|
- 0660 BC - Traditional founding date of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
- 1531 Henry VIII of England recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.
- 1543 Battle at Wayna Daga Ethiopian/Portugese troops beat Moslem army
- 1543 Karel/Henry VIII sign anti-French covenant
- 1573 First European, Francis Drake sees the Pacific (from Panama)
- 1575 King Frederick of Denmark offers island of Hveen to Tycho Brahe
- 1638 Dutch countess Louise of Solms marries earl John of Brederode
- 1659 The assault on Copenhagen by Swedish forces is beaten back with heavy losses.
- 1747 Claude de Ramezay and a group of Acadian guides attack the British position at Grand Pré
- 1752 Benjamin Franklin helps establish the Pennsylvania Hospital the nation's first hospital.
- 1752 Pennsylvania Hospital, 1st hospital in the United States, opens.
- 1766 Stamp Act declared unconstitutional in Virginia
- 1768 Samuel Adams letter, circulates around American colonies, opposing Townshend Act taxes
- 1778 On this day in 1778, some 300 people visit Voltaire following his return to Paris. Voltaire had been in exile for 28 years
- 1790 Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions U.S. Congress for abolition of slavery.
- 1790 Society of Friends petitions Congress for abolition of slavery
- 1793 Prussian troops occupy Venlo Netherlands
- 1794 First session of US Senate open to the public
- 1794 First session of United States Senate open to the public.
- 1808 Anthracite coal first burned as fuel, experimentally, Wilkes-Barre PA
- 1809 Robert Fulton patents the steamboat
- 1810 Napoleon marries Marie-Louise of Austria
- 1811 President Madison prohibits trade with Britain for 3rd time in 4 years
- 1812 Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signs a law that redistricts the state to the advantage of his party, causing opponents to coin the term gerrymandering.
- 1812 Confederate Vice President and Georgia statesman Alexander Stephens is born. - USA
- 1814 Norway's independence is proclaimed, marking the ultimate end of the Kalmar Union.
- 1826 University College London is founded under the name University of London.
- 1837 American Physiological Society organizes in Boston
- 1840 Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Rgiment receives its first performance in Paris.
- 1843 Giuseppe Verdi's Opera "I Lombardi," premieres in Milan
- 1851 First cricket 1st-class game in Australia, Tasmania vs Victoria, Launceston
- 1852 First British public female toilet opens (Bedford Street London)
- 1854 Major streets lit by coal gas for first time
- 1855 Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, by Abuna Salama III in a ceremony at the church of Derasge Maryam.
- 1858 First apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to 14-year-old Bernadette of Lourdes, southern France
- 1861 President-elect Lincoln takes train from Spingfield IL to Washington DC
- 1861 US House unanimously passes resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state
- 1864 Major Charls Heaphy, Auckland Rifel Volunteers, won the Victoria Cross at Mangapiko River, Waikato during the New Zealand (Maori) Wars
- 1869 Patrick James Whelan c1840-1869 hanged in a snowstorm before a crowd of 5,000 people for the murder of Thomas D'Arcy McGee
- 1873 King Amadeus I of Spain abdicates.
- 1873 Spanish Cortes fires king Amadeus I
- 1878 First weekly Weather report published in UK
- 1889 Meiji constitution of Japan adopted; 1st Diet of Japan convenes in 1890.
- 1889 The first Japanese written Constitution, handed by the Meiji emperor to his prime minister, Count Kuroda
- 1895 -17ºF (-27.2ºC) in Braemar, Grampian (UK record)
- 1895 Georgetown became part of Washington DC
- 1896 Oscar Wildes "Salomé," premieres in Paris
- 1897 White Rose Mission opens on East 97th Street, NYC
- 1898 Owen Smith of North Carolina, AME Zion minister, named minister to Liberia
- 1899 -15ºF (-26ºC), Washington DC (district record)
- 1899 -61ºF (-52ºC), Montana (record low temperature)
- 1902 Police assault universal suffrage demonstrators in Brussels.
- 1903 Anton Bruckner's 9th Symphony receives its first performance in Vienna.
- 1905 Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical Vehementer nos.
- 1907 De Master's Dutch government resigns
- 1907 Passenger ship Larchmont sinks by Block Island, 322 die
- 1908 Heemskerk's government begins in Holland
- 1916 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert
- 1916 Emma Goldman arrested for lecturing on birth control
- 1919 Friedrich Ebert (SPD), elected President of Germany
- 1922 "April Showers" by Al Jolson hits #1
- 1922 US intervention army leaves Honduras
- 1926 Leslie Nielsen actor, comedian, born on this day at Regina Saskatchewan
- 1926 Tokelau (Union) islands in south Pacific transfers to New Zealand
- 1928 2nd Winter Olympics games opens in St Moritz, Switzerland
- 1929 The independence and sovereignty of Vatican City is recognized by Italy, with the signing of the Lateran Treaty.
