Tuesday, February 28, 2012

28th of February

Today is the 59th day of the year, with only 306 days remaining until the end of the year.

1849 - Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months and 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.

1854 - The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

1883 - The first vaudeville theater opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

1893 - The USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time is launched.

1935 - DuPont scientist Wallace Corothers invents nylon.

1940 - Basketball is televised for the first time with Fordham University Vs. The University of Pittsburgh at Madison Square Gardne.

1954 - The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.

1991 - The first Gulf War ends.

1993 - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh.  Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1997 - The North Hollywood shootout takes place, pitting two heavily armed bank robbers against the LAPD,  resulting in the injury of 19 people and deaths of both perpetrators.

Monday, February 27, 2012

27th of Februuary

Today is the 58th day of the year, with only 307 days remaining.

1860 - Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible or his election to the Presidency.

1864 - The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.

1933 - Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire.

1940 - Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14.

1942 - During the Battle of the Java Sea, an Allied strike force is defeated by a Japanese task force in the Dutch East Indies.

1951 - The Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.

1964 - The government of Italy, asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.

1991 - President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated."

Sunday, February 26, 2012

26th of February

It is the 57th day of the year, with only 308 days remaining until the end of the year.

1914 - HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

1917 - The Original Dixieland Jass Band records the first jazz record, for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York.

1935 - Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

1993 - In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand people.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

25th of February

It is the 56th day of the year, with only 309 days remaining until the new year.

138 - The Emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor.

1836 - Samuel Colt is granted a United States patent for the Colt revolver.

1866 - Mines in Calaveras County, California, discover what is now called the Calaveras Skull, human remains that supposedly indicated that man, mastodons, and elephants had co-existed.

1870 - Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African-American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.

1901 - J. P. Morgan incorporates the United States Steel Corporation.

1932 - Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, which allows him to run in the 1932 election for Reichsprasident.

1933 - The USS Ranger is launched.  it is the first U.S. Navy ship to be built solely as an aircraft carrier.

1964 - Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, beats Sonny Liston in the world heavyweight boxing title fight.  This is Ali's 20th pro boxing fight and first heavyweight title.

1968 - 135 unarmed citizens of Ha My village in South Vietnam's Quang Nam Province are killed and buried en masse by South Korean troops in a massacre.

Friday, February 24, 2012

24th of February

Today is the 55th day of the year, with only 310 days remaining.

303 - Diocletian, Roman Emperor, publishes his edict that begins the persecution of Christians in his portion of the Empire.

1711 - The London premiere of Rinaldo by George Frederic Handel, the first Italian opera written for the English stage.

1863 - Arizona is organized as a United States territory.

1868 - Andrew Johnson becomes the first President to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives.  He is later acquitted.

1917 - The U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom is given the Zimmerman Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico, if the country to the south declares war on the United States.

1920 - The Nazi Party is founded.

1968 - The Tet Offensive is halted, South Vietnam recaptured Hue.

1980 - The United States Olympic Hockey team completes their Miracle on Ice by defeating Finland 4 to 2 to win the gold medal.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

23rd of February

It is the 54th day of the year, with only 311 days remaining until the new year.

303 - Roman Emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning eight years of Diocletianic Persecution.

1455 - Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, The first Western book printed with movable type.

1685 - George Frideric Handel, German/British Baroque composer is born.

1778 - Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help train the Continental Army.

1836 - The Battle of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.

1847 - At the Battle of Buena Vista, during the Mexican-American War, 5,000 American troops defeat 15,000 Mexicans.

1848 - John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States, passes away at the age of 80.

1861 - President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.

1868 - W. E. B. Du Bois, an early American civil rights leader is born.

1883 - Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an antitrust act.

1896 - The Tootsie Roll is invented.

1903 - Cuba leases Guantanomo Bay to the United States.

1905 - Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other business men meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world's first service club.

1918 - First victory of Red Army over the Kaiser's German troops near Narva and Pskov.  In honor of this victory, the date is celebrated from 1923 onward as Red Army Day, it is renamed Defender of the Fatherland Day after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and is colloquially known as "Men's Day."

