| 1145:
|
Death of Pope Lucius II
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| 1145:
|
Election of Pope Eugenius III
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| 1152:
|
Death of Conrad III, King of Germany
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| 1288:
|
Election of Pope Nicholas IV
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| 1368:
|
Sigsimund, King of Hungary and Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor born
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| 1386:
|
Coronation of Wladislas II as King of Poland
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| 1483:
|
Babur, founder of the Moghul Empire in India (1526-30) born
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| 1497:
|
Philipp Melanchthon, German Protestant reformer born
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| 1502:
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Amerigo Vespucci sets sail for South America
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| 1515:
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Francis I, King of France, enters Paris after his Coronation
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| 1519:
|
Pedro Menndez de Avils, who explored Florida, founded St. Augustine born
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| 1564:
|
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was born in the city of Pisa. born
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| 1571:
|
The composer Michael Praetorius born
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| 1621:
|
Death of Michael Praetorius, composer
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| 1637:
|
Death of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor
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| 1645:
|
British Army founded
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| 1710:
|
Louis XV, King of France born
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| 1726:
|
Abraham Clark, Declaration of Independence signer born
|
| 1758:
|
Mustard was advertised for the first time in America. It was Benjamin Franklin who brought mustard to America
|
| 1764:
|
The city of St. Louis was established
|
| 1797:
|
Henry Engelhard Steinway, piano maker born
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| 1798:
|
The first serious fist fight occurs in Congress
|
| 1799:
|
Printed ballots were authorized for use in elections in the State of Pennsylvania. The ballots were originally referred to as "vest-pocket tickets.""
|
| 1803:
|
John Augustus Sutter 1812 born
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| 1804:
|
New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery
|
| 1812:
|
Jeweler Charles Tiffany born
|
| 1820:
|
Suffragist Susan B. Anthony (First American woman to be pictured on a coin). born
|
| 1842:
|
A private mail service in New York City introduced the first adhesive postage stamps used in the US. The first adhesive stamp in the world was issued on May 6, 1840 by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and was called the “Penny Black”
|
| 1857:
|
The father of Russian classical music died, but not in Russia. Glinka was the first Russian composer to make a serious effort to put the indigenous sounds of Russian folk music into classical compositions, and for this he was honored
|
| 1869:
|
Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped. Jefferson Davis' Mexican War exploits led directly to the Confederate White House
|
| 1879:
|
President Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the US Supreme Court
|
| 1882:
|
Actor John (Blythe) Barrymore (Beau Brummel, Bulldog Drummond, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Grand Hotel) born
|
| 1898:
|
The U.S. battleship Maine exploded in Havana Harbor today killing 2 officers and 258 crew members. Although the cause of the explosion was never determined, the event prompted U.S. intervention in the Cuban-Spanish conflict on the behalf of Cuba
|
| 1900:
|
The British threaten to use natives in the Boer War fight
|
| 1905:
|
Composer (Hyman Arluck) Harold Arlen (Stormy Weather, It's Only a Paper Moon, That Old Black Magic, Oscar-winning songwriter: Somewhere Over the Rainbow) born
|
| 1907:
|
Actor Cesar Romero born
|
| 1914:
|
Actor Kevin McCarthy (Final Approach, Ghoulies 3, The Howling). born
|
| 1918:
|
Country singer Hank Locklin (Please Help Me I'm Falling). (Some sources 1922) born
|
| 1925:
|
