1925 – Adolf Hitler resurrects NSDAP political party in Munich
1933 – Jean Genet’s play “Intermezzo” premieres in Paris
1940 – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14 (radiocarbon dating) at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California
1942 – Battle of Java Sea began: 13 US warships sunk and 2 Japanese
1965 – Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray’s musical “High Spirits”, based on Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”, closes at Alvin Theater, NYC, after 375 performances
1973 – White Sox slugger Dick Allen signs 3 year $750,000 contract
2002 – Godhra train burning, a Muslim mob kills 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya
2019 – Doctors announce world’s second known case of semi-identical twins, a boy and girl from Brisbane, Australia
2019 – Actor Luke Perry (52) suffers a stroke in Los Angeles
2019 – First gun control legislation for 25 years passed by US House of Representatives, with new federal background checks
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 26th February 2024
364 – Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor
1851 – 13th Grand National: Terry Abbott wins aboard Irish stallion Abd-El-Kader at 7/1; first dual winner and first to win back-to-back
1870 – Beach Pneumatic Transit – 1st attempt to demonstrate a subway in New York opens (pneumatic powered)
1881 – PandO’s SS Ceylon begins world’s 1st round-the-world pleasure cruise from Liverpool
1893 – Norwegian Einar Halvorsen skates world record 500m (48 sec)
1941 – Utrecht and Zaandam strike against raid on Jews
1965 – West Germany ceases military aid to Tanzania
1972 – Ireland-Wales Five Nations Rugby match scheduled for Lansdowne Road, Dublin is cancelled because of escalating political situation; Championship not completed for first time since World War II
1982 – Test Cricket debut of batsman Martin Crowe, playing for New Zealand v Australia in Wellington, run out for 9
1989 – California court throws out most of Margo Adams’s $12 million breach-of-contract suit against Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs
Historical Events for 25th February 2024
1907 – US proclaims protectorate over Dominican Republic
1944 – Alexander Gretchaninov’s “Missa Oecumenica” (Ecumenical Mass) premieres in Boston with Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the composer wrote the work in memory of the conductor’s wife Natalie (1880-1942)
1956 – Nikita Khrushchev denounces Joseph Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
1971 – Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark holds a meeting with Catholic Cardinal of Ireland William Conway, the first such meeting between men holding these offices since 1921
1980 – Coup ousts PM Henck Arron of Suriname
1981 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1981 – NY Islanders give up their most goals (11) vs Calgary Flames
1988 – Bruce Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love” Tour begins in Worcester, Massachusetts
1990 – On a BBC taped interview, rock star Stevie Nicks breaks down, saying that she will never have children and no man can stand her for long
1996 – “Father” closes at Criterion Theater NYC after 52 performances
Historical Events for 24th February 2024
1797 – Colonel William Tate and his force of 1,000-1,500 soldiers surrender after the Last Invasion of Britain (according to legend, to Welsh women in tall black hats, mistaken for elite guards regiment)
1949 – Israel and Egypt sign an armistice agreement
1968 – Gary Unger begins NHL consecutive game record of 914 games
1970 – 29 Swiss Army officers die in avalanche (Reckingen, Switzerland)
1982 – Boston Celtics begin an 18 NBA game winning streak
1991 – English-Yiddish musical revue “Those Were The Days” closes at Edison Theater, NYC, after 126 performances
2013 – 55th Daytona 500: Jimmie Johnson wins 2nd Great American Race; Danica Patrick first female to start from pole position; also best-ever finish by a woman at Daytona (8th)
2018 – Japanese speed skater Nana Takagi wins her 2nd gold medal of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in the women’s mass start event; also member Japan’s successful pursuit team
2019 – 91st Academy Awards: Best Picture “Green Book”, Best Director Alfonso Cuarón, Best Actor Rami Malek, Best Actress Olivia Colman
2020 – Scientists identify the first animal that doesn’t need oxygen to breathe – a tiny parasite living in salmon tissue, reported in journal PNAS
Historical Events for 23rd February 2024
1660 – Charles XI becomes king of Sweden
1934 – Coronation of King Leopold III of Belgium
1947 – US General Eisenhower opens drive to raise $170M in aid for European Jews
1967 – Noam Chomsky’s anti-Vietnam war essay “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” is published by the New York Review of Books
1969 – 11th Daytona 500: LeeRoy Yarbrough driving for Junior Johnson, catches Charlie Glotzbach on final lap to win; first Daytona 500 won on a last lap pass
1980 – Olympic giant slalom champion Hanni Wenzel of Liechtenstein wins the women’s slalom, her second gold medal of the Lake Placid Winter Games
1986 – Despite losing, Boston Red Sox Wade Boggs gets largest arbitration in MLB history, $1.35M
2001 – 32nd NAACP Image Awards: “Remember the Titans” wins Outstanding Motion Picture
2012 – A series of bomb attacks across 12 Iraqi cities kills 60 and injures 200
2013 – 51 people are killed and 62 are injured in conflict between rival tribes in Darfur, Sudan
Historical Events for 22nd February 2024
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
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