1927 - German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes uncertainty principle for the first time.

1941 - Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.

1942 - Japanese submarines fire artillery shells at the California coastline near Santa Barbara.

1945 - During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag.

1954 - The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1983 - The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.

1991 - Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the Gulf War.

1999 - Carlos Hathcock, United States Marine Corp Gunnery Sergeant sniper, with a service record of 93 confirmed kills.  He is also known for his accomplishment of shooting a North Vietnamese sniper through the enemy's own scope, hitting him in the eye and killing him.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

22nd of February

It is the 53rd day of the year, with only 312 days remaining until the new year.

1855 - The Pennsylvania State University is founded in State College, Pennsylvania, as the Farmer's High School of Pennsylvania.

1862 - Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia.

1879 - In Utica, New York, Frank Woolwroth opens the first of many of 5 and dime Woolworth tores.

1889 - President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North and South Dakota, Montana, and Washington as U.S. states.

1909 - The sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by the Connecticut, return to the U.S. after a voyage around the world.

1915 - Germany institutes unrestricted submarine warfare.

1924 - President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.

1942 - President Franklin Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Phillipines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.

1974 - Samuel Byck tries and fail to assassinate U.S. President Richard Nixon.

1980 - Known as the Miracle on Ice, in Lake Placid, New York, the U.S. hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team by a score of 4 to 3.

1994 - Aldrich Ames and his wife, are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.

1997 - In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned.

2006 - At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery, stealing 53 million pounds or $92.5 million from a Securitas depot in tonbridge, Kent.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

21st of February

Today is the 52nd day of the year, with only 313 days remaining until the end of the year.

1804 - The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.

1842 - John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.

1848 - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.

1862 - Battle of Valverde is fought near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory.

1878 - The first telephone book is issued in New Haven, Coonecticut.

1885 - The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.

1916 - In France, the Battle of Verdun begins during World War I.

1937 - It is the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile.

1945 - Japanese kamikaze planes sink the escort carrier Bismarck Sea, and damage the Saratoga.

1947 - In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera," the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.

1965 - Malcolm X, civil rights acitvist, is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.

1975 - Because of the Watergate scandal, former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House Aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.

1995 - Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

Monday, February 20, 2012

20th of February

Today is the 51st day of the year, with only 314 days remaining.

1792 - The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington.

1864 - The largest battle fought in Florida, during the American Civil War, is known as the Battle of Olustee.

1872 - In New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.

1933 - Adolf Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party's upcoming election campaign.

1935 - Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.

1942 - Lieutenant Edward O'Hare, becomes America's first World War II flying ace.

1943 - American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.

1952 - Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.

1962 - While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn, becomes the first American to orbit earth, making three orbits in 4 hours and 55 minutes.

1998 - American figure skater Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold-medalist at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

19th of February

Today is the 50th day of the year and there are 315 days remaining.

1807 - In Alabama, former Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested for treason and confined to Fort Stoddert.

1847 - The first group of rescuers reaches the Donner Party.

1859 - Daniel E. Sickles, a New York Congressman, is acquitted of murder on ground of temporary insanity.  This is the 1st time the defense is successfully used in the United States.

1878 - Thomas Edison patents his phonograph.

1942 - President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Executive Order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese-Americans to internment camps.

1945 - To begin the Battle of Iwo Jima, about 30,000 United States Marines land on the island.

1976 - Executive Order 9066, is rescinded by President Gerald Ford's Proclamation 4417.

1985 - Artificial heart recipient William J. Schroeder becomes the first such patient to leave hopsital.

1986 - The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft.  Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it is occupied for 10 of those years.

1999 - President Bill Clinton issues a posthumous pardon for U.S. Army Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper.  Flipper  was the first African-American to graduate from West Point and prove himself  leading Buffalo Soldiers during the Indian Wars, however he was wrongfully court-martialed and dismissed from the Army.

2002 - NASA's Mars Odyssey begins to map the surface of Mars using thermal emission imaging systems.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

18th of February

Today is the 49th day of the year, with only 316 days remaining until the new year.

1229 - During the Sixth Crusade, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, signs a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem, with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy.

