1763 Archives - Page 5 of 7 -

March 8 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

1010 – Ferdowsi completes his epic poem Shahnameh.
1126 – Following the death of his mother Urraca, Alfonso VII is proclaimed king of Castile and León.
1262 – Battle of Hausbergen between bourgeois militias and the army of the bishop of Strasbourg.
1576 – Spanish explorer Diego García de Palacio first sights the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Copán.
1618 – Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.
1655 – John Casor becomes the first legally-recognized slave in England’s North American colonies where a crime was not committed.
1658 – Treaty of Roskilde: After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars (1655–1661), Frederick III, the King of Denmark–Norway is forced to give up nearly half his territory to Sweden to save the rest.
1702 – Queen Anne, the younger sister of Mary II, becomes Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland
1722 – The Safavid Empire of Iran is defeated by an army from Afghanistan at the Battle of Gulnabad, pushing Iran into anarchy.
1736 – Nader Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty, is crowned Shah of Iran.
1775 – An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America”, the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.
1777 – Regiments from Ansbach and Bayreuth, sent to support Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, mutiny in the town of Ochsenfurt.
1782 – Gnadenhutten massacre: Ninety-six Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, who had converted to Christianity, are killed by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indian tribes.
1801 – War of the Second Coalition: At the Battle of Abukir, a British force under Sir Ralph Abercromby lands in Egypt with the aim of ending the French campaign in Egypt and Syria.
1817 – The New York Stock Exchange is founded.
1844 – King Oscar I ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.
1862 – American Civil War: The Naval Battle of Hampton Roads begins.
1868 – Sakai incident: Japanese samurai kill 11 French sailors in the port of Sakai, Osaka.
1910 – French aviator Raymonde de Laroche becomes the first woman to receive a pilot’s license.
1914 – First flights (for the Royal Thai Air Force) at Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok.
1916 – World War I: A British force unsuccessfully attempts to relieve the siege of Kut (present-day Iraq) in the Battle of Dujaila.
1917 – International Women’s Day protests in St. Petersburg mark the beginning of the February Revolution (February 23rd in the Julian calendar).
1917 – The United States Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.
1920 – The Arab Kingdom of Syria, the first modern Arab state to come into existence, is established.
1921 – Spanish Prime Minister Eduardo Dato Iradier is assassinated while exiting the parliament building in Madrid.
1924 – A mine disaster kills 172 coal miners near Castle Gate, Utah.
1936 – Daytona Beach and Road Course holds its first oval stock car race.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: The Battle of Guadalajara begins.
1942 – World War II: Imperial Japanese Army forces gave an ultimatum to Dutch East Indies Governor General Jonkheer Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer and KNIL Commander in Chief Lieutenant General Hein Ter Poorten, to unconditionally surrender.
1942 – World War II: Imperial Japanese Army forces captured Rangoon, Burma from British.
1947 – Thirteen thousand troops of the Republic of China Army arrive in Taiwan after the February 28 Incident and launch crackdowns which kill thousands of people, including many elites. This turns into a major root of the Taiwan independence movement.
1949 – President of France Vincent Auriol and ex-emperor of Annam Bảo Đại sign the Élysée Accords, giving Vietnam greater independence from France and creating the State of Vietnam to oppose Viet Minh-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
1957 – Egypt re-opens the Suez Canal after the Suez Crisis.
1957 – The 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress, which petitions the U.S. Congress to declare the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution null and void, is adopted by the U.S. state of Georgia.
1963 – The Ba’ath Party comes to power in Syria in a coup d’état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council of the Revolutionary Command.
1965 – Thirty-five hundred United States Marines are the first American land combat forces committed during the Vietnam War.
1966 – Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin, Ireland, destroyed by a bomb.
1971 – The Fight of the Century between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali commences. Frazier wins in 15 rounds via unanimous decision.
1974 – Charles de Gaulle Airport opens in Paris, France.
1979 – Philips demonstrates the compact disc publicly for the first time.
