- 1276 French Cardinal Pierre de Tarantaise elected head of the Catholic Church, takes the name of Pope Innocent V
- 1287 The treaty of San Agayz is signed. Minorca is conquered by King Alfons III of Aragon.
- 1324 Zen Buddhist religious debate between Tendai & Shingon
- 1522 Head inquisitor Adrian Florisz Boeyens elected pope
- 1525 Swiss Anabaptist Movement is born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and a dozen others baptize each other in the home of Manz's mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union
- 1542 English Parliament passes bill of attainder against Queen Katherine Howard
- 1549 Act of Uniformity passed by the English Parliament requiring clergy use The Book of Common Prayer
- 1664 Count Miklos of Zrinyi sets out to battle Turkish invasion army
- 1677 1st medical publication in America (pamphlet on smallpox), published in Boston
- 1720 Sweden and Prussia sign a peace treaty ending hostilities between them during the Great Northern War
- 1732 Russia and Persia sign the Treaty of Riascha
- 1749 Verona Philharmonic Theatre destroyed by fire. Rebuilt 1754.
- 1789 The 1st American novel, William Hill Brown's "The Power of Sympathy" is published by Isaiah Thomas
Execution of Louis XVI
1793 Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine in Paris, following his conviction for "high treason" by the newly created French Parliament (Convention nationale), during the French Revolution
- 1813 First reference to pineapple cultivation in Hawaii in diary entry by Francisco de Paula Marin
- 1813 Spaniard Don Francisco de Paula y Marin plants coffee in Hawaii - 1st record of coffee growing in Hawaii
- 1818 Keats writes his poem "On a Lock of Milton's Hair"
- 1821 Paramaribo Suriname catches fire, 4 die
- 1831 In Portsmouth, Ohio, African Americans forcibly deported
"The Daily News"
1846 1st edition of Charles Dickens' newspaper "The Daily News"
Jefferson Davis Resigns
1861 Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and 4 other southern senators resign (U.S Civil War)
"A Doll's House"
1879 Henrik Ibsen's play "Et Dukkehjem" (A Doll's House) premieres in Copenhagen
- 1880 1st US sewage disposal system separate from storm drains in Memphis, Tennessee
- 1887 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) forms
- 1887 Brisbane receives a daily rainfall of 465 millimetres (18.3 inches), a record for any Australian capital city
- 1890 1st issue of "Propria Cures", Amsterdam student-weekly newspaper
- 1893 Tati Concessions Land, formerly part of Matabeleland, formally annexed to the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana)
- 1894 Oscar Fredriksen skates world record 500m in 47.8 sec
- 1899 Opel manufactures its first automobile
- 1900 The second contingent of Canadian troops sails from Halifax to fight in South Africa against the Boers
"The Climbers"
1901 Clyde Fitch's play "The Climbers" premieres in NYC
Houdini Escapes
1903 Harry Houdini escapes from Halvemaansteeg police station in Amsterdam
- 1903 International Theater (Majestic, Park) opens at 5 Columbus Circle, NYC
"Jenufa"
1904 Leos Janacek's opera "Jenufa" premieres in Brno
- 1907 Stanley Cup Hockey, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Kenora Thistles (ON) beat Montreal Wanderers, 8-6 for 12-8 aggregate challenge series victory
- 1908 "Sullivan Ordinance" is passed in NYC, making it illegal for a woman to smoke in public places. It was vetoed 2 weeks later by mayor George B. McClellan Jr.