1861 - In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.

1911 - The first official flight with air mail takes place in Allahabad, British India, when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivers 6500 letters to Naini, about 6.2 miles (10 km) away.

1930 - Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.

1943 -Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebells, delivers his Sportpalast Speech, calling for a total war.

1978 - The first Ironman Triatholon competition takes place on the island of Oahu, won by Gordon Haller.

1979 - Snow falls in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the only time in recorded history.

2001 - FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union.  He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

2001 - Seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt dies in an accident during the Daytona 500.

Friday, February 17, 2012

17th of February

Today is the 48th day of the year, with only 317 days remaining until the end of the year.

1600 - The philosopher Giordano Bruno, is burned alive at Camp de Fiori in Rome, for heresy.

1621 - Myles Standish is appointed as first commander of the Plymouth colony.

1801 - An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, is resolved when the former is elected President and the latter is elected Vice President, by the United States House of Representatives.

1864 - The H.L. Hunley, becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.

1933 - Newsweek magazine is published for the first time.

1959 - Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite is launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.

1968 - In Springfield, Massachusetts, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.

1972 - Sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model T.

1996 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the world champion Garry Kasparov, beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

16th of February

Today is the 47th day of the year, with only 318 days remaining.

1804 - During the First Barbary War, Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate USS Philadelphia.

1852 - Studebaker Brothers wagon company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established.

1923 - Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

1937 - Wallace H. Carothers receives a U.S. patent for nylon.

1940 - Known as the Altmark Incident, the German tanker Altmark is boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack, and they free 299 British prisoners.

1959 - Fidel Castro becomes the Premier of Cuba/

1960 - The U.S Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

1968 - In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.

1987 - The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi guard dubbed Ivan the Terrible, in Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem.

2005 - The Kyoto Protocol comes into force, following its ratification by Russia.

2005 - The National Hockey League cancels their entire season and playoffs, becoming the first major sports league in North America to do so, over a labor dispute.

2006 - The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, is decommissioned by the United States Army.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

15th of February

Today is the 46th day of the year, with only 319 days remaining.

1493 - Whole on board the Nina, Christopher Columbus writes an open letter, describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he cam across in the New World.

1764 - The city of St. Louis, Missouri is established.

1862 - General Ulysses S. Grant attacks Fort Donelson, Tennessee.

1879 - President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

1898 - The USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor, killing more than 260 men.  This event leads the United States to declare war on Spain.

1942 - Following an assault by Japanese forces, the British General Arthur Percival surrenders.  About 80,000 Indian, British, and Australian soldiers become prisoners of war.

1946 - ENIAC, the first electronic general purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania.

1972 - Sound recordings are granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.

2001 - The first draft of the complete human genome, is published in Nature magazine.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

14th of February

Today is the 45th day of the year, with only 320 days remaining.

Valentine's Day is celebrated this day, as an annual commemoration celebrating love and affection between friends.

1779 - Explorer James Cook, is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

1849 - James K. Polk becomes the first serving President to have his photograph taken in New York City.

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.

1912 - Arizona is admitted as the 48th state admitted to the United States.

1924 - The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is founded.

1929 - The Saint Valentine's Day massacre occurs, when seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone's gang, are murdered in Chicago, Illinois.

1943 - General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army launches a concerted attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.

1961 - Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California.

1962 - First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.

Monday, February 13, 2012

13th of February

It is the 44th day of the year, with only 321 days remaining.

1542 - Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.

1633 - Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trail before the Inquisition.

1894 - Auguste and Louis Lumiere, patent the Cinematographe, a combination movie camera and projector.

1914 - In New York City, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

1935 - A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby.

1945 - Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment.

1954 - Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game.

1955 - Israel obtains 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.

1967 - American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.

1970 - Black Sabbath, arguably the very first heavy metal album, is released.

1971 - Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos.

2000 - The last original "Peanuts" comic strip appears in newspaper one day after Charles M. Schulz dies.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

12th of February

It is the 43rd day of the year, with only 322 days remaining until the new year.

1502 - Vasco de Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal on his second voyage to India.