- 1932 73ºF highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in February
- 1935 -11ºF (-24ºC), Ifrane, Morocco (African record low)
- 1935 First US airplane flight with auto slung beneath the fuselage, New York Why?
- 1936 Burt Reynolds Emmy Award-winning actor was born
- 1936 Pumping begins to build Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay
- 1937 General Motors formally recognizes the United Automobile Workers Union, ending a sit-down strike against the auto maker.
- 1938 BBC Television produces the world's first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Capek play R.U.R., which coined the term "robot".
- 1939 Lockheed P-38 flies from California to New York in 7 hours 2 minutes.
- 1941 First Gold record presented (Glenn Miller-Chattanooga Choo Choo)
- 1941 Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli
- 1941 Sicherheitsdienst complains about Dutch anti German sentiments
- 1942 "Archie" comic book debuts
- 1942 In Montreal anti-conscription riot breaks out after 10,000 people rally at the Marché St-Jacques
- 1942 On this day, the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, as well as the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, escape from the French port of Brest and make a mad dash up the English Channel to safety in German waters. Very embarrassing for the Royal Navy
- 1942 The Battle of Bukit Timah was fought in Singapore during World War II.
- 1943 General Dwight Eisenhower selected to command the allied armies in Europe.
- 1943 Ottawa imposes severe wartime gasoline rationing of 10 gallons a month for every private car
- 1943 Transport nr 47 departs with French Jews to Nazi-Germany
- 1944 German troops re-conquer Aprilia Italy
- 1944 U-424 sunk off Ireland
- 1945 First gas turbine propeller-driven airplane flight tested, Downey CA
- 1948 Billy Griffith scores cricket century on debut England vs West Indies, out for 140
- 1948 John Costello follows Eamon Da Valera as premier of Ireland
- 1949 Willie Pep recaptures world featherweight boxing title
- 1950 "Rag Mop" by The Ames Brothers hit #1
- 1951 Kwame Nkrumah wins first parliamentary election on Gold coast (Ghana)
- 1951 Marshall Teague drove a Hudson Hornet to victory on the beach oval of the 160-mile Daytona Grand National at Daytona Beach, Florida
- 1953 Russia breaks diplomatic relations with Israel
- 1953 The Soviet Union breaks off diplomatic relations with Israel.
- 1954 6th Emmy Awards I Love Lucy, Donald O'Connor & Eve Arden win
- 1956 Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, former members of the British Foreign Office who had disappeared from England in 1951, resurface in Moscow
- 1958 Auto racer Marshall Teague died at age thirty-seven after attempting to raise the closed-course speed record at Daytona.
- 1958 Marshal Chen Yi succeeds Chu En-lai as Minister of Foreign affairs
- 1958 Ruth Carol Taylor is first African-American woman hired as flight attendant
- 1959 Vinoo Mankad ends his final Test Cricket (v West Indies at Delhi)
- 1960 Jack Paar walks off his TV show
- 1961 Robert Weaver sworn in with then highest federal post by a black
- 1962 Nine U.S. and South Vietnamese crewmen are killed in a SC-47 crash about 70 miles north of Saigon
- 1963 Beatles tape 10 tracks for their first album, including "Please, Please Me"
- 1963 CIA Domestic Operations Division created
- 1963 Near Kapuskasing Ontarioa shoot-out between loggers and independents sees three Kapuskasing loggers killed and nine wounded0
- 1964 Beatles first live appearance in US; Washington DC Coliseum
- 1964 Greeks and Turks begin fighting in Limassol, Cyprus.
- 1964 Taiwan drops diplomatic relations with France
- 1964 The Republic of China (Taiwan) breaks off diplomatic relations with France.
- 1965 Beatles drummer Ringo Starr marries Maureen Cox in London.
- 1968 Israeli-Jordanian border clashes.
- 1968 Jeffrey Kramer survives 76 meter jump, Washington Bridge, Hudson River NY
- 1969 Dorey Funk Jr beats Gene Kiniski in Tampa, to become NWA champion
- 1969 In Montreal Quebec Canadian and West Indian student demonstrators destroy $1.4 million computer and set fire to data centre at Sir George Williams University
- 1970 26.37 cm (10.38") of rainfall, Mt Washington NH (state 24-hour record)
- 1970 Japan joins the space race, by launching a satellite into earth orbit.
- 1970 John Lennon pays £1,344 fines for 96 protesting the South African rugby team playing in Scotland
- 1971 Eighty-seven countries, including the US, UK, and USSR, sign the Seabed Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons in international waters.
