1415 – English King Henry V lays the foundation stone for Syon Abbey for nuns of the Bridgettine Order. Became one of the wealthiest abbeys in England.
1633 – St. Peter’s Baldachin, the cathedral’s sculptural centerpiece, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini is inaugurated by Pope Urban VIII in Rome
1922 – London issues a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence
1935 – Airplanes are no longer permitted to fly over the White House
1941 – German assault on El Agheila Libya
1945 – British troops take Ramree Island, Burma
1956 – 1st English soccer match at Kunstlicht: Portsmouth vs Newcastle United
1989 – UK physicist Stephen Hawking calls the proposed missile defense system known as Star Wars a “deliberate fraud”
1998 – Petr Svoboda scores the winner as the Czech Republic claims its first ever Olympic ice hockey gold medal with a 1-0 victory over Russia in Nagano, Japan
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 2024
1797 – Trinidad, West Indies, a Spanish colony, surrenders to the British
1821 – Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire begins
1828 – 1st American Indian newspaper in US, “Cherokee Phoenix”, published
1916 – World War I: Battle of Verdun begins with a German offensive, leads to an estimated 1 million casualties and becomes the longest battle of the entire war (9 months)
1921 – Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia adopts the country’s first constitution
1927 – Franz Lehár’s opera “Der Zarewitsch” premieres
1958 – Egypt-Syria as United Arab Republic elect Nasser president (99.9% vote)
1969 – Ted Williams signs 5-year contract to manage Washington Senators
1978 – Electrical workers accidentally discover the Aztec Templo Mayor, or High Temple, two blocks from Mexico City’s central square, the Zócalo
2015 – 35th Golden Raspberry Awards: “Saving Christmas” wins worst film
Historical Events for 20th February 2024
1865 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology forms 1st US collegiate architectural school
1956 – WOSU TV channel 34 in Columbus, OH (PBS) begins broadcasting
1963 – Australian cricket greats Neil Harvey and Alan Davidson play final Test match in drawn 5th Test vs England at the Sydney Cricket Ground
1975 – USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1989 – Members of 1949 Oklahoma football team cancel an April reunion because of the deplorable conduct of Oklahoma players
1998 – Vancouver Canucks’ right wing Pavel Bure scores 5 goals for Russia in a 7-4 semi-final win over Finland at the Nagano Winter Olympics
1999 – Toronto Maple Leafs play their first NHL home game at Air Canada Centre; Steve Thomas scores overtime winner in a 3-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens
2013 – Estonia becomes the first country to establish a national system of fast chargers for electric cars
2014 – Marie-Philip Poulin scores in overtime to lead Canada to a 3-2 win over the US and 4th consecutive Olympic women’s ice hockey gold medal at the Sochi Winter Games
2017 – Famine is declared in Unity State, South Sudan, affecting 4.9 million
Historical Events for 19th February 2024
1574 – Spanish troops plunder Krommenie, Wormerveer and Jisp, Netherlands
1600 – Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in South American recorded history
1900 – British troops occupy Hlangwane, Natal
1928 – II Winter Olympic Games close at St Moritz, Switzerland
1946 – New York Giants outfielder Danny Gardella is 1st major leaguer to announce he is jumping to the “outlaw” Mexican Baseball League for a fee of $10,000
1950 – Groundbreaking ceremony held for Mississippi Vocational College (later Mississippi Valley State University)
1953 – William Inge’s “Picnic” premieres in NYC
1985 – ADM of Amsterdam declares bankruptcy
1995 – Kenneth Koch wins Bollingen Prize for One Train (1994) and On The Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988 (1994)
2023 – Brazilian state of Sao Paulo hit by flooding and landslides after heavy rain, with at least 44 killed and 800 homeless
Historical Events for 18th February 2024
1503 – Henry Tudor (later Henry VIII) appointed Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the English throne
1884 – General Charles Gordon arrives in Khartoum
1899 – San Francisco named as a port of dispatch for Army transports
1924 – US Men’s Figure Skating championship won by Sherwin Badger
1928 – Norway goes 1-2 in the ski jumping at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics with Alf Andersen taking gold ahead of Sigmund Ruud
1928 – USA 2 beats USA 1 by 0.5s for the 5-man bobsleigh gold medal at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; Germany 2 takes bronze
1930 – US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto
2007 – 56th NBA All-Star Game, Thomas and Mack Center, Paradise, NV: West beats East, 153-132; MVP: Kobe Bryant, LA Lakers, F
2013 – 15 people are killed by flooding and landslides in Indonesia
2023 – Global financial system is “dysfunctional and unfair” and is “failing developing countries” according to UN Secretary General António Guterres at opening of African Union leaders’ summit in Ethiopia
Historical Events for 17th February 2024