The London Zoo announces it will install lights to cheer up fogged in animals
|
| 1927:
|
Comedian Harvey Korman (The Carol Burnett Show, The Tim Conway Show, Blazing Saddles) . born
|
| 1929:
|
Auto racer Graham Hill born
|
| 1931:
|
Actress Claire Bloom (Separate Tables, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Queenie, Alexander the Great, Anastasia, Brideshead Revisited). born
|
| 1932:
|
George Burns and Gracie Allen debuted as regulars on "The Guy Lombardo Show" on CBS Radio
|
| 1933:
|
President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an attempt on his life in Miami, when shots fired at him by an assailant (Giuseppe Zangara) missed. However, Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak was killed
|
| 1934:
|
U.S. Congress passes the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, allotting new funds for Federal Emergency Relief Administration
|
| 1935:
|
Astronaut Roger Chaffee, killed in a fire on the ground during a 1967 Apollo I test. born
|
| 1935:
|
Author Susan Brownmiller. born
|
| 1940:
|
Hitler orders that all British merchant ships will be considered warships
|
| 1941:
|
Songwriter Brian Holland. born
|
| 1941:
|
Duke Ellington and his Orchestra recorded one of big band's all time classics. "Take the "A" Train" was recorded at Victor Records' Hollywood studio and became the Duke's signature song
|
| 1942:
|
British forces in Singapore surrender to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita
|
| 1943:
|
The Germans break U.S. lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia
|
| 1944:
|
Rock musician Mick Avory (The Kinks) born
|
| 1944:
|
During World War II, Allied forces heavily bombed the monastery atop Monte Cassino in Italy
|
| 1946:
|
Edith Houghton, age 33, was signed as a baseball scout by the Philadelphia Phillies; the first female scout in the major leagues
|
| 1946:
|
Royal Canadian mounted police arrest 22 as Soviet spies
|
| 1948:
|
Actress Marisa Berenson born
|
| 1950:
|
Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung sign a mutual defense treaty in Moscow
|
| 1951:
|
Actress Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Onassis Richest Man in the World, Somewhere in Time, War and Remembrance) born
|
| 1951:
|
Singer Melissa Manchester (Don't Cry Out Loud, Midnight Blue, You Should Hear How She Talks About You) born
|
| 1953:
|
The first American to win the women's world figure skating championship was 17-year-old Tenley Albright. She won the competition in Davos, Switzerland
|
| 1954:
|
"Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. born
|
| 1957:
|
Andrei Gromyko replaces Dmitri T. Shepilov as the Soviet Foreign Minister
|
| 1959:
|
Reggae singer Ali Campbell (UB40) born
|
| 1960:
|
Musician Mikey Craig (Culture Club) born
|
| 1961:
|
73 people, including an 18-member figure skating team from the US, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium. (The skaters were en route to a world meet in Czechoslovakia.)
|
| 1964:
|
Actor Chris Farley. born
|
| 1965:
|
Canada's new maple-leaf flag was unfurled in ceremonies in Ottawa
|
| 1965:
|
Nat King Cole died in Santa Monica, California, at age 45. Cole was born in Alabama and raised in Chicago. He made his first recording in 1936
|
| 1967:
|
Actor Michael Easton ("413 Hope Street") born
|
| 1967:
|
Thirteen U.S. helicopters are shot down in one day in Vietnam
|
| 1970:
|
Actress Emily May Young ("Step By Step") born
|
| 1970:
|
Chicago defense attorney, William Kunstler, gets a four-year sentence on contempt charges
|
| 1971:
|
Actress Renee O'Connor ("Xena born
|
| 1971:
|
Britain changed to a decimal currency system from pounds, shillings and pence
|
| 1974:
|
U.S. gas stations threaten to close because of federal fuel policies
|
| 1978:
|
Leon Spinks shocked the boxing world by beating Muhammad Ali in a 15-round split decision, to capture the heavyweight title in Las Vegas
|
| 1982:
|
84 men were killed when a huge oil-drilling rig, the "Ocean Ranger," sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a fierce storm
|
| 1982:
|
Welterweight boxing champion, Sugar Ray Leonard, knocked out Bruce Finch in the third round of a fight in Reno, Nevada. Leonard was injured in the second round and underwent retinal surgery in May
|
| 1983:
|
Actress Ashley Lyn Cafagna ("The Bold and the Beautiful") born
|
| 1985:
|
Pope John Paul II met with leaders of the American Jewish Committee and issued a statement condemning anti-Semitism as "incompatible with Christ's teaching.""