1983 – Cold War: While addressing a convention of Evangelicals, U.S. President Ronald Reagan labels the Soviet Union an “evil empire”.
1985 – A supposed failed assassination attempt on Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut, Lebanon kills at least 45 and injures 175 others.
2004 – A new constitution is signed by Iraq’s Governing Council.
2014 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying a total of 239 people, disappears en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
2017 – The Azure Window, a natural arch on the Maltese island of Gozo, collapses in stormy weather.

Births on March 8

1286 – John III, Duke of Brittany (d. 1341)
1293 – Beatrice of Castile (d. 1359)
1495 – John of God, Portuguese friar and saint (d. 1550)
1514 – Amago Haruhisa, Japanese daimyō (d. 1562)
1518 – Sidonie of Saxony, Duchess of Brunswick-Calenberg (d. 1575)
1550 – William Drury, English politician (d. 1590)
1658 – Thomas Trevor, 1st Baron Trevor, British Baron (d. 1730)
1566 – Carlo Gesualdo, Italian lute player and composer (d. 1613)
1712 – John Fothergill, English physician and botanist (d. 1780)
1714 – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German pianist and composer (d. 1788)
1726 – Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, English admiral and politician, Treasurer of the Navy (d. 1799)
1746 – André Michaux, French botanist and explorer (d. 1802)
1748 – William V, Prince of Orange (d. 1806)
1761 – Jan Potocki, Polish ethnologist, historian, linguist, and author (d. 1815)
1799 – Simon Cameron, American journalist and politician, 26th United States Secretary of War (d. 1889)
1804 – Alvan Clark, American astronomer and optician (d. 1887)
1822 – Ignacy Łukasiewicz, Polish inventor and businessman, invented the Kerosene lamp (d. 1882)
1826 – Johann Köler, Estonian painter and academic (d. 1899)
1827 – Wilhelm Bleek, German linguist and anthropologist (d. 1875)
1830 – João de Deus, Portuguese poet and educator (d. 1896)
1839 – Josephine Cochrane, American inventor (d. 1913)
1841 – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American colonel, lawyer, and jurist (d. 1935)
1848 – LaMarcus Adna Thompson, American engineer and businessman, developed the roller coaster (d. 1917)
1856 – Bramwell Booth, English 2nd General of The Salvation Army (d. 1929)
1856 – Colin Campbell Cooper, American painter and academic (d. 1937)
1859 – Kenneth Grahame, Scottish-English banker and author (d. 1932)
1865 – Frederic Goudy, American type designer, created Copperplate Gothic and Goudy Old Style (d. 1947)
1879 – Otto Hahn, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
1886 – Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1972)
1892 – Juana de Ibarbourou, Uruguayan poet and author (d. 1979)
1896 – Charlotte Whitton, Canadian journalist and politician, 46th Mayor of Ottawa (d. 1975)
1899 – Elmer Keith, American gun designer and author (d. 1984)
1900 – Howard H. Aiken, American physicist and computer scientist, created the Harvard Mark I (d. 1973)
1902 – Louise Beavers, American actress and singer (d. 1962)
1902 – Jennings Randolph, American journalist and politician (d. 1998)
1907 – Konstantinos Karamanlis, Greek lawyer and politician, 3rd President of Greece (d. 1998)
1909 – Beatrice Shilling, English motorcycle racer and engineer (d. 1990)
1909 – Paula Strasberg, American actress and acting coach (d. 1966)
1910 – Claire Trevor, American actress (d. 2000)
1911 – Alan Hovhaness, Armenian-American pianist and composer (d. 2000)
1912 – Preston Smith, American businessman and politician, 40th Governor of Texas (d. 2003)
1912 – Meldrim Thomson, Jr., American publisher and politician, 73rd Governor of New Hampshire (d. 2001)
1914 – Yakov Borisovich Zel’dovich, Belarusian-Russian physicist and astronomer (d. 1987)
1918 – Eileen Herlie, Scottish-American actress (d. 2008)
