Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February
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| << | Selected anniversaries for February | >> | ||||
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2006 day arrangement |
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February 1: Imbolc and St. Brigid's Day in Ireland
- 1796 - The capital of Upper Canada was moved from Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) to York (now Toronto), which was deemed to be less vulnerable to attack by the United States.
- 1884 - The first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.
- 1946 - Norwegian politician Trygve Lie was elected the first UN Secretary-General.
- 2003 - The NASA Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere on its 28th and final mission. (Mission insignia shown) This was the second total loss of a Space Shuttle.
Recent days: January 31 – January 30 – January 29
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February 2: Candlemas (Western Christianity); Groundhog Day in Canada and the United States.
- 962 - Pope John XII crowned Otto the Great as Holy Roman Emperor, the first in nearly 40 years.
- 1848 - The Mexican-American War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, granting the United States the Mexican Cession.
- 1925 - In the 1925 serum run to Nome, medical supplies to combat an outbreak of diphtheria reached Nome, Alaska on dog sleds, inspiring the annual Iditarod race across Alaska.
- 1943 - World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad concluded with 91,000 tired and starving German soldiers taken captive by the Red Army.
- 1990 - President F.W. de Klerk (pictured) declared the end of Apartheid in South Africa.
Recent days: February 1 – January 31 – January 30
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February 3: Setsubun in Japan; Four Chaplains' Day in the United States.
- 1488 - Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and landed in Mossel Bay.
- 1787 - The Shays' Rebellion was crushed, but prompted the drafting of the Constitution of the United States.
- 1867 - Crown Prince Mutsuhito (pictured) succeeded his father Kōmei as Emperor of Japan, taking the title Meiji.
- 1959 - Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper died in a plane crash on "The Day the Music Died."
- 1966 - The Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 became the first space probe to land on the Moon and transmit pictures from the lunar surface to Earth.
Recent days: February 2 – February 1 – January 31
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February 4: Independence Day in Sri Lanka (1948)
- 1859 - Constantin von Tischendorf found the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century uncial manuscript of the New Testament, in a monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt.
- 1862 - Bacardi, one of the world's largest rum producers, was founded as a small distillery in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.
- 1899 - The Philippine-American War broke out.
- 1945 - Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at the Yalta Conference.
- 1957 - USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, logged her 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Recent days: February 3 – February 2 – February 1
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February 5: Constitution Day in Mexico (1917)
- 1862 - Domnitor Alexander John Cuza (pictured) merged his two principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia, to form Romania.
- 1885 - King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State as his personal possession in Africa.
- 1924 - Hourly Greenwich Time Signals from the Royal Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast by the BBC.
- 1988 - The first Red Nose Day raised £15 million in the United Kingdom for charity.
- 2004 - The Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front captured the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion.
Recent days: February 4 – February 3 – February 2
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February 6: Waitangi Day in New Zealand (1840); Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan begins (2006).
- 1819 - Stamford Raffles (pictured) founded Singapore, a new trading post for the British East India Company.
- 1820 - Sponsored by the American Colonization Society, the first African American immigrants established a settlement in present-day Liberia.
- 1922 - France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed the Washington Naval Treaty to limit naval armaments.
- 1952 - The Duchess of Edinburgh learned of her accession to the British throne while in the Treetops Hotel in Kenya, becoming Queen Elizabeth II.
- 1959 - Jack Kilby filed the patent for the first integrated circuit.
Recent days: February 5 – February 4 – February 3
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February 7: Independence Day in Grenada (1974)
- 1301 - Edward of Caernarvon, the future King Edward II, became the first English heir apparent to hold the title as Prince of Wales.
- 1863 - HMS Orpheus sank off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189.
- 1984 - NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II (pictured in spacesuit) performed the first untethered spacewalk using a Manned Maneuvering Unit.
- 1992 - The Maastricht Treaty, which led to the formation of the European Union, was signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Recent days: February 6 – February 5 – February 4
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February 8: Prešeren Day in Slovenia
- 1587 - Mary, Queen of Scots (pictured) was executed at Fotheringhay Castle on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England.
- 1849 - The Roman Republic was proclaimed.
- 1904 - The Russo-Japanese War began with a surprise torpedo attack by the Japanese on Russian ships near present-day Lüshunkou, China.
- 1971 - Trading began in NASDAQ, the world's first electronic stock exchange.
- 1979 - Colonel Denis Sassou-Nguesso was chosen as the new President of the People’s Republic of the Congo.