|
| 1986:
|
The Philippines National Assembly proclaimed Ferdinand E. Marcos president for another six years, following an election marked by allegations of fraud
|
| 1987:
|
ABC broadcast the first segment of "Amerika," a controversial miniseries about a Soviet takeover of the United States that was criticized by some as potentially damaging to superpower relations
|
| 1988:
|
Austrian President Kurt Waldheim vowed in a televised address not to "retreat in the face of slanders" concerning his service for the German Army during World War Two
|
| 1989:
|
The Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention
|
| 1990:
|
President Bush and the leaders of Columbia, Bolivia and Peru met in Cartagena, Colombia, for a drug-fighting summit
|
| 1991:
|
Iraq proposed a conditional withdrawal from Kuwait, an offer dismissed by President Bush as a cruel hoax
|
| 1991:
|
The government of South Africa and the African National Congress announced an agreement on terms of the ANC's decision to suspend its armed struggle against apartheid
|
| 1992:
|
Benjamin L. Hooks announced plans to retire as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
|
| 1992:
|
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Schuman died in New York at age 81
|
| 1992:
|
A Milwaukee jury found that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed and mutilated 15 men and boys
|
| 1993:
|
President Clinton issued an economic "call to arms," asking Americans in a televised Oval Office address to accept a painful package of tax increases and spending cuts
|
| 1993:
|
At the Montreal Symphony, Ulf Schirmer conducted Handel's "Royal Fireworks" music and Richard Strauss's "Sinfonia domestica," and an Oboe Concerto by Prevost for which the soloist will be Theodore Baskin
|
| 1994:
|
Navy chief Admiral Frank Kelso II agreed to early retirement because of criticism over the Tailhook sex abuse scandal
|
| 1994:
|
Drifter Danny Harold Rolling entered a surprise guilty plea to the 1990 murders of five college students in Gainesville, Florida
|
| 1994:
|
American Diann Roffe-Steinrotter won the super-giant slalom at the Winter Olympics in Norway
|
| 1994:
|
Viacom won a hard-fought victory to acquire Paramount Communications
|
| 1995:
|
The FBI arrested Kevin Mitnick, its "most wanted hacker," charging him with cracking security for some of the nation's most protected computers. Mitnick agreed to a plea bargain carrying an 8-month jail term
|
| 1995:
|
A fire roared through a three-story nightclub in Taichung, Taiwan, killing at least 64 people
|
| 1996:
|
Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin announced he would run for re-election
|
| 1996:
|
A federal judge temporarily blocked the Communications Decency Act, saying the government had to explain what material it considered indecent before it could enforce the law, designed to protect children from sexually explicit material on computer networks
|
| 1997:
|
North Korean defector Lee Han-young was shot and mortally wounded in South Korea, three days after another North Korean defected in Beijing
|
| 1997:
|
Tara Lipinski upset Michelle Kwan at the U-S Figure Skating Championships in Nashville, Tennessee, becoming the youngest gold medalist at the nationals
|
| 1998:
|
Monica Lewinsky's attorney, William Ginsburg, continued his harsh criticism of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr for alleged leaks of information to the news media, charging on CNN that his client's constitutional rights were being trampled
|
| 1998:
|
Two Japanese ski jumpers (Kazuyoshi Funaki and Masahiko Harada) leapt to gold and bronze medals in the 120-meter event at the Nagano Olympics
|
| 1999:
|
The body of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African gunned down by New York City police, was returned to his native Guinea
|
| 2000:
|
Republican presidential rivals George W. Bush and John McCain fought over campaign financing and the tenor of their nomination contest in a testy debate in Columbia, South Carolina, that included Alan Keyes
|
| 2000:
|
Fox aired "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?," a TV special which drew huge ratings and much notoriety
|
| 2005:
|