1733 - Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony, and its first city of Savannah.

1825 - The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the U.S. government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.

1909 - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, is founded.

1914 - In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

1946 - Operation Deadlight ends after the successful scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.

1994 - Four men break into the National Gallery of Norway and steal Edward Munch's iconic painting The Scream.

1999 - President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

11th of February

It is the 42nd day of the year, with only 323 days remaining until the new year.

1531 - Henry VIII of England is recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.

1752 - The Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States is opened by Benjamin Franklin.

1790 - The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions Congress for abolition of slavery.

1808 - Jesse Fell burns anthracite coal on an open grate as an experiment in heating homes with the substance.

1861 - The United States House of Representatives unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state.

1938 - BBC Television produces the world's first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a scetion of the Karel Capek play R.U. R., that coined the term robot.

1939 - A lockheed Xp-38 flies from California to New York in 7 hours and 2 minutes.

1942 - The first gold record is presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo."

1973 - The first release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam takes place.

1990 - Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa, after 27 years as a political prisoner.

1997 - Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Friday, February 10, 2012

10th of February

It is the 41st day of the year, with 324 days remaining until the end of the year.

1863 - The fire extinguisher is patented.

1870 - The YWCA is founded in New York City.

1933 - The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company introduces the first singing telegram.

1943 - Attempting to completely lift the Siege of Leningrad, the Soviet Red Army engages German troops and Spanish volunteers in the Battle of Krasny Bor.

1954 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.

1962 - Captured American U-2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

1967 - The 25th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified.

1996 - The IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, defeats Garry Kasparov, at chess for the first time.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

9th of February

Today is the 40th day of the year, with only 325 days remaining until the end of the year.

1775 - The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.

1825 - After no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the United States House of Representatives elect John Quincy Adams as President.

1870 - The United States Weather Bureau is established.

1889 - The United States Department of Agriculture is established as a Cabinet-level entity.

1895 - William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.

1942 - Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.

1945 - HMS Venturer sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat.

1959 - The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR.

1964 - The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before an audience of 73 million viewers.

1965 - The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.

1969 - It is the first test flight of the Boeing 747.

1971 - Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to be voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

1971 - Apollo 14 returns to Earth after its mission to the moon is complete.

1995 - Space Shuttle astronauts Bernard A. Harris Jr. and Michael Foale becomes the first African-American and the first Briton, to perform spacewalks.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

8th of February

It is the 39th day of the year, with only 326 day remaining until the new year.

1587 - Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

1855 - The Devil's Footprints mysteriously appear in Southern Devon, England.

1865 - In the United States, Delaware votes reject the Thirteenth Amendment and vote to continue the practice of slavery.  Delaware finally ratifies the Amendment, 36 years and 4 days later.

1887 - The Dawes Act authorizes the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments.

1910 - The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by William D. Boyce.

1915 - D.W. Griffith's controversial film, The Birth of a Nation, premieres in Los Angeles.

1922 - President Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio in the White House.

1924 - The first state execution in the United States by gas chamber takes place in Nevada.

1960 - The first eight brass star plaques are installed in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1971 - The NASDAQ stock market index opens for the first time.

1971 - South Vietnamese ground troops launch an incursion into Laos to try and cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail and stop communist infiltration.

1974 - After 84 days in space, the crew of Skylab 4, the last crew to visit the space station Skylab, returns to Earth.

1978 - Proceedings of the United States Senate are broadcast on radio for the first time.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

7th of February

It is the 38th day of the year, with only 327 days remaining.

1795 - The Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution is ratified.

1904 - A disastrous fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.

1940 - The second full length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premieres.

1974 - Grenada gains independence from the United Kingdom.

1992 - The Maastricht Treaty is signed, leading to the creation of the European Union.

Monday, February 6, 2012

6th of February

Today is the 37th day of the year, with only 328 days remaining.

1788 - Massachusetts becomes the 6th state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1815 - New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.

1820 - The first 86 African-American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society start a settlement in present-day Liberia.

1843 - The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opens at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.