1920 – Douglass Wallop, American author and playwright (d. 1985)
1921 – Alan Hale, Jr., American actor (d. 1990)
1921 – Sahir Ludhianvi, Indian poet and songwriter (d. 1980)
1922 – Ralph H. Baer, German-American video game designer, created the Magnavox Odyssey (d. 2014)
1922 – Cyd Charisse, American actress and dancer (d. 2008)
1922 – Carl Furillo, American baseball player (d. 1989)
1922 – Yevgeny Matveyev, Russian actor and director (d. 2003)
1922 – Shigeru Mizuki, Japanese author and illustrator (d. 2015)
1924 – Anthony Caro, English sculptor and illustrator (d. 2013)
1924 – Georges Charpak, Ukrainian-French physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2010)
1924 – Sean McClory, Irish-American actor and director (d. 2003)
1925 – Warren Bennis, American scholar, author, and academic (d. 2014)
1926 – Francisco Rabal, Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2001)
1929 – Hebe Camargo, Brazilian actress and singer (d. 2012)
1930 – Bob Grim, American baseball player (d. 1996)
1930 – Douglas Hurd, English politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
1931 – Neil Adcock, South African cricketer (d. 2013)
1931 – John McPhee, American author and educator
1931 – Gerald Potterton, English-Canadian animator, director, and producer
1931 – Neil Postman, American author and critic (d. 2003)
1934 – Marv Breeding, American baseball player and scout (d. 2006)
1935 – George Coleman, American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader
1936 – Sue Ane Langdon, American actress and singer
1936 – Gábor Szabó, Hungarian guitarist and composer (d. 1982)
1937 – Richard Fariña, American singer-songwriter and author (d. 1966)
1937 – Juvénal Habyarimana, Rwandan politician, 2nd President of Rwanda (d. 1994)
1938 – Pete Dawkins, American football player, colonel, and politician
1939 – Jim Bouton, American baseball player and journalist (d. 2019)
1939 – Lynn Seymour, Canadian ballerina and choreographer
1939 – Lidiya Skoblikova, Russian speed skater and coach
1939 – Robert Tear, Welsh tenor and conductor (d. 2011)
1941 – Norman Stone, Scottish-English historian, author, and academic (d. 2019)
1942 – Dick Allen, American baseball player and tenor
1942 – Ann Packer, English sprinter, hurdler, and long jumper
1943 – Susan Clark, Canadian actress and producer
1943 – Michael Grade, English businessman
1943 – Lynn Redgrave, English-American actress and singer (d. 2010)
1943 – Dionysis Simopoulos, Greek physicist and astronomer
1944 – Sergey Nikitin, Russian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1945 – Jim Chapman, American lawyer and politician
1945 – Micky Dolenz, American singer-songwriter, drummer, and actor
1945 – Anselm Kiefer, German painter and sculptor
1945 – Sylvia Wiegand, American mathematician
1946 – Robert Jaworski, Filipino basketball player, coach, and politician
1946 – Randy Meisner, American singer-songwriter and bass player
1947 – Carole Bayer Sager, American singer-songwriter and painter
1947 – Michael S. Hart, American author, founded Project Gutenberg (d. 2011)
1947 – Vladimír Mišík, Czech singer-songwriter and guitarist
1947 – Florentino Pérez, Spanish engineer and businessman
1948 – Robert W. Boyd, American physicist and academic
1948 – Gyles Brandreth, German-English actor, screenwriter, and politician
1948 – Mel Galley, English rock singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2008)
1948 – Sam Lacey, American basketball player (d. 2014)
1948 – Peggy March, American pop singer
1948 – Jonathan Sacks, English rabbi, philosopher, and scholar
1949 – Teofilo Cubillas, Peruvian footballer
1951 – Phil Edmonds, Zambian-English cricketer and businessman
1951 – Dianne Walker, American tap dancer
1952 – George Allen, American lawyer and politician, 67th Governor of Virginia
1953 – Jim Rice, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster
