1870 – US President Ulysses S Grant signs law resulting in US Army Signal Service’s establishment of its “Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce”, later known as the National Weather Service
1934 – Balkan Entente alliance forms (Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey and Romania)
1955 – Dutch 2nd Chamber accepts crematory law
1972 – British government declares a state of emergency after a month-long coal miners’ strike
1979 – New York City premiere of Paul Schrader’s allegedly fact based film “Hardcore”
1984 – Finnish cross-country skier Marja-Liisa Hämäläinen wins the 10k gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics; first of 3 individual medal sweep, also winning 5k and 20k events
1995 – Augustus and Ruth Goetz’ stage drama “The Heiress” opens at Cort Theater, NYC; runs for 340 performances
2000 – 50th Berlin International Film Festival: “Magnolia” wins the Golden Bear
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 8th February 2026
1849 – New Roman Republic established in Italy
1924 – 1st US coast-to-coast radio hookup: General John Joseph Carty speech in Chicago
1943 – Red Army recaptures Kursk on the eastern front
1953 – WLVA (now WSET) TV channel 13 in Lynchburg-Roanoke, VA (ABC) begins
1960 – Boston Celtic Bill Russell becomes 1st NBAer with 50 rebounds (51)
1979 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1984 – For the 1st time eight people are in space
2009 – Al Gore’s book “An Inconvenient Truth” wins a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album
Historical Events for 7th February 2026
1668 – Dutch Prince William III dances in premiere of “Ballet of Peace”
1827 – Ballet (Deserter) introduced to US at Bowery Theater (NYC)
1845 – The Portland Vase, thought to date to the 1st century BC is shattered into more than 80 pieces by a drunken visitor to the British Museum
1972 – Dutch Olympic 1,500m and 5,000m speed skating champion Ard Schenk wins his 3rd gold medal at the Sapporo Winter Games when he takes out the 10,000m
1973 – Iggy Pop and The Stooges release their influential 3rd album “Raw Power”
1974 – UK Prime Minister Edward Heath calls for a ‘snap’ general election in the midst of a protracted miners’ strike
1979 – “Supertrain”, TV Anthology, Superbomb of 1979, debuts on NBC
1998 – NHL’s Dallas Stars retire Neal Broten’s #7
Historical Events for 6th February 2026
1819 – Stamford Raffles founds Singapore as a British trading post
1862 – General Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Henry in Tennessee
1941 – British troops conquer Bengazi, Libya
1988 – USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
2005 – Tony Blair, now the longest-serving Labour PM, marks 2,838 days as British Prime Minister
2009 – President Barack Obama announces the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, with Paul Volcker as Chairman and Austan Goolsbee as Staff Director and Chief Economist
2012 – Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot is presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
2024 – Landslide kills at least 68 with more missing, amid torrential rain, in Maco town, Davao de Oro, southern Philippines
Historical Events for 5th February 2026
1918 – Separation of church and state begins in USSR
1930 – 5th Aliyah to Israel begins
1953 – Sweet rationing imposed in WWII ends in Britain
1958 – Clifton R Wharton confirmed as 1st US African American foreign minister (to Romania)
1958 – Gamal Abdel Nasser is nominated as the first President of the United Arab Republic
1972 – Two IRA members are killed when a bomb they were planting exploded prematurely
1998 – Author Tom Clancy confirms he signed agreement to purchase Minnesota Vikings for slightly more than $200 million, an NFL franchise record
2004 – Twenty-three Chinese people drown when a group of 35 cockle-pickers are trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay, England. Twenty-one bodies are recovered.
Historical Events for 4th February 2026
1877 – Ludwig Minkus’ ballet “La Bayadère”, choreographed by Marius Petipa premieres at Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia
1904 – John Millington Synge’s play “Well of Saints” premieres in Dublin
1922 – After boycotts and international pressure, Japan agrees to return Shantung Province to China
1938 – Adolf Hitler seizes control of German army and puts Nazis in key posts
1962 – US female Figure Skating championship won by Barbara Roles
1962 – St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital opens in Memphis, Tennessee; funding for the cancer fighting facility led by entertainer Danny Thomas
1968 – Around 100 Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya arrive in Britain, escaping discrimination
1975 – Haicheng earthquake, M 7.3, strikes Haicheng, Liaoning, China
Historical Events for 3rd February 2026
1576 – Henry of Navarre (future Henry IV) escapes from Paris
1908 – Supreme Court rules a union boycott violates Sherman Antitrust Act
1943 – “The Four Chaplains” drown after giving up their life jackets to others as the US Army transport ship Dorchester sinks in the North Atlantic
1962 – US President John F. Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba except for food and drugs
1992 – Labor strike at Royal Canadian Mint ends
1997 – Public memorial held for Carl Sagan at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
1998 – Karla Faye Tucker is executed in Texas, first woman executed in the United States since 1984
2013 – 33 people are killed by a suicide bombing by an explosive-packed truck in Kirkuk, Iraq
Historical Events for 2nd February 2026
1787 – Arthur St. Clair is elected the 9th President of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation
1852 – Alexandre Dumas Jr’s play, an adaptation of his novel “La Dame aux Camélias” premieres in Paris
1924 – International Ski Federation (FIS) forms
1974 – The F-16 Fighting Falcon flies for the first time.
1986 – Oscar Arias Sanchez elected president of Costa Rica
2012 – MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Papua New Guinea with 246 people saved and 126 missing (100 of these estimated to be trapped inside)
2013 – Shinzō Abe, Japan’s Prime Minister vows to defend the Senkaku Islands “at all costs”
2022 – More than one million Afghans have fled the country for Iran since October due to the country’s economic crisis, according to immigration authorities threatening a new migrant crisis
Historical Events for 1st February 2026
1662 – Dutch garrison on Formosa surrenders to Chinese pirates
1790 – US Supreme Court convenes for 1st time (NYC)
1809 – Dutch King Louis Napoleon accepts metric system
1965 – Australian Championships Women’s Tennis: Australian Margaret Smith wins 6th straight home singles title; beats Maria Bueno of Brazil 5-7, 6-4, 5-2; Bueno retired injured
1970 – West-Germany and USSR sign gas contract
1981 – NFL Pro Bowl, Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, HI: NFC beats AFC, 21-7; MVP: Eddie Murray, Detroit Lions, PK
1984 – China and Netherlands regain diplomatic relations
1998 – NFL Pro Bowl, Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, HI: AFC beats NFC, 29-24; MVP: Warren Moon, Seattle Seahawks, QB, HI
Historical Events for 31st January 2026
1938 – Australian Championships Men’s Tennis: American Don Budge wins the 1st-leg of his Grand Slam; beats John Bromwich of Australia 6-4, 6-2, 6-1
1956 – French government of Guy Mollet forms
1971 – US male Figure Skating championship won by John Misha Petkevich
1971 – Special Veterans Committee adds 6 former players and 1 executive to the Baseball Hall of Fame: Dave Bancroft, Jake Beckley, Chick Hafey, Harry Hooper, Joe Kelley, Rube Marquard and George Weiss
1985 – South African President P. W. Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence
2006 – US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor retires and is replaced by Samuel Alito
2007 – Suspects are arrested in Birmingham in the UK, accused of plotting the kidnap, holding and eventual beheading of a serving Muslim British soldier in Iraq
2017 – Romanian government passes emergency decree to release prisoners and decriminalise corruption charges, triggering huge protests in Bucharest