1862 - The U.S. Navy gives the Union its first victory of the war, capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee in the Battle of Fort Henry.

1899 - The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, is ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Spanish-American War.

1933 - The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution, establishing the beginning and ending of the terms of the elected federal offices, goes into effect.

1951 - The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey.  The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more.

1959 - Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated ciruit.

1959 - At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

5th of February

It is the 36th day of the year, with only 329 days remaining until the new year.

1778 - South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

1917 - Congress passes the Immigration Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.  Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.

1918 - Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane.  It is the first aerial victory by the U.S military.

1919 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1958 - A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the United States Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

1972 - Bob Douglas becomes the first African-American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1988 - Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

4th of February

It is the 35th day of the year, with only 330 days remaining until the new year.

1789 - George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.

1794 - The French legislature abolishes slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic.

1797 - The Riobamba earthquake strikes Ecuador, causing up to 40,000 casualties.

1846 - The first Mormon pioneers make their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Utah Territory.

1861 - In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six break-away U.S. states meet and form the Confederate States of America.

1936 - Radium becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.

1941 - The United Service Organization is created to entertain American troops.

1945 - The Yalta Conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea.

2003 - The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is officially renamed to Serbia and Montenegro and adopts a new constitution.

2004 - Facebook, a mainstream online social network is founded by Mark Zuckergberg.

Friday, February 3, 2012

3rd of February

Today is the 34th day of the year, with 331 days remaining until the end of the year.

313 - Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius met at a conference in Milan.  They proclaimed a policy of religious freedom, ending the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, known as the Edict of Milan.

1690 - The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in America.

1787 - Shays' Rebellion is crushed.

1870 - The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race.

1913 - The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.

1945 - As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin.  It is a raid which kills between 2500 to 3000 and leaves another 120,000 homeless.

1959 - A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson, and the incident becomes known as The Day the Music Died.

1961 - The United States Air Forces begins Operation Looking Glass, and over the next 30 years, a "Doomsday Plane" is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States' bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC's command post.

1971 - New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption.  Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.

1984 - John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.

1995 - Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center.

1998 - Karla Faye Tucker is executed in Texas, becoming the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

2nd of February

It is the 33rd day of the year, with only 332 days remaining.

506 - Alaric II, eighth kings of the Visigoths promulgates the Breviary of Alaric, a collection of Roman law.

1653 - New Amsterdam, later named The City of New York is incorporated.

1848 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed ending the Mexican-American War.

1848 - The first ship Chinese immigrants arrives in San Francisco, California.

1876 - The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.

1887 - The Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.

1925 - Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.

1935 - Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine.

1943 - The Battle of Stalingrad comes to a conclusion as Soviet troops accept the surrender of 91,000 remnants of random Axis forces.

1971 - Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader of Uganda.

1974 - The F-16 Fighting Falcon flies for the first time.

1980 - Reports surface that the FBI is targeting allegedly corrupt Congressmen in the Abscam operation.

2004 - Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men's singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

1st of February

Today is the 32nd day of the year, with 33 days remaining until the new year.

1709 - Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

1790 - In New York City, the Supreme Court of the United States convenes for the first time.

1861 - Texas secedes from the United States.

1865 - President Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

1893 - Thomas Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.

1942 - Navy conducts Marshalls-Gilberts raids, the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.

1957 - Felix Wankel's first working prototype DKM 54 of the Wankel engine runs at the NSU research and development department Versuchsabteilung TX in Germany.

1960 - Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in North Carolina.

1968 - The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan, is videotaped and photographed by Eddie Adams.  The image itself, helped build opposition to the Vietnam War.

1978 - Film director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.

1979 - The Ayatollah Khomeini is welcomed back to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years in exile.

1993 - Gary Bettman becomes the NHL's first commissioner.

1998 - Rear Admiral Lillian E. Fishburne became the first female African-American to be promoted to rear admiral.

2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

2004 - Janet Jackson's breast is exposed during the televised half-time show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, resulting in broadcasters adopting a stronger adherence to Federal Communications Commission censorship guidelines.  It is cut to black while on-air and is stated as a "wardrobe malfunction."