1922 – Vilnius, Lithuania, agrees to separate from Poland
1934 – Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s opera “Four Saints in Three Acts” opens on Broadway at the 44th Street Theatre, NYC
1949 – 1st International Pancake Race held (Liberal Ks)
1975 – USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1987 – 37th Berlin International Film Festival: “The Theme” wins the Golden Bear
1988 – Brian Boitano wins Olympic gold medal in figure skating
1988 – Stefka Kostadinova of Bulgaria sets high jumps indoor world record (2.06 m)
1989 – An IRA bomb destroys a section of a British Army barracks in Ternhill, England
2018 – Venezuela becomes the first country to launch a virtual currency, the petro, to counteract their financial crisis
2021 – Englishwoman Jasmine Harrison (21) becomes the youngest woman to row across an ocean arriving in Antigua as part of the Atlantic Challenge after 70 days, 3 hours, 48 minutes
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 19th February 2023
1700 – Last day of Julian calendar in Denmark
1884 – “Enigma Outbreak” of over 60 tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana kill hundreds, if not over a thousand (hence the “enigma”) people
1933 – Prussian minister Goering bans all Catholic newspapers
1942 – Bill Longson beats Managoff and Sandor Szabo, to become wrestling champ
1942 – Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra record “I’ll Take Tallulah”
1952 – American defending champion Dick Button becomes first figure-skater to land a triple jump in competition; performs a triple loop in the Olympic free skate in Oslo; wins gold medal ahead of Austria’s Helmut Seibt
1952 – French offensive at Hanoi
1980 – Swedish alpine skier Ingemar Stenmark wins the giant slalom from Andreas Wenzel of Liechtenstein at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics; also takes slalom gold
1982 – Sharie Langford, California, sets women’s bowling series record of 853
2007 – Three Salvadoran deputies to the Central American Parliament and their driver are murdered in Guatemala
Historical Events for 18th February 2023
1574 – Zeeland falls to Dutch rebels
1861 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis inaugurated at Montgomery, Alabama (US Civil War)
1865 – Battle of Fort Moultrie, SC occupied by Federals
1885 – Mark Twain publishes the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in the US
1919 – Cy Denneny of NHL Ottawa Senators scores record 52nd goal
1950 – “Dance Me a Song” closes at Royale Theater NYC after 35 performances
1952 – Norwegian speed skater Hjalmar Anderson wins his 3rd gold medal of the Oslo Winter Olympics when he claims the 10,000m in Olympic record 16:45.8; also wins gold in 1,500m and 5,000m
1977 – George Harrison releases music single “True Love”, from his “33-1/3” album
1984 – Finnish ski jumper Matti Nykänen wins first of 4 career Olympic gold medals in the Large Hill individual event at the Sarajevo Winter Games
2020 – President Donald Trump commutes the 14-year sentence of former Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich’s corruption conviction
Historical Events for 17th February 2023
1843 – Battle of Miani: Bombay Army of the East India Company led by Charles Napier defeats a Baluch army of Talpur Emirs of Sindh led by Mir Nasir Khan Talpur. Leading to the capture of parts of Sindh, the company’s first possession in modern-day Pakistan.
1915 – Edward Stone, 1st US combatant to die in WW I, is mortally wounded
1951 – Detroit right wing Gordie Howe scores his 100th career NHL goal and adds an assist in a 2-1 Red Wings’ victory away to the Montreal Canadiens
1967 – Parlophone releases the Beatles’ double “A” side single “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields” in the UK
1984 – 34th Berlin International Film Festival: “Love Streams” wins the Golden Bear
1985 – Panamanian jockey Laffit Pincay Jr is third to ride 6,000 winners; wins aboard Doria’s Delight in the 5th race at Santa Anita Park
1989 – USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
2016 – Car bomb attack on military convoy in Ankara, Turkey, by Kurdish militant eaves 28 dead
2016 – Nike ends endorsement deal with Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao after he made TV comments gay people are “worse than animals.”
