This day in history.....

February 14th


1542: Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, loses her head not long after two of her accused lovers fall victim to the same demise.

1566: Saint Augustine, Florida, is established by Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. It is sacked and burned 21 years later by Sir Francis Drake.


1826: The American Society for the Promotion of Temperance is founded in Boston, Massachusetts, and later led by Frances E. Willard.


1945: Allied forces begin a massive air strike against the German forces in Dresden, Germany.


1966: The Rolling Stones appear for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Learn more about the Rolling Stones.
 
February 15th


1879: A bill to allow female lawyers to argue cases before the United States Supreme Court is signed by President Rutherford Hayes.


1898: The Battleship Maine explodes in Havana harbor, Cuba. Spain is suspected, and two months later the United States declares war on Spain, beginning the Spanish-American War.


1936: Sonja Henie continues her domination of amateur women's figure skating by winning her third gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Germany.


1950: Walt Disney's animated motion picture Cinderella is released to theaters across the United States.

1965: Canada adopts the red maple leaf flag as the new national flag, replacing the Royal Union Flag, also known as the Union Jack.


1978: Floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee is not enough for Muhammad Ali, who loses his title to Leon Spinks in Las Vegas.
 
February 16th


1804: American Naval officer Stephen Decatur leads a raid into Tripoli harbor to burn the American frigate Philadelphia, which has been hijacked by pirates.


1857: Gallaudet University opens in Washington D.C. Founded by Amos Kendall, it was formerly called Columbia School for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind.

1868: Formerly known as the Jolly Gorks, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) is founded in New York, donating aid to children with disabilities and scholarships to deserving students.

1930: Nylon is developed by the Du Pont labs primarily from the research of American chemist Wallace Hume Carothers.


1959: Fidel Castro claims dictatorial power of Cuba following his overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.
 
February 17th

1600: Giordano Bruno, the Italian Renaissance philosopher and poet, is burned at the stake after being imprisoned for heresy during the Inquisition.
:eek5:

1801: Thomas Jefferson narrowly defeats Aaron Burr and is elected the third president of the United States.


1817: Baltimore, Maryland, becomes the first city in the United States to have city streets lit by gaslamps.


1864: The Union steam sloop USS Housatonic, anchored off Charleston, South Carolina, is sunk by the Confederate Huntley submarine.


1969: Golda Meir is sworn in as Israel's first female prime minister. Born Goldie Mobovitz, she immigrated to America with her family at age seven, then immigrated back to Palestine 16 years later.
 
February 18th

1229: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II negotiates the return of Jerusalem to Christian control with al-Kamil, the sultan of Egypt; therefore, the Sixth Crusade ends without any fighting.


1865: After five months under siege, Charleston, South Carolina, surrenders control of the city to Union forces.


1885: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, helping to make Twain a popular American author.


1930: The planet Pluto is discovered to be the ninth planet of the solar system.


1970: The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiracy stemming from anti-war protests during the 1968 Democratic Convention.
 
February 19th

1807: Former United States vice president Aaron Burr is arrested and charged with plotting to create an independent republic.


1846: The official state government of Texas is installed in the city of Austin.


1847: After spending the winter under harsh conditions that drove them to cannibalism in order to survive, members of the Donner Party are rescued.


1945: United States Marines storm the island of Iwo Jima. Nearly 60,000 marines went ashore the eight-square-mile volcanic island.


1961: Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home in Lincoln City, Indiana, is established as a United States National Monument.
 
February 21st


1420: The Hussite extremists seize Austi and found the fortress of Tabor, after which their sect is named—the Taborites.


1795: The National Convention formally separates church and state in France, allowing public worship in private homes.


1885: The Washington Monument, in Washington, D.C., is dedicated.


1965: African American activist and leader Malcolm X is shot dead at the Audubon Ballroom, in Harlem, New York.


1992: American skater Kristi Yamaguchi wins the Olympic gold medal in women's figure skating.
 
February 22nd

1512: Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer after whom North and South America are named, dies in Seville, Spain, at age 57.


1784: The Empress of China, the first United States merchant ship to trade with China, sets sail from New York.


1819: After long negotiations, Spain agrees to cede Florida to the United States.


1879: F.W. Woolworth opens up his first five and dime store in Utica, New York.


1924: President Calvin Coolidge delivers the first presidential radio address from the White House.


1959: Driver Lee Petty, in a 1959 Oldsmobile 88, wins the inaugural Daytona 500 motor race at the new International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.
 
February 23rd


1847: About 5000 American troops commanded by General Zachary Taylor defeat some 15,000 Mexicans under General Antonio López de Santa Anna near Buena Vista, Mexico.

1870: Mississippi is formally readmitted to the Union.


1934: Casey Stengel, who had previously been the team's coach, becomes the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers.


1940: The Walt Disney animated motion picture Pinocchio, about a wooden puppet who longs to become human, is released.

1945: U.S. Marines capture the highest point on the island of Iwo Jima and raise the American flag for the second time that day.


1997: Scottish scientists announce what they have kept secret for seven months: that they have cloned adult sheep DNA and produced a healthy sheep who they have named Dolly.
 
February 24th
1209: Saint Francis of Assisi's vocation, to live in complete poverty and to preach, is revealed to him.


1803: Marbury v. Madison establishes the authority of the Supreme Court of the United States to decide whether acts of Congress are legitimate under the U.S. Constitution.


1863: The United States Congress establishes the Arizona Territory from part of the New Mexico Territory.


1924: Johnny Weissmuller breaks the world record in the 100-meter freestyle swimming event.


1946: Juan Perón is elected president of Argentina.


1987: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hits his first three-point shot. Up to this date, he has scored 36,000 points, but only scoring two points at a time.
 