1954 – Steve James, American documentary filmmaker
1954 – David Wilkie, Sri Lankan-Scottish swimmer
1956 – Laurie Cunningham, English footballer (d. 1989)
1956 – David Malpass, American economist and government official
1957 – Clive Burr, English rock drummer (d. 2013)
1957 – William Edward Childs, American pianist and composer
1957 – Bob Stoddard, American baseball player
1958 – Andy McDonald, English lawyer and politician
1958 – Gary Numan, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1959 – Aidan Quinn, Irish-American actor
1960 – Jeffrey Eugenides, American author and academic
1960 – Irek Mukhamedov, Russian ballet dancer
1960 – Buck Williams, American basketball player and coach
1961 – Camryn Manheim, American actress
1961 – Larry Murphy, Canadian ice hockey player and journalist
1962 – Leon Robinson, American actor and producer
1964 – Kate Betts, American journalist and author
1965 – Kenny Smith, American basketball player and sportscaster
1966 – Greg Barker, Baron Barker of Battle, English politician
1966 – Jaime Levy, American computer scientist and academic
1967 – Joel Johnston, American baseball player
1968 – Michael Bartels, German race car driver
1968 – Shawn Mullins, American singer-songwriter
1969 – Juan de Dios Ramírez Perales, Mexican footballer
1970 – Jason Elam, American football player
1971 – Kit Symons, English-Welsh footballer and manager
1972 – Georgios Georgiadis, Greek footballer and manager
1972 – Matthew Nable, Australian rugby player and actor
1972 – Lena Sundström, Swedish journalist and author
1973 – Boris Kodjoe, Austrian-born American actor and producer
1973 – Anneke van Giersbergen, Dutch singer-songwriter and guitarist
1975 – Mauro Briano, Italian footballer
1976 – Gaz Coombes, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1976 – Juan Encarnación, Dominican baseball player
1976 – Freddie Prinze, Jr., American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1977 – James Van Der Beek, American actor
1977 – Johann Vogel, Swiss footballer
1978 – Nick Zano, American actor and producer
1979 – Apathy, American rapper and producer
1979 – Tom Chaplin, English singer-songwriter
1979 – Andy Ross, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1980 – Stephen Milne, Australian footballer
1981 – Michael Beauchamp, Australian footballer
1981 – Timothy Jordan II, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2005)
1981 – Joost Posthuma, Dutch cyclist
1982 – Nicolas Armindo, French racing driver
1982 – Leonidas Kampantais, Greek footballer
1982 – Isak Strand, Norwegian drummer, composer, and producer
1983 – André Santos, Brazilian footballer
1983 – Mark Worrell, American baseball player
1984 – Rafik Djebbour, Algerian footballer
1984 – Ross Taylor, New Zealand cricketer
1984 – Sasha Vujačić, Slovenian basketball player
1987 – Jonathan Wright, Australian rugby league player
1988 – Benny Blanco, American rapper and producer
1990 – Asier Illarramendi, Spanish footballer
1990 – Petra Kvitová, Czech tennis player
1990 – Nico Salva, Filipino basketball player
1990 – Ben Tozer, English footballer
1991 – Miriam Bryant, Swedish-Finnish singer-songwriter
1991 – Tom English, Australian rugby player
1992 – Uki Satake, Japanese singer, actress, and radio host
1994 – Pablo Dyego, Brazilian footballer
1994 – Claire Emslie, Scottish footballer
1994 – Dylan Tombides, Australian footballer (d. 2014)
1996 – Matthew Hammelmann, Australian rules footballer
1998 – Tali Darsigny, Canadian weightlifter

Deaths on March 8

865 – Rudolf of Fulda, German theologian
1126 – Urraca of León and Castile (b. 1079)
1137 – Adela of Normandy, by marriage countess of Blois (b. c. 1067)
1144 – Pope Celestine II
1223 – Wincenty Kadłubek, Polish bishop and historian (b. 1161)
1365 – Queen Noguk of Korea
1403 – Bayezid I, Ottoman sultan (b. 1360)