2021 – Texan senator Ted Cruz flies to Cancun, Mexico with his family amid a winter disaster in his state, igniting widespread condemnation
Historical Events for 16th February 2023
1646 – Battle of Great Torrington, Devon – the last major battle of the first English Civil War
1892 – Opera “Werther” by Jules Massenet premieres in Vienna
1909 – 1st subway car with side doors goes into service (NYC)
1916 – Russian troops conquer the Ottoman Empire city of Erzurum during WWI
1916 – The US rejects the right of Germany and Austria-Hungary to sink armed merchant ships
1961 – 1st all-solid-propellant rocket put in orbit, Wallops Island, Virginia
1963 – 1st round-trip swim of Strait of Messina, Italy (Mary Revell of US)
1966 – End of Wally Grout’s Test Cricket career, 187 dismissals as Australian wicketkeeper
1973 – West Indies v Australia at Kingston, 1st time since 1955 without Gary Sobers
1975 – 17th Daytona 500: Benny Parsons wins after Cale Yarborough sends race leader David Pearson spinning on the backstretch; Parsons avoids the accident and takes the victory
Historical Events for 15th February 2023
1145 – Bernardo elected Pope Eugene III
1861 – Fort Point, in San Francisco, California, completed and garrisoned (but has never fired cannon in anger)
1958 – Ice Dance Championship at Paris won by June Markham/Courtney Jones GRB
1967 – 1st anti-bootleg recording laws enacted
1979 – Paul Shirley (21) of Australia, sucked a lifesaver for 4 hrs 40 mins
1987 – ABC-TV begins broadcasting “Amerika” mini-series
1996 – American boxer Tommy Morrison announces he has contracted HIV
1999 – Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party, widely recognized as terrorist organization), was arrested in Kenya.
2005 – YouTube, Internet site on which videos may be shared and viewed by others, is launched in the United States
2013 – Chelyabinsk meteor breaks up over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring over 1,200 people, with 26 to 33 times energy of Hiroshima bomb
Historical Events for 14th February 2023
1831 – Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay
1945 – World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans.
1952 – VI Winter Olympic Games open at Oslo, Norway
1971 – Movie “Ben Hur” 1st shown on television
1972 – Luna 20 (Russia) launched to orbit and soft landing on Moon
1989 – World’s 1st satellite Skyphone opens
1989 – The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System are placed into orbit.
2010 – 52nd Daytona 500: Jamie McMurray, driving for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing wins; Mark Martin, oldest polesitter in Daytona 500 history at 51 years, 27 days
2018 – Ex-student Nikolas Cruz shoots and kills 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida, before being captured
2018 – Dutch speed skater Jorien ter Mors wins her 3rd career Olympic gold medal in the 1,000m at Pyeongchang; 1,500m and team pursuit champion in Sochi (2014)
Historical Events for 13th February 2023
1633 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before Inquisition for professing belief that earth revolves around the Sun
1786 – Abraham Baldwin selected president of University of Georgia
1858 – Sir Richard Burton and John Speake explore Lake Tanganyika, Africa
1866 – Jesse James holds up his first bank, stealing $15,000 from the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri
1927 – Uprising against Portuguese regime of Gen Carmona defeated
1946 – “The Duchess Misbehaves” opens at Adelphi Theater NYC for 5 performances
1948 – Men’s Figure Skating Championship in Davos won by Richard Button USA
1993 – Merlene Ottey runs world record 200m indoor (21.87 sec)
1994 – Johann Olav Koss skates world record 5000m 6:34,96
1995 – Howard Stern radio show premieres in San Diego CA on XTRA-FM
Historical Events for 12th February 2023
1130 – Pope Innocent II elected
1577 – Spanish land guardian Don Juan of Habsburg signs “Eternal Edict”
1908 – Anna Jeanes bequeaths $1,000,000 to Swarthmore to become all female
1912 – China adopts the Gregorian calendar
1941 – First injection of penicillin into a patient by British physician Charles Fletcher at Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England
1947 – Daytime fireball and meteorite fall seen in eastern Siberia
1959 – The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the “sheaves of wheat” design
1994 – Model Anna Nicole Smith hospitalized for drug overdose
2001 – “Ain’t Nothing ’bout You” single released by Brooks and Dunn
2017 – North Korea conducts a solid fuel ballistic missile test from Banghyon air base
Historical Events for 11th February 2023
1895 – -17°F (-27.2°C) in Braemar, Grampian (UK record)
1897 – White Rose Mission opens on East 97th Street, NYC
1927 – US Female Figure Skating championship won by Beatrix Loughran
1958 – Ruth Carol Taylor is 1st African-American woman hired as flight attendant, Ithaca NY
1968 – Jeffrey Kramer survives 76-m jump, Washington Bridge, Hudson River New York
1975 – Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for leadership of the British Conservative Party
2009 – Uri Geller purchases Lamb Island, Scotland, previously known for its witch trials
2014 – 77 people are killed after a military transport plane crashes in Algeria
2018 – Norway sweeps the medals in the Olympic 30k cross country skiathlon at Pyeongchang; Simen Hegstad Krüger wins gold ahead of teammates Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Hans Christer Holund
2019 – Artificial Intelligence system meant to assist diagnosis in the future, pitted against physicians in test to diagnose 600,000 patients in results published in “Nature Medicine”, A.I. won, just