1776 – 1st volume of Edward Gibbon’s seminal work “The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire” published
1933 – First issue of American news magazine “Newsweek” is published
1940 – Altmark Incident: Crew of the British destroyer “Cossack” board German “Altmark” in Jøssingfjord, Norway, releasing 299 British prisoners after hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets and the last recorded Royal Naval action with cutlass
1956 – Ice Pairs Championship at Garmisch won by Schwarz and Oppelt of AUT
1969 – Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash record an album; it is never released
1976 – Macau adopts constitution (Organic Law of Macau)
1986 – 1st Francophone Summit convenes at Versailles
1996 – Garry Kasparov defeats chess-playing computer Deep Blue 4-2
2012 – The President of Germany, Christian Wulff, resigns over a corruption scandal
2013 – 5 people are killed and 11 are injured after a gas explosion destroyed an apartment complex in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm, Czech Republic
Historical Events for 16th February 2024
1646 – Battle of Great Torrington, Devon – the last major battle of the first English Civil War
1804 – US Navy Lt Stephen Decatur raids Tripoli Harbor and burns Navy frigate “Philadelphia” after it is seized by pirates
1824 – Athenaeum club founded in London
1892 – Opera “Werther” by Jules Massenet premieres in Vienna
1951 – San Francisco City Hall dome fire
1966 – France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker, Algeria
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
1984 – 3-time men’s figure skating world champion Scott Hamilton of the US wins the gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics from Brian Orser of Canada and Jozef Sabovčík of Czechoslovakia
1992 – Ethiopia finds the remains of former Emperor Haile Selassie on the grounds of the Imperial Palace, under the private lavatory of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, who overthrew the Emperor
2016 – China announces it will relocate 9,000 people in Guizhou province, before completion of world’s largest telescope (FAST), designed to look for extraterrestrial life
Historical Events for 15th February 2024
1676 – Isaac Newton writes to Robert Hooke “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” (O.S. 5 Feb)
1848 – Sarah Roberts barred from white school in Boston
1954 – WRDW TV channel 12 in Augusta, GA (CBS) begins broadcasting
1958 – Ice Dance Championship at Paris won by June Markham/Courtney Jones GRB
1972 – Sound recordings are granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.
1972 – Newly-formed NHL franchise New York Islanders hire Bill Torrey as their first General Manager
1996 – NFL coaching maestro Bill Belichick is fired by Cleveland, finishing his Browns coaching career with a record of 36-44
1999 – 7th ESPY Awards: Mark McGwire, Chamique Holdsclaw win
2018 – First known case of transgender woman breastfeeding reported in “Transgender Health Journal” in US
2019 – US President Donald Trump declares a national emergency to divert funds to build a border wall, after signing bipartisan spending agreement to avoid another government shutdown
Historical Events for 14th February 2024
842 – Charles II and Louis the German sign The Oaths of Strasbourg, a pact uniting their armies in fights against their older brother Lothar
1670 – Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I chases Jews out of Vienna
1804 – Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general who plotted to overthrow Napoleon in the Pichegru Conspiracy, arrested, and exiled to the United States
1918 – Harold R. Atteridge and Sigmund Romberg’s musical “Sinbad”, starring Al Jolson, opens at the Winter Garden Theatre, NYC; runs for 164 performances
1945 – Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joins UN
1949 – 1st session of Knesset (Jerusalem Israel)
1956 – Verhoeven, Nauta and De King/Wijnhout win Dutch 11 city skate
1959 – $3.6 million heroin seizure in NYC
1984 – Canadian speed skater Gaétan Boucher takes out the 1,000m gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics; also wins 1,500m; narrowly beats Soviet skater Sergey Khlebnikov in both events
1989 – World’s 1st satellite Skyphone opens
Historical Events for 13th February 2024
1349 – Jews are expelled from Burgdorf, Switzerland, accused of spreading the Bubonic Plague
1899 – -1°F (-18°C) New Orleans, La
1929 – Cruiser Act, USA, approves the construction of 19 new cruisers and an aircraft carrier
1940 – Bradman scores 209* in 161 minutes for South Aust at the WACA
1965 – US male Figure Skating championship won by Gary Visconti
1979 – Formation of Guardian Angels crime fighters in New York City
1994 – Inna Lassovskaya jumps world record 14.9m
1995 – West Indies beat NZ by innings and 332, Courtney Walsh 13-55
2014 – Polish cross country skier Justyna Kowalczyk follows her Vancouver (2010) Olympic women’s 30k classical title with a gold medal in the 10k classical in Sochi
2020 – Premier of Tania León’s “Stride” for the New York Philharmonic at the David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City (2021 Pulitzer Prize for Music)