303 – 1st official Roman edict for persecution of Christians issued by Emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia, ordering all churches to be closed and scriptures burnt
1288 – Girolamo Masci elected Pope Nicolas IV
1927 – Baruch Spinosa’s house of mourning opened as a museum
1927 – ARC soccer team forms in Alphen on the Rhine
1941 – German assault on El Agheila Libya
1941 – Arthur “Bomber” Harris becomes British Air Marshal
1951 – 4th British Film and Television Awards (BAFTAs): “All About Eve” Best Film
1979 – Cleveland Metroparks Zoo’s Primate and Cat Building is dedicated (Cleveland, Ohio)
2014 – 45th NAACP Image Awards: “12 Years a Slave” wins Outstanding Motion Picture
2014 – Snowboard Olympic parallel special slalom event debuts and is run for the only time at the Sochi Winter Games; Russian Vic Wild and Julia Dujmovits of Canada win unique gold medals
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 21st February 2023
1795 – Freedom of worship established in France under constitution
1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish “The Communist Manifesto” in London
1866 – Lucy B. Hobbs (Taylor) becomes 1st US woman to earn a DDS degree
1911 – Gustav Mahler conducts his last concerto, Berceuse élégiaque, in New York City
1922 – Airship “Rome” explodes at Hampton Roads, Virginia; 34 die
1945 – Operation Veritable: British Army captures Goch from Germany, forcing German retreat away from the Rhineland
1946 – Anti-British demonstrations in Egypt
1991 – Neil Simon’s stage comedy “Lost in Yonkers” opens at Richard Rodgers Theater, NYC; runs for 780 performances
2019 – Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 touches down on asteroid Ryugu on mission to collect rock samples
2019 – The Lunar Library, a 30 million page digital library launched on board Israel’s Beresheet Lunar Lander, aiming to be stored on the Moon
Historical Events for 20th February 2023
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
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