- 1971 Montréal Canadien John Believau scores his 500th NHL goal
- 1971 US, UK, USSR, others sign Seabed Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons
- 1973 Vietnam War: First release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam takes place.
- 1974 Titan-Centaur test launch fails
- 1975 Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for Conservative leadership
- 1976 Clifford Alexander Jr confirmed as first black Secretary of Army
- 1977 20.2-kg lobster caught off Nova Scotia (heaviest known crustacean)
- 1977 Off Nova Scotia fisherman catches 20.2 kg lobster off Nova Scotia; the world's heaviest known crustacean
- 1978 16 Unification church couples wed in New York NY
- 1978 Censorship: the People's Republic of China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, Shakespeare and Dickens.
- 1978 EOKA organization disbands in Cyprus
- 1978 Number one hit on UK music charts - Brotherhood Of Man - Figaro
- 1978 Pacific Western Airlines aircraft crashes at Cranbrook, killing 43 people; snowplow on runway during PWA jet's landing
- 1979 43 million watch "Elvis!" on ABC
- 1979 Emmy News & Documentaries Award presentation
- 1979 Islamic revolution of Iran achieved victory by leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- 1979 Musical "They're Playing Our Song," premieres at Imperial NYC for 1082 performances
- 1981 Visitor posting - Nathan Northrup was born in Ohio - USA
- 1981 100,000 gallons (380 m) of radioactive coolant leak into the containment building of TVA Sequoyah 1 nuclear plant in Tennessee, contaminating 8 workers.
- 1981 Australia all out 83 vs India at MCG chasing 143 to win
- 1981 Polish premier Jozef Pinkowski replaced by Wojciech Jaruzelski
- 1983 "Weird Al" Yankovic records "Ricky" & "Buckingham Blues" debut LP
- 1984 10th space shuttle mission (41-B)-Challenger 4-returns to Earth
- 1985 Jordan king Hussein & PLO leader Arafat sign accord
- 1985 Wasim Akram takes 10 wickets in his 2nd Test Cricket, New Zealand still wins
- 1986 Australia beat India 2-0 to win the World Series Cup
- 1986 Iran begins Fajr-8 offensive against Iraq
- 1986 Rights activist Anatoly Scharansky released by USSR, leaves country
- 1987 British Airways begins trading as a public company
- 1987 England beat Australia 2-0 to win the World Series Cup
- 1987 Philippines constitution goes into effect
- 1988 Anthony M Kennedy appointed to the Supreme Court
- 1989 Barbara Clementine Harris consecrated first female bishop (Episcopalian)
- 1990 James "Buster" Douglas KOs Mike Tyson to win heavyweight boxing crown
- 1990 Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, is freed from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa.
- 1990 South African activist Nelson Mandela is freed after 27 years in prison.
- 1991 UNPO, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, forms in The Hague, Netherlands.
- 1992 F-16 jet crashes at residential district of Hengelo Netherlands (No deaths)
- 1992 Visitor posting - February 11 1992 Taylor Lautner was born
- 1993 Baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan announces that he will be retiring after the 1993 season.
- 1993 Janet Reno is named by president Bill Clinton as the first woman to hold the position of U.S. attorney general.
- 1994 Lu Parker, (South Carolina), crowned 43rd Miss USA
- 1994 Visitor posting - Jacob Teter was born. - USA
- 1995 The space shuttle Discovery touches down at Cape Canaveral, Florida, ending a mission that included docking with the Russian Mir space station.
- 1995 West Indies score 5-660 against New Zealand
- 1997 Celine Dion receives an award for her 50 millionth record sold
- 1997 Space Shuttle Discovery was launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
- 1998 A federal judge rules that golfer Casey Martin, who suffers from a circulatory condition making it hard to walk, is covered by the American with Disabilities Act. Under the ADA, Martin should be allowed to use a golf cart when he competes in PGA tournaments.
- 1998 KVBC-FM (Las Vegas) offers Monica Lewinsky $5M for interview
- 1998 Lyrics to "Candle in the Wind 1997," auctioned for $442,500
- 1999 In Afghanistan a 6.0 earthquake killed 70 and 500 injured, at least 14,000 homeless and 7,000 houses destroyed in Lowgar and Vardak Provinces
- 1999 Pluto is once again the farthest planet from the sun in our solar system
- 1999 Visitor posting - stevie joyner in wichita falls born - USA
- 2006 U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shoots Harry Whittington in the face while the two are hunting together.
- 2007 In Portugal, a national referendum dictates non-therapeutic abortion to become legal when requested by the woman during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
More historical events added daily - keep checking back