- 1908 August Strindberg's "Spoksonaten" premieres in Stockholm
- 1910 British-Russian military intervention in Persia
Second Briand Government
1913 Aristide Briand forms French government for the second time
Agatha Christie's First Novel
1921 British crime writer Agatha Christie publishes her first novel "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" introducing the character Hercule Poirot
Italian Communist Party
1921 Italian Communist Party founded at Livorno by Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci
- 1922 1st slalom ski race run at Murren, Switzerland
Lenin's Testament
1924 Vladimir Lenin's Testament is handed over to the Communist Party; it calls for changes to the Soviet governing structure and criticizes Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky and other members
- 1925 Albanian parliament announces itself a republic; Ahmed Zogoe president
- 1926 Belgian parliament accepts Locarno treaties
- 1927 1st national opera broadcast from a US opera house (Faust, Chicago)
- 1929 Robert Sherriff's "Journey's End" premieres in London
- 1930 Boston Bruins become first team in NHL history to score 100 goals in a season, in a 5-1 win over Chicago at Boston Garden; Cooney Weiland scores Bruins' 100th goal in their 26th game of the year
- 1932 USSR and Finland stop non-attack treaty
- 1934 Parisian baker and "student of medieval life" Henri Littière appears in court charged with forcing his adulterous wife Juliette to wear a chastity belt. Having committed the same offence in 1932, he was sentenced to three months in prison and fined 50 francs for cruelty to his wife
- 1935 12.0" (30.5 cm) of rain falls, Quinault RS, Washington (state record)
- 1935 The Wilderness Society is founded by conservationists
- 1935 WFI-AM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania merges with WLIT as WFIL (now WEAZ)
- 1938 Dutch government starts obligatory unemployment insurance
- 1940 Foreign correspondents in the Netherlands subjected to censorship
- 1941 1st anti-Jewish measures in Bulgaria
- 1941 1st commercial extraction of magnesium from seawater, Freeport, Texas
- 1941 Australian and British troops attack Tobruk, Libya
- 1941 British communist newspaper "Daily Worker" banned
- 1942 Bronx magistrate rules all pinball machines illegal
"One O'Clock Jump"
1942 Count Basie records the music single and Jazz standard "One O'Clock Jump"
Chetniks Occupy Foca
1942 Serbian Chetniks forces occupy Foca - will massacre thousands of the Muslim population
- 1943 Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Royal Navy, promoted to Admiral of the Fleet
- 1943 Soviet forces reconquer Gumrak airport near Stalingrad
- 1943 Soviet forces reconquer Worosjilowsk
- 1944 447 German bombers attack London
- 1944 649 British bombers attack Magdeburg
- 1945 WWII: British troops land on Ramree, near coast of Burma
Honegger's 4th Symphony
1947 Arthur Honegger's 4th Symphony premieres in Basel, Switzerland
"The Cocktail Party"
1950 T. S. Eliot's play "The Cocktail Party" premieres in NYC
Nehru's Congress Party Wins
1952 Jawaharlal Nehru's Congress party wins general election in India
- 1952 William Shawn succeeds Harold Ross as editor of "The New Yorker"
Dulles US Secretary of State
1953 John Foster Dulles appointed as US Secretary of State
- 1954 1st gas turbine automobile exhibited (NYC)
1st All-Star Game with Overtime
1954 First time in All-Star history, an overtime period is needed to decide a winner; Boston Celtics' guard Bob Cousy's 10-point OT scoring burst gave the East a 98-93 win; Cousy wins All-Star MVP honours
Losing All-Star Wins MVP
1958 St Louis Hawks forward Bob Pettit becomes first member of the losing team to win the NBA All-Star MVP award; scores 28 points and grabs 26 rebounds, even though East beats West, 130-118
- 1960 Little Joe 4 suborbital Mercury test reaches 16 km
- 1960 Rock falls traps 437 at Coalbrook, South Africa; 417 die of methane poisoning
- 1961 Francis Poulenc's "Gloria" premieres in Boston< Massachusetts by Boston Symphony and Chorus Pro Musica under conductor Charles Münch
- 1961 KIFI TV channel 8 in Idaho Falls, Idaho (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1961 Portuguese rebels seize cruise ship Santa Maria
- 1962 Snow falls in San Francisco
JFK Visit
1962 US President John F. Kennedy arrives in Uruguay
- 1964 Carl Rowan named director of US Information Agency
- 1965 Iranian premier Hassan Ali Mansur assassinated by 17-year-old Mohammad Bokharaei, a member of the Fadayan-e Islam
- 1968 The Battle of Khe Sanh - one of the most publicized and controversial battles of the Vietnam War - begins at the Khe Sanh Air Base
- 1968 US B-52 bomber with nuclear bomb on board crashes in Greenland
- 1969 A partial meltdown at the Lucens nuclear reactor in Switzerland seriously contaminating the cavern containing the reactor; the plant is sealed and decommissioned
- 1971 "Alias Smith & Jones" premieres on ABC TV
- 1972 Assam's North East Frontier Agency becomes Arunachal Pradesh territory
