its intensive bombing strategy.
Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was deported from the Soviet Union and stripped of Soviet citizenship.
Opening ceremonies for the 13th Winter Olympics were held in Lake Placid, New York.
Konstantin Chernenko succeeded the late Yuri Andropov as the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee.
Konstantin Chernenko was chosen to be general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Yuri Andropov.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a record high of 1,297.92 after it topped the 1,300 mark earlier in the trading session.
Martin A. Siegel, a leading Wall Street investment banker turned in by stock speculator Ivan F. Boesky, plead guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion as part of the insider-trading scandal.
The 15th winter Olympics opened in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. President Reagan and Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid met in the Mexican resort of Mazatlan.
The judge in the Iran-Contra trial of Oliver North sent the jury home amid a continuing disagreement between the prosecution and defense over protecting classified materials.
The United States and its European allies forged an agreement with the Soviet Union and East Germany during an "open skies" conference in Ottawa on a two-stage formula to reunite Germany.
Nelson Mandela received a hero's welcome when he returned to the black township of Soweto with a message of moderation and a pledge to end "the dark hell of apartheid."
James "Buster" Douglas became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world when his controversial knockout victory over Mike Tyson 2 days earlier was recognized by 2 holdout sanctioning bodies.
Hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed when a pair of laser-guided US bombs destroyed an underground facility in Baghdad identified by US officials as a military installation, but which Iraqi officials said was a bomb shelter.
Donna Weinbrecht of the United States won the gold medal in women's freestyle skiing moguls at the Olympic games in Albertville, France.
The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina began blocking the distribution of food in the capital of Sarajevo to protest ineffective international attempts to stop the war.
At the Winter Olympics Games in Lillehammer, Norway, American Tommy Moe won the men's downhill, defeating local hero Kjetil Andre Aamodt by .004 of a second.
A tribunal in the Netherlands indicted 21 Serbs for atrocities against Croats and Muslims interned in a Bosnian prison camp.
The rock musical "Rent," by Jonathan Larson, opened off-Broadway.
In the continuing drama of man versus machine, world chess champion Garry Kasparov asked for a draw in his third game against the IBM supercomputer named "Deep Blue," leaving the six-game match in Philadelphia tied at one and a-half games each.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average broke through the 7,000 barrier for the first time, ending the day at 7022.44.
"Discovery's" astronauts hauled the Hubble Space Telescope aboard the shuttle for a one-billion-mile tuneup to allow it to peer even deeper into the far reaches of the universe.
The United Auto Workers reached a tentative contract agreement with Caterpillar Incorporated. (Union members rejected the agreement, which was revised and later ratified, ending a bitter, six-and-a-half-year dispute.)
President Clinton forcefully sought to persuade Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to permit U.N. inspectors to search his country for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons but said Washington could not "walk away" if he did not. "I hope and I pray that he will permit qualified, honest, nonpolitical, technically competent inspectors to have access to those sites which have been forbidden," Clinton told reporters.
Dr. David Satcher was sworn in as surgeon general during an Oval Office ceremony.
The World Health Organization announced that a potentially fatal parasitic disease transmitted by female sandflies had struck thousands of people in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. It said there had been a high mortality rate since the last months of 1997. Untredted the disease, visceral leishmaniasis, has a mortality rate of nearly 100%. Drugs essential for treating the disease were lacking in the region.
The government agreed to delay stricter salt standards for foods labeled as "healthy" until 2000, instead of its previous deadline of November 1997. The USDA also said it might consider changing the definition of "healthy" for labels if food makers show that tougher salt restrictions are unrealistic.
A federal judge held American Airlines' pilots' union and two top board members in contempt and promised sizable fines against them, saying the union did not do enough to encourage pilots to return to work after a court order.
In his weekly radio address, President Clinton said as many as 4,000 American troops would go to Kosovo as part of a NATO peacekeeping force if warring Serbs and ethnic Albanians reached a political settlement.
Charles Schulz's final "Peanuts" strip ran in Sunday newspapers, the day after the cartoonist died in his sleep at his California home at age 77.
Tiger Woods saw his streak of six consecutive victories come to an end as he fell short to Phil Mickelson in the Buick Invitational.
Somalians protest against deployment of African Union troops
Pfizer and Microsoft team up against Viagra spam
Chicago chef invents edible menu
Howard Dean elected chairman of U.S. Democrats
UN troops accused of rape in Congo; UN staff suspended due to Iraq Oil-for-Food corruption
New Ariane 5 ECA rocket launch a success
The Aviator and Vera Drake scoop top prizes at the Orange BAFTA Film Awards
Shiites win dominating role in Iraq
Gunman opens fire at upstate New York shopping mall
Day 2 Results - Olympic Winter Games
Melbourne police raid hydroponic cannabis growers
Australian PM links cannabis use to mental illness
The Independent questions Wikipedia's accuracy
Day 3 Results - Olympic Winter Games
First of the Bali nine sentenced
Fatal shooting at Salt Lake City mall
Vancouver will run out of office space in 5 years
Mobile phones to help fight AIDS in Africa
Major snowstorm hits midwestern United States
Romney announces presidential candidacy
UN troops target violent gangs in Haitian slum raid
Huckabee shifts campaign to Wisconsin
George Bush meets with Mali president Amadou Touré
Malaysian Prime Minister dissolves Parliament, makes way for elections
'Top Model' winner Jaslene Gonzalez on her career and being a Latina role model
Australian Parliament apologises to the Stolen Generations
Astronauts replace ISS nitrogen tank in spacewalk
McCain, Obama win "Potomac Primary" states
German court upholds surveillance of Scientology
Billy West, voice of Ren and Stimpy, Futurama, on the rough start that shaped his life
'Bright' idea lights its way to win NASA contest
Writers Guild of America ends strike
Danish police arrest three in cartoonist murder plot
Japan, Australia draw in World Cup qualifier
Russian and US satellites collide
Judd Gregg withdraws as US Commerce Secretary nominee
US lawmakers reach stimulus package deal
Fifty killed in commuter plane crash in Clarence Center, New York
Landmark coalition offensive launched in Afghanistan
Georgian Olympian luge competitor dies in training accident
Airborne laser successfully destroys ballistic missile
Algiers protest takes place despite ban
Pakistani court seeks Musharraf's arrest over Bhutto murder
Canada's social insurance assets pass $140 billion in fourth quarter
NASCAR: Kurt Busch wins Budweiser Shootout
Texas man appears before judge following fatal mall shooting
'Banana Joe' wins Westminster