February 25th


1601: Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, is executed (beheaded) for high treason after his revolt against Queen Elizabeth I of England's ministers.


1760: English soldier and colonial administrator Robert Clive leaves India to return to England.


1919: Oregon is the first state to impose a state tax on gasoline (one cent a gallon).


1964: Boxer Cassius Clay beats Sonny Liston after six rounds in Miami, Florida, to win the world heavyweight boxing title. The same year Clay announces his conversion to Islam, changing his name to Muhammad Ali.


1986: President Ferdinand Marcos flees the Philippines, and the opposition leader, Corazon Aquino, is sworn in as president.

1998: Bob Dylan wins three awards, including album of the year for Time Out of Mind, and his son Jakob wins two awards at the 40th annual Grammy Awards in New York City.
 
February 26th

1766: Empress Catherine II (the Great) grants freedom of worship in Russia.


1848: Karl Marx and Friederich Engels publish the Communist Manifesto in London.


1919: The United States Congress establishes the Grand Canyon as a national park.


1985: Tina Turner wins two Grammy Awards for her hit song "What's Love Got to Do With It?"


1993: A terrorist bomb explosion kills five people and badly damages the World Trade Center in New York, New York.
 
February27th


1594: Henry IV is crowned king of France in Chartres.


1922: The United States Supreme Court declares the Nineteenth Amendment constitutional, thereby guaranteeing women's voting rights.


1933: The Reichstag, seat of the German parliament, is set on fire.

1973: Sioux Native Americans seize and hold Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, demanding a United States Senate investigation of Native American problems.


1974: The first issue of People magazine, a weekly publication featuring entertainment and social-interest news, hits the newsstands.


1990: The Exxon Corporation is indicted on five criminal charges relating to the 1989 Alaskan oil spill.


2003: A design by architect Daniel Libeskind is selected to be built on the former site of the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center.
 
March 1st


1260: The city of Damascus surrenders to the Mongols, who now occupy all Syria, extinguishing the Ayyubid Sultanate.


1803: Ohio enters the Union as the 17th state.


1872: President Ulysses S Grant signs a bill creating Yellowstone National Park, making it the first national park in the United States.


1875: The United States Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1875, guaranteeing African Americans equal access to public facilities.


1961: President John F. Kennedy creates the Peace Corps by executive order.


1972: Wilt Chamberlain becomes the first NBA basketball player to score 30,000 points.
 
March 3rd

1791: The United States Congress passes the nation's first tax law. The law divides the country into 14 tax zones and levies a duty on, among other items, distilled spirits.


1875: The opera Carmen, written by French composer Georges Bizet, opens in Paris, France.


1913: A gender war erupts in Washington, D.C., when 5,000 suffragists led by Alice Paul, are treated to abuse by crowds of scornful men. Some 40 people are wounded in the clash.


1931: The United States Senate makes the song "Star-Spangled Banner,” written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, the national anthem of the United States.


1965: The motion picture The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, premieres in American movie theaters.
 
1681: King Charles II of England grants Quaker landowner William Penn a vast tract of land between New York and Maryland, including the last uncommitted piece of the Atlantic seaboard south of Massachusetts.


1787: The United States Congress meets for the first time in New York City, and the U.S. Constitution goes into effect.


1877: Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premieres at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia.


1933: Frances Perkins becomes the first woman cabinet member in the United States, as secretary of labor.


1950: Walt Disney's feature-length animated motion picture Cinderella is released.

1966: In an interview, John Lennon announces that the Beatles are more popular than Jesus.
 
March 6th


1834: Toronto, Ontario, (originally called York) is incorporated as a city.


1836: About 170 Texans perish at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, when approximately 3,000 Mexicans commanded by general Antonio Lopes de Santa Anna overrun the Republic of Texas garrison.


1857: The United States Supreme Court rules on the Dred Scott case, declaring that African Americans are not U.S. citizens. The decision intensifies ongoing debates about slavery.


1930: Clarence Birdseye, food expert, industrialist, and inventor, introduces prepackaged, quick-frozen food to American consumers.

1980: Novelist Marguerite Yourcenar becomes the first female member of the Académie Francçaise.


1981: Walter Cronkite, longtime anchor of the CBS evening news, signs off for the last time.
 
March 7th


1778: Captain James Cook first sights the Oregon Coast at Yaquina Bay, near the current site of Newport, Oregon.


1876: Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for the telephone.


1901: The bluebonnet is adopted as the state flower of Texas.


1936: German troops reoccupy the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland, violating the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.


1965: On what becomes known as Bloody Sunday, a march through Selma, Alabama, is broken up by police.

1977: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto claims a massive victory in Pakistan's general election. His party is later accused by opposition parties of rigging the vote.
 
March 8th


1702: King William III of England dies and is succeeded by his sister-in-law, Queen Anne.


1862: The Confederate ironclad warship Virginia (formerly the Merrimack) sinks the Union Cumberland and Congress at Hampton Roads, Virginia.


1894: The first dog license law is enacted by the state of New York.


1917: The first revolt of the Russian Revolution (called the February Revolution) begins.
Learn more about the Russian Revolution and why this revolt is called the February Revolution.

1948: The Supreme Court rules that religious instruction in public schools violates the Constitution.


1999: Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio dies.
 
March 9th

1796: French general Napoleon Bonaparte marries Joséphine de Beauharnais, widow of the Vicomte de Beauharnais.


1847: In the Mexican War, a United States amphibious expedition under the command of General Winfield Scott lands near the Mexican fortress city of Veracruz.


1867: The United States agrees to purchase the 1,524,640 sq km/586,400 sq mi Alaska Territory from Russia for $7,200,000.


1916: Pancho Villa and his soldiers of the Mexican Revolution raid the border town and military camp of Columbus, New Mexico.


1959: The original Barbie doll makes her debut in American stores.
 
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