- 1972 Belgian government of Eyskens-Cools forms
- 1972 Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura become separate states of the Indian union
- 1972 Mizoram, formerly part of Assam, creates an Indian union territory
- 1973 Leslie Nielson appears on M*A*S*H in "Ringbanger"
- 1974 Gold hits record $161.31, silver hits record $3.97 an ounce in London
- 1976 Supersonic Concorde has its 1st commercial flights
Carter Pardons Draft Evaders
1977 US President Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War draft evaders
"Saturday Night Fever"
1978 Bee Gees' album "Saturday Night Fever" goes #1 for 24 weeks
Durán vs. De Jesus
1978 Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán becomes undisputed world lightweight champion with a 12th-round TKO of Esteban De Jesus at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas; defends his WBA title for 12th time, also takes De Jesus’ WBC title
- 1979 Neptune becomes outermost planet (Pluto moves closer)
- 1979 Super Bowl XIII, Miami Orange Bowl, Miami, FL: Pittsburgh Steelers beat Dallas Cowboys, 35-31; MVP: Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh, QB
- 1980 Gold hits record $850 an ounce
- 1980 Les Henson, Virginia Tech, makes 89' 3" basketball field goal
- 1980 Price of gold increases to then record $843 troy oz
- 1981 Bernhard Goetz is assaulted for 1st time on a New York City subway train
- 1981 Norman Stronge and his son James (both former Ulster Unionist Members of Parliament) are assassinated by the Irish Republican Army at their home Tynan Abbey, which is then burnt down
- 1982 NY Islanders begin then NHL record 15 game winning streak with a 6-1 win over Pittsburgh Penguins at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
- 1983 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Anthony E Hecht
- 1983 First supertitles for a live opera performance: "Elektra" at Canadian Opera Company, English titles by Sonya Friedman
El Salvador US Military Aid
1983 President Reagan certifies El Salvador human-rights abuses have decreased making country eligible for US military aid
- 1985 -19°F (-28°C), Caesar's Head, South Carolina (state record)
- 1985 -34°F (-37°C), Mt Mitchell, North Carolina (state record)
- 1985 Bomb attack on Borobudur temple in Java
- 1985 Dennis Potvin ties Bobby Orr's career record of 270 NHL goals
- 1985 Jessye Norman sings "Simple Gifts" at the second inauguration of US President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D. C.
- 1986 100 participate in Nude Olympics race in 38°F (3°C), Indiana
- 1986 Bomb attack in East-Beirut, 27 killed
Lendl's 3rd ATP
1986 Czech tennis star Ivan Lendl defeats Boris Becker of Germany 6-2, 7-6, 6-3 to claim the season-ending ATP Masters Grand Prix title for a third time at Madison Square Garden, NYC
Second Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
1987 Second Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: The Coasters; Eddie Cochran; Bo Diddley; Aretha Franklin; Marvin Gaye; Bill Haley; B.B. King; Clyde McPhatter; Ricky Nelson; Roy Orbison; Carl Perkins; Smokey Robinson; Joe Turner; Muddy Waters; Jackie Wilson; Louis Jordan; T-Bone Walker; Hank Williams; Leonard Chess; Ahmet Ertegun; Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; and Jerry Wexler
Gretzky Surpasses Dionne
1989 Wayne Gretzky passes Marcel Dionne to become NHL's 2nd all time scorer
- 1990 Bob Goodenow succeeds Alan Eagleson as NHL players association executive director
McEnroe Expelled
1990 John McEnroe becomes 1st ever player to be expelled from the Australian Open
- 1991 CBS News correspondant Bob Simon and four TV crew captured and held for 40 days by Iraqis in the Persian Gulf
- 1991 Sacramento's Dick Motta coaches in his 1,648th regular season game, a 97-94 Kings' victory over Houston; at the time an NBA record for the most regular-season coaching appearances
Cowher Steeler's Coach
1992 Bill Cowher becomes the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, becoming only the second head coach of the team since 1970 (Chuck Noll)
- 1992 UN serves Libya a resolution to hand over intelligence agents accused of two airliner bombings
- 1994 Dallas Mavericks suffer 19th straight loss at Reunion Arena, 91-87 to the Seattle SuperSonics; extends an unwanted NBA record for the most consecutive home defeats
- 1994 Dow Jones passes 3900 (record 3,914.20)
- 1994 Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane when she cut off her husband's penis
- 1997 An inquiry in North Wales names more than 80 child abusers
Papal Visit
1998 Pope John Paul II visits Cuba
- 1999 In one of the largest drug busts in American history, the US Coast Guard intercepts a ship carrying 4,300 kg of cocaine
- 2001 Pittsburgh Penguins beat Chicago Blackhawks, 4-0 in first-ever NHL game featuring 2 European trained coaches; Czech Ivan Hlinka behind the bench for Pittsburgh, and Fin Alpo Suhonen, Chicago
- 2002 The Canadian Dollar sets all-time low against the US Dollar (US$0.6179).
