269 Saint Valentine (died), Roman bishop and martyr
1317 Margaret of France (died), Queen of England (born 1282)
1400 Richard II dies, most likely from starvation, in Pontefract Castle, on the orders of Henry Bolingbroke. (born 1367)
1468 Johannes Werner (born), German priest and mathematician (died 1522)
1545 Lucrezia de’ Medici (born), Duchess of Ferrara (died 1561)
1556 Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.
1602 Francesco Cavalli (born), Italian composer (died 1676)
1679 Georg Friedrich Kauffmann (born), German composer and organist (died 1735)
1744 John Hadley (died), English mathematician, invented the octant (born 1682)
1766 Thomas Robert Malthus (born), English economist and scholar (died 1834)
1778 The United States Flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French AdmiralToussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
1779 American Revolutionary War: the Battle of Kettle Creek is fought in Georgia.
1779 James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii. (born 1728)
1780 William Blackstone (died), English jurist and politician (born 1723)
1797 French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Cape St. Vincent John Jervis, (later 1st Earl of St Vincent) and Horatio Nelson (later 1st Viscount Nelson) lead the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.
1800 Emory Washburn (born), American lawyer, historian, and politician, 22nd Governor of Massachusetts (died 1877)
1812 Alfred Thomas Agate (born), American painter (died 1846)
1818 Frederick Douglass (born), American author and activist (died 1895)
1819 Christopher Latham Sholes (born), American inventor, invented the typewriter (died 1890)
1824 Winfield Scott Hancock (born), American general (died 1886)
1831 Henry Maudslay (died), English engineer (born 1771)
1838 Margaret E. Knight (born), American inventor (died 1914)
1849 In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
1852 Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children (The National Children’s Hospital in Dublin was founded over 30 years previously in 1821), is founded in London.
1855 Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
1859 George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. (born), American engineer, designed the Ferris Wheel (died 1896)
1859 Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
1882 John Barrymore (born), American actor (died 1942)
1884 Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (died), American wife of Theodore Roosevelt (born 1861)
1891 William Tecumseh Sherman (died), American general (born 1820)
1894 Eugène Charles Catalan (died), Belgian-French mathematician (born 1814)
1894 Jack Benny (born), American actor and comedian (died 1974)
1895 Max Horkheimer (born), German philosopher and sociologist (died 1973)
1898 Bill Tilman (born), English mountaineer and explorer (died 1977)
1899 Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.
1903 The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor).
1912 Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.
1912 In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned.
1913 Jimmy Hoffa (born), American union leader (died 1975)
1913 Mel Allen (born), American journalist (died 1996)
1913 Woody Hayes (born), American football player and coach (died 1987)
1917 Herbert A. Hauptman (born), American mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2011)
1918 The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (on 1 February according to the Julian calendar).
1920 The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago, Illinois.
1921 Hugh Downs (born), American television host and producer
1924 The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
1929 Saint Valentine’s Day massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s gang, are murdered in Chicago, Illinois.
1929 Vic Morrow (born), American actor and director (died 1982)
1931 Phyllis McGuire (born), American singer (The McGuire Sisters)
1934 Florence Henderson (born), American actress and singer
1941 Donna Shalala (born), American academic
1941 Paul Tsongas (born), American politician (died 1997)
1942 Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.
1942 Michael Bloomberg (born), American businessman and politician, 108th Mayor of New York City
1943 World War II: Tunisia Campaign – General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim’s Fifth Panzer Army launches a concerted attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.
1944 Carl Bernstein (born), American journalist
1944 Ronnie Peterson (born), Swedish race car driver (died 1978)
1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.
1945 World War II: On the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony.
1946 Gregory Hines (born), American actor, singer, and dancer (died 2003)
1946 The Bank of England is nationalized.
1948 Pat O’Brien (born), American sportscaster
1948 Teller (born), American magician and actor
1949 The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada. The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
1949 The Knesset (Israeli parliament) convenes for the first time.
1950 Roger Fisher (born), American guitarist (Heart and Alias)
1959 Renée Fleming (born), American soprano
1960 Meg Tilly (born), American actress
1962 First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.
1975 Julian Huxley, English biologist, co-founded the World Wide Fund for Nature (born 1887)
1975 P. G. Wodehouse (died), English author and poet (born 1881)
1977 Cadel Evans (born), Australian cyclist
1979 In Kabul, Setami Milli militants kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
1989 Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.
1989 Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster.
1999 John Ehrlichman (died), American lawyer, 12th White House Counsel (born 1925)
2003 Dolly (died), Scottish cloned sheep (born 1996)
2005 Youtube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source forviral videos.
2008 Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 18 injuries.
2009 Bernard Ashley (died), English engineer and businessman, co-founded Laura Ashley plc (born 1926)
2011 As a part of Arab Spring, the Bahraini uprising, a series of demonstrations, amounting to a sustained campaign of civil resistance, in the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain begins with a ‘Day of Rage’.
2011 George Shearing (died), English-American pianist (born 1919)
2013 Reeva Steenkamp (died), South African model (born 1983)
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
- Patriotism - 4 July, 2017
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017