Yahoo chooses Dublin as location of new European Headquarters
|
| 2005:
|
American nun murdered in Brazil
|
| 2005:
|
Chinese mine blast kills over 200
|
| 2005:
|
Conservative White House reporter using pseudonym gains access to Presidential press briefing and classified documents
|
| 2005:
|
Colombia-Venezuela meeting in Caracas to end crisis
|
| 2006:
|
Warner Music sees large growth digital music revenue
|
| 2006:
|
Day 4 Results - Olympic Winter Games
|
| 2006:
|
Last three Bali Nine smugglers jailed for life
|
| 2006:
|
U.K. soldiers arrested over Iraqi abuse video
|
| 2006:
|
Evolution may occur faster than once thought, scientists claim
|
| 2006:
|
German Constitutional Court prohibits shooting down hijacked passenger planes
|
| 2006:
|
New photos of Abu Ghraib prison abuse
|
| 2006:
|
Day 5 Results - Olympic Winter Games
|
| 2006:
|
RU486 debate complicates with amendments posed in Australian House of Representatives
|
| 2007:
|
U.S. general to head NATO forces in Afghanistan
|
| 2007:
|
Australian PM visits New Zealand
|
| 2007:
|
BaselWorld Fair to open its doors in April
|
| 2007:
|
North Korea agrees to end nuclear program
|
| 2007:
|
Israel to webcast al-Aqsa mosque excavations
|
| 2007:
|
Air Mauritania Boeing 737 hijacked
|
| 2007:
|
A weak spot in HIV spotted
|
| 2007:
|
Gamespy, IGN award Galactic Civilizations II expansion Editors' Choice
|
| 2007:
|
Harper snubs breakfast club visit to Ottawa; all other Canadian parties represented
|
| 2008:
|
New 'Guitar Hero' game to focus on Aerosmith
|
| 2008:
|
Gunman at Illinois campus said to have stopped taking medication
|
| 2008:
|
Natalee Holloway's mother prepares civil lawsuit against Joran van der Sloot
|
| 2008:
|
Taipei International Book Exhibition: Opening day highlights
|
| 2008:
|
Earthquake in East Africa's Lake Kivu kills at least one and injures scores
|
| 2008:
|
International row after Spielberg quits Beijing Olympics
|
| 2008:
|
Sexy video clips influence young girls more than boys, study shows
|
| 2008:
|
Long-running TV clown marks 50 years since debut
|
| 2008:
|
Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 pilot released on bail
|
| 2008:
|
Taipei International Book Exhibition: Varied features at Kid Book Hall
|
| 2008:
|
Van der Sloot not re-arrested in Holloway case
|
| 2008:
|
Former Senator Chafee endorses Barack Obama
|
| 2008:
|
STS-122 astronauts perform third spacewalk
|
| 2008:
|
National Hockey League news: February 15, 2008
|
| 2008:
|
US military to shoot down errant spy satellite
|
| 2008:
|
Independent candidate calls it quits, without Ron Paul as possible running mate
|
| 2009:
|
Woman with world's longest fingernails loses them in car crash
|
| 2009:
|
Thousands flee after volcano begins to erupt in Colombia
|
| 2009:
|
Japanese tanker MV Chemstar Venus freed by Somali pirates
|
| 2009:
|
Australian football: Melbourne through to A-League Grand Final, Adelaide to play Queensland in preliminary final
|
| 2009:
|
"The Simpsons" announces change in title sequence and move to HD
|
| 2009:
|
Burning debris from satellites spotted over several US cities
|
| 2010:
|
Twelve-year-old schoolboy stabbed, dies in Brisbane, Australia
|
| 2010:
|
Train collision kills at least eighteen near Brussels, Belgium
|
| 2011:
|
UK inflation rate increases to 4%
|
| 2011:
|
UK Prince William picks brother Harry to be best man at royal wedding
|
| 2012:
|
Opposition calls for mass protests in Bahrain
|
| 2012:
|
Indian IT minister says government will not censor social media
|
History
Icons
Physicist, mathematician, and astronomer, Galileo Galilei born in Pisa, Italy
Anti-slavery activist, feminist and suffragist, Susan B Anthony born in Adams, Massachusetts
US Navy seaman, Emmy and Golden Globe Award winning comedic actor, Harvey Korman born in Chicago, Illinois
Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter and actress, Melissa Manchester born in Bronx, New York
Emmy and Golden Globe Award winning actress, Bond girl Jayne Seymour born in London, England
11-time Emmy Award winning cartoonist, Matt Groening born in Portland, Oregon
Actor and comedian, Chris Farley born in Madison, Wisconsin
Producer, director, actress and Xena's sidekick, Evelyn Renee O'Connor born in Katy, Texas