- 2004 Canada: The residence of reporter Juliet O'Neill is searched by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigating leaks concerning the deportation of Maher Arar
- 2004 Minnesota Wild set an NHL record for 2 fastest goals, when Jim Dowd and Richard Park score just 3 seconds apart in the final 15 seconds of a 4-2 win over visiting Chicago Blackhawks
- 2004 NASA's MER-A (the Mars Rover Spirit) ceases communication with mission control. The problem lies with Flash Memory management and is fixed remotely from Earth on February 6.
- 2005 In Belmopan, Belize, the unrest over the government's new taxes erupts into riots
- 2007 Awashima Marine Park in Japan catches a video tape of the rare frilled shark.
- 2008 Fears of a possible US recession cause a Black Monday for global stock markets, European stocks suffer their worst result since 9/11, and Asian stocks drop as much as 15%
- 2008 The Eyak language in Alaska becomes extinct as its last native speaker dies
Bryant Surpasses Chamberlain Record
2010 LA Lakers forward Kobe Bryant becomes the youngest NBA player to reach 25,000 career points at 31 years, 151 days; beats Wilt Chamberlain by 35 days
"Volcker Rule" Proposed
2010 President Barack Obama proposes the "Volcker Rule," a rule proposed by Paul Volcker intended to restrict risky trading by United States banks
- 2013 1 person is killed and 15 are injured by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake in Indonesia
- 2013 18 people are killed and 24 are injured after a bus falls down a ravine in Yungas, Bolivia
- 2013 30 people are killed in a car bombing in Salamiyeh, Syria
- 2013 41 people are injured after two trains collide in Vienna, Austria
- 2013 Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Netherlands’ Minister of Finance, becomes the President of the Euro Group
- 2015 Italian fashion label Gucci names Alessandro Michele as its new creative director
- 2017 Adam Hadwin fires only the 7th sub-60 round (59) in PGA Tour history in the 3rd round of the CareerBuilder Challenge at LaQuinta CC
Women's March Protest
2017 More than 2 million people protest worldwide in the 'Women's March' against Donald Trump, with 500,000 marching in Washington, D.C.
Gambian Dictator Jammeh Concedes
2018 Gambian Dictator Yahya Jammeh finally concedes office and leaves Gambia 2 months after losing the presidential election
- 2019 A light aircraft carrying EPL team Cardiff City's record signing Emiliano Sala of French club FC Nantes disappears near the Channel islands en route to Wales
Thompson 3-Point Range Record
2019 Golden State guard Klay Thompson sets an NBA record by making his first 10 attempts from 3-point range as the Warriors beat the LA Lakers, 130-111; Thompson scores 44 points
Tennis Hall of Fame Inductees
2019 Li Na of China becomes first Asian player to be elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame; joins Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Mary Pierce of France as Class of 2019 inductees
- 2020 Revival of Charles Fuller's stage drama "A Soldier's Play, starring David Alan Grier and Blair Underwood at the American Airlines Theatre, NYC; run suspended dut to Covid-19 closures, wins 3 Tony Awards
- 2020 World's oldest asteroid impact at 2.2 billion years old found in Yarrabubba, Western Australia, may have ended an ice age, reported in "Nature Communications"
First Female Director of National Intelligence
2021 Avril Haines is sworn in as the first female US Director of National Intelligence by VP Kamala Harris
- 2022 Yemen detention centre in Saada held by rebel Houthis bombed killing more than 70 people [1]
- 2023 72 year-old gunman shoots and kills eleven people, injuring nine, at dance studio in Monterey Park, California. Attempts second killing nearby before being surrounded and killing himself.
- 2024 A 'deep freeze' - nearly two weeks of frigid winter storms across the US claim the lives of at least 70 people, with Oregon, Tennessee and Kentucky declaring states of emergency [1]
- 2024 Dan Campbell's Detroit Lions secure a divisional playoff win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Event of Interest
2024 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pulls out of the 2024 US Presidential race in a post on X [1]
- 2024 Tara VanDerveer (70) becomes winningest college basketball coach with 1.203rd victory as Stanford University defeats visiting Oregon State Beavers, 65-56 [1]
