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
Category: Historical Events
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
Historical Events for 30th January 2026
1820 – British explorer Edward Bransfield aboard Williams sights Trinity Peninsula, Antarctica, claiming it for Britain
1933 – After Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, his former WWI colleague General Erich Ludendorff sends a letter to him stating “this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery”
1944 – World War II: United States troops land on Majuro, Marshall Islands
1954 – Belgium ends trade agreement with USSR
1956 – Home of Martin Luther King Jr. is bombed
1969 – US/Canada ISIS 1 launched to study ionosphere
1993 – Australian Open Women’s Tennis: Monica Seles beats Steffi Graf 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 for her 3rd consecutive Australian singles crown
1995 – Norway’s Statoil announces a newly formed consortium that will supply Norwegian natural gas to the European continent
Historical Events for 29th January 2026
1943 – U.S. cruiser “Chicago” is heavily damaged by Japanese bombers on the first day of the Battle of Rennell Island
1968 – Australian Championships Women’s Tennis: American Billie Jean King beats home favourite Margaret Court 6-1, 6-2 for her 13th Grand Slam singles title
1968 – Nauru (formerly Pleasant Island) adopts constitution
1980 – 6 Iranian-held US hostages escape with help of Canadians
1993 – US postal service issues a stamp commemorating chemist Percy Lavon Julian
1996 – The 6,138th performance of “Cats” is held in London, surpassing the record of Broadway’s longest-running musical, “A Chorus Line”
2012 – 100th Australian Open Men’s Tennis: Novak Đoković beats Rafael Nadal 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7, 7-5; longest Grand Slam singles final in duration in the Open Era, 5 hours 53 minutes
2017 – 62nd NHL All Star Games, Staples Centre, Los Angeles, CA: Metropolitan All Stars win four team 3-on-3 tournament; MVP: Wayne Simmonds, Philadelphia Flyers, RW
Historical Events for 28th January 2026
1846 – Battle of Allwal, British beat Sikhs in Punjab
1855 – The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway
1917 – Municipally owned streetcars take to the streets of San Francisco, California
1928 – Christopher Hornsrud chosen Prime Minister of Norway
1939 – Australian Championships Women’s Tennis: In an all-Australian final Emily Hood Westacott beats Nell Hall Hopman 6-1, 6-2 for her only Grand Slam singles title
1942 – WW II Navy flier Don Mason sends message “Sighted sub sank same”
1968 – Thai boxer Chartchai Chionoi retains his world flyweight title with a 13th-round TKO of home favourite Efren Torres in Mexico City; first of 3 meetings between the pair
1968 – 29th PGA Seniors Golf Championship: Chandler Harper