Recent days: February 7 – February 6 – February 5
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February 9: Ashurah in Islam (2006)
- 474 - As the seven-year old Leo II was deemed too young to rule, his father Zeno was crowned as the co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1895 - Volleyball (pictured) was invented at a YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
- 1943 - World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands ended, giving the Allied forces a key victory in the Pacific War over the Japanese military.
- 1950 - Red scare: Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the U.S. State Department of being filled with communists.
- 1960 - Joanne Woodward was honored with the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Recent days: February 8 – February 7 – February 6
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- 1258 - Hulagu Khan and the Mongols sacked and burned Baghdad, a cultural and commercial centre of the Islamic world at the time, ending the rule of the Abbasid caliphate.
- 1763 - Britain and Spain partitioned New France by the Treaty of Paris, and decimated the French colonial empire.
- 1840 - Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (pictured) married Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom at the Chapel Royal.
- 1962 - "Rudolf Abel," a Soviet spy arrested by the FBI, was exchanged for Gary Powers, the pilot of an U.S. Air Force spy plane shot down in the U-2 Incident.
- 1996 - Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer, defeated International Grandmaster and World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in a game of chess for the first time.
Recent days: February 9 – February 8 – February 7
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February 11: National Foundation Day in Japan
- 1873 - King Amadeo I of Spain abdicated, proclaimed at the Cortes Generales that Spanish people were "ungovernable," and left the country.
- 1919 - Friedrich Ebert (pictured) became the first Reichspräsident of the Weimar Republic.
- 1929 - The first Lateran treaty was signed, establishing Vatican City as an independent sovereign enclave within Italy.
- 1963 - The Beatles began recording for their first album, Please Please Me.
- 1979 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran, and eventually became the Supreme Leader of the Islamic republic.
Recent days: February 10 – February 9 – February 8
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February 12: Daeboreum in Korea, Lantern Festival in the Chinese lunar calendar (2006); Darwin Day.
- 1689 - The Convention Parliament was convened to determine if James II, the last Catholic king of England, had vacated the throne when he fled to France in 1688.
- 1733 - Georgia Day: James Oglethorpe established the city of Savannah and the Province of Georgia, a penal colony for the resettlement of people in debtor's prison in the United Kingdom.
- 1818 - Led by General Bernardo O'Higgins, Chile formally proclaimed its independence from Spain.
- 1912 - Xinhai Revolution: Xuantong Emperor (pictured), the last Emperor of China, abdicated under a deal brokered by Yuan Shikai, ending the Manchu Qing dynasty.
- 2001 - NEAR Shoemaker touched down on Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
Recent days: February 11 – February 10 – February 9
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February 13: Tu Bishvat (Judaism, 2006)
- 1689 - Glorious Revolution: Instead of James Francis Edward Stuart the Prince of Wales acceding to the throne, his sister Mary and her husband William were proclaimed co-rulers of England.
- 1880 - Thomas Edison observed the Edison Effect, which later formed the basis of John Ambrose Fleming's vacuum tube diodes.
- 1881 - Hubertine Auclert, a leading French suffragette in Paris, launched the feminist newspaper La Citoyenne.
- 1945 - The RAF Bomber Command began the strategic bombing of Dresden in Saxony, Germany, resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed tens of thousands of civilians.
- 1984 - Konstantin Chernenko (pictured) succeeded the late Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Recent days: February 12 – February 11 – February 10
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- 1804 - Karađorđe became the leader of the First Serbian Uprising.
- 1876 - Elisha Gray (pictured) and Alexander Graham Bell each filed a patent for the telephone.
- 1879 - Chilean forces occupied the Bolivian port of Antofagasta, instigating the War of the Pacific.
- 1989 - A fatwa was issued for the execution of Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, a novel considered "blasphemous against Islam".
- 1989 - The first satellite in the satellite constellation of the Global Positioning System was placed into orbit.
Recent days: February 13 – February 12 – February 11
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February 15: Candlemas in Eastern Christianity, Flag Day in Canada, National Day in Serbia.
- 1898 - The USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana, Cuba, killing more than 260 people in a tragedy that precipitated the Spanish-American War.
- 1942 - General Tomoyuki Yamashita led the Japanese forces to capture the so called "impregnable fortress" of Singapore.
- 1971 - The British pound sterling and the Irish pound were decimalised on what is called Decimal Day.