1441 – Margaret of Burgundy, Duchess of Bavaria
1466 – Francesco I Sforza, Duke of Milan (b. 1401)
1550 – John of God, Portuguese friar and saint (b. 1495)
1619 – Veit Bach, German baker and miller (b. 1550)
1641 – Xu Xiake, Chinese geographer and explorer (b. 1587)
1702 – William III of England (b. 1650)
1717 – Abraham Darby I, English blacksmith (b. 1678)
1723 – Christopher Wren, English architect, designed St. Paul’s Cathedral (b. 1632)
1731 – Ferdinand Brokoff, Czech sculptor (b. 1688)
1771 – Louis August le Clerc, French-Danish sculptor and academic (b. 1688)
1819 – Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge, American colonel, lawyer, and politician (b. 1739)
1844 – Charles XIV John of Sweden (b. 1763)
1869 – Hector Berlioz, French composer, conductor, and critic (b. 1803)
1872 – Cornelius Krieghoff, Dutch-Canadian painter (b. 1815)
1874 – Millard Fillmore, American lawyer and politician, 13th President of the United States (b. 1800)
1887 – Henry Ward Beecher, American minister and activist (b. 1813)
1887 – James Buchanan Eads, American engineer, designed the Eads Bridge (b. 1820)
1889 – John Ericsson, Swedish-American engineer, designed the USS Monitor (b. 1803)
1917 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German general and businessman, founded the Zeppelin Company (b. 1838)
1923 – Krišjānis Barons, Latvian linguist and author (b. 1835)
1923 – Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Dutch physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1837)
1930 – William Howard Taft, American lawyer, jurist, and politician, 27th President of the United States (b. 1857)
1930 – Edward Terry Sanford, American lawyer, jurist, and politician, United States Assistant Attorney General (b. 1865)
1935 – Hachikō, Japanese dog (b. 1923)
1937 – Howie Morenz, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1902)
1941 – Sherwood Anderson, American novelist and short story writer (b. 1876)
1942 – José Raúl Capablanca, Cuban chess player and theoretician (b. 1888)
1944 – Fredy Hirsch, German Jewish athlete who helped thousands of Jewish children in the Holocaust (b. 1916)
1945 – Frederick Bligh Bond, English archaeologist and architect (b. 1864)
1948 – Hulusi Behçet, Turkish dermatologist and scientist (b. 1889)
1957 – Othmar Schoeck, Swiss composer and conductor (b. 1886)
1961 – Thomas Beecham, English conductor and composer (b. 1879)
1971 – Harold Lloyd, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1893)
1973 – Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, American keyboard player and songwriter (b. 1945)
1975 – George Stevens, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1904)
1976 – Alfons Rebane, Estonian colonel (b. 1908)
1983 – Chabuca Granda, Peruvian-American singer-songwriter (b. 1920)
1983 – Alan Lennox-Boyd, 1st Viscount Boyd of Merton, English lieutenant and politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies (b. 1904)
1983 – William Walton, English composer (b. 1902)
1985 – Edward Andrews, American actor (b. 1914)
1988 – Amar Singh Chamkila, Indian singer-songwriter (b. 1961)
1988 – Werner Hartmann, German physicist and academic (b. 1912)
1991 – John Bellairs, American author and academic (b. 1938)
1993 – Billy Eckstine, American trumpet player (b. 1914)
1996 – Jack Churchill, British colonel (b. 1906)
1997 – Gershon Liebman, French rabbi (b. 1905)
1998 – Ray Nitschke, American football player and actor (b. 1936)
1999 – Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentinian journalist and author (b. 1914)
1999 – Peggy Cass, American actress and comedian (b. 1924)
1999 – Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player and coach (b. 1914)
2001 – Edward Winter, American actor (b. 1937)
2003 – Adam Faith, English singer (b. 1940)
2003 – Karen Morley, American actress (b. 1909)
2004 – Muhammad Zaidan, Syrian terrorist, founded the