- 1989 - The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan (pictured).
- 2003 - Millions around the world took part in the largest mass protest movement in history against the impending invasion of Iraq.
Recent days: February 14 – February 13 – February 12
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February 16: Statehood Day in Lithuania (1918)
- 1249 - Louis IX of France dispatched Andrew of Longjumeau as his ambassador to the Mongols.
- 1804 - Lt. Stephen Decatur (pictured) led a raid to destroy the captured USS Philadelphia in Tripoli of the Barbary States, denying her use to the enemy in the First Barbary War.
- 1857 - Gallaudet University, the world’s only university for hearing-impaired students, was established in Washington, D.C..
- 1923 - Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun, a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.
- 1978 - The first computer bulletin board system, CBBS, was established by Ward Christensen during a blizzard in Chicago, Illinois.
Recent days: February 15 – February 14 – February 13
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- 1801 - The U.S. House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson as President and Aaron Burr as Vice President of the United States, resolving an electoral tie in the 1800 presidential election.
- 1854 - Britain recognized the independence of the Orange Free State (flag pictured) in the present-day Free State Province, South Africa.
- 1895 - The ballet Swan Lake was first performed at full length with music by Tchaikovsky in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
- 1959 - Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, was launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.
- 1979 - About 120,000 troops of the People's Liberation Army of China crossed into northern Vietnam, starting the Sino-Vietnamese War.
Recent days: February 16 – February 15 – February 14
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February 18: Independence Day in The Gambia (1965)
- 1861 - Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the first (and only) President of the Confederate States of America.
- 1885 - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was first published. It was both praised and banned shortly thereafter.
- 1932 - The Empire of Japan established Manchukuo, a puppet state in northeastern China during the Sino-Japanese War.
- 1943 - Joseph Goebbels (pictured), Hitler's Propaganda Minister, delivered the Sportpalast speech to motivate the German people when the tide of World War II was turning against Germany.
- 2003 - An arsonist in Daegu, South Korea started a fire aboard a subway train, killing two hundred passengers.
Recent days: February 17 – February 16 – February 15
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- 197 – Septimius Severus defeated usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum, securing full control over the Roman Empire.
- 1594 - King Zygmunt III Vasa of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was crowned King of Sweden.
- 1942 - Air raids on Darwin: The capital of Northern Territory, Australia was devastated by 242 bombers and fighters of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
- 1942 - U.S. Executive Order 9066 was signed, authorising the relocation and confinement of over 112,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps.
- 1986 - The space station Mir (pictured) of the Soviet space program was launched, establishing the first long-term research station in space.
Recent days: February 18 – February 17 – February 16
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February 20: Presidents' Day in the United States and Family Day in Alberta, Canada (2006)
- 1472 - James III of Scotland annexed the Orkney and Shetland Islands from Denmark-Norway.
- 1810 - Andreas Hofer, a Tyrolean patriot and the leader of a rebellion against Napoleon's forces, was executed.
- 1913 - King O'Malley (pictured) drove in the first survey peg to mark the commencement of work on the construction of Canberra, Australia.
- 1959 - The Avro Arrow supersonic jet fighters programme in Canada was cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.
- 1965 - The Ranger 8 spacecraft successfully transmitted 7,137 photographs of the moon in the final 23 minutes of its mission before crashing in Mare Tranquillitatis.
Recent days: February 19 – February 18 – February 17
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February 21: Language Movement Day in Bangladesh, International Mother Language Day
- 1613 - Mikhail I was elected unanimously by the Zemsky Sobor to become Tsar, beginning the Romanov dynasty in Imperial Russia.
- 1804 - Built by Richard Trevithick, the first self-propelled steam engine or locomotive first ran in Wales.
- 1848 - The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was first published.
- 1952 - Protesters in Dhaka, East Pakistan walked into military fire in demand of the establishment of the Bengali language as an official language.
- 1965 - Black nationalist Malcolm X (pictured) was assassinated in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.
Recent days: February 20 – February 19 – February 18
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February 22: Independence Day in Saint Lucia (1979), Feast of Cathedra Petri (Catholicism).
- 1819 - By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sold Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
- 1876 - The Johns Hopkins University, named after philanthropist Johns Hopkins, was founded.
- 1943 - Members of the White Rose Society were found guilty of treason and guillotined by the Nazi regime in Germany.
- 1958 - President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and President Shukri al-Kuwatli of Syria signed the union pact to form the United Arab Republic.
- 1997 - Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announced the birth of a cloned sheep named Dolly (pictured).
Recent days: February 21 – February 20 – February 19
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February 23: Defenders of the Motherland Day in Russia (1918), Mashramani in Guyana (1970), Fat Thursday in Poland (2006).
- 1455 - Johann Gutenberg in Mainz began printing the Gutenberg Bible.
- 1893 - Rudolf Diesel received a patent for the diesel engine.
- 1903 - Guantánamo Bay, Cuba was perpetually leased to the United States.
- 1945 - Joe Rosenthal took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, an image that was later reproduced as the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial (pictured).
- 1947 - The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was founded. It is responsible for worldwide industrial and commercial ISO standards.
Recent days: February 22 – February 21 – February 20
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February 24: Independence Day in Estonia (1918)
- 303 - Roman Emperor Galerius began to persecute Christians.
- 1582 - Pope Gregory XIII (pictured) issued the papal bull Inter gravissimas to promulgate the Gregorian calendar, a modification of the Julian calendar in use since 45 BC.
- 1803 - Marbury v. Madison established judicial review in the United States.
- 1848 - Louis-Philippe, the Orléanist King of the French, abdicated and escaped to England.
- 1946 - Colonel Juan Perón was elected to his first term as President of Argentina.
Recent days: February 23 – February 22 – February 21
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February 25: National Day in Kuwait (1950)
- 1570 - Pope Pius V issued the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis to excommunicate Queen Elizabeth I and her followers in the Church of England.
- 1836 - Samuel Colt (pictured) received a patent for a "revolving gun."
- 1921 - The Democratic Republic of Georgia was occupied by the Soviet Red Army.
- 1951 - The first Pan American Games opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 1986 - EDSA Revolution: Corazón Aquino was inaugurated as President of the Philippines, as Ferdinand Marcos fled the nation after 20 years of rule.
Recent days: February 24 – February 23 – February 22
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February 26: Liberation Day in Kuwait (1991); Savior's Day in the Nation of Islam.
- 1266 - King Manfred of Sicily was killed at the Battle of Benevento, fighting Angevin forces led by Charles, the Count of Anjou.
- 1815 - The Hundred Days: Napoleon Bonaparte (pictured) escaped from exile in Elba.
- 1935 - Adolf Hitler ordered the German air force Luftwaffe reinstated, violating the Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of World War I.
- 1935 - In Daventry, England, Robert Watson-Watt first demonstrated the use of radar.
- 1993 - A van rented by Ramzi Yousef exploded in the underground garage of the World Trade Center in New York City in the World Trade Center bombing, killing six and injuring more than 1,000 people.
Recent days: February 25 – February 24 – February 23
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February 27: Independence Day in the Dominican Republic (1844)
- 1594 - The King of Navarre was crowned King Henry IV (pictured) of France at the Cathedral of Chartres near Paris, beginning the Bourbon dynasty.
- 1617 - Rise of Sweden as a Great Power: Sweden signed the Treaty of Stolbovo to end the Ingrian War with Russia, making large territorial gains.
- 1801 - Washington, D.C. was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
- 1933 - The Reichstag building was set on fire, a pivotal event in the establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany.
- 1976 - The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic was proclaimed in Western Sahara.
Recent days: February 26 – February 25 – February 24
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February 28: Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday in Western Christianity (2006); Peace Memorial Day in Taiwan.
- 364 - Valentinian I was elected Roman Emperor by officers of the Roman military at Nicaea, Bithynia.
- 1784 - John Wesley (pictured), a minister of the Church of England, chartered the first Methodist Church.
- 1947 - Civil disorder in Taipei and Keelung, Taiwan was brutally suppressed by the Chinese Nationalist military in the 228 Incident.
- 1983 - The final episode of the television series M*A*S*H was broadcast in the United States, and became the most-watched television program in history.
- 1986 - Prime Minister Olof Palme of Sweden was assassinated in Stockholm.
Recent days: February 27 – February 26 – February 25
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February 29: A leap day in the Gregorian calendar.
- 1704 - Joint French and Native American forces destroyed Deerfield, Massachusetts during Queen Anne's War.
- 1712 - February 29 was followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar.
- 1940 - Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar.
- 1988 - South African archbishop Desmond Tutu (pictured) was arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town
- 2004 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned as President of Haiti following popular rebel uprising.
Recent days: February 28 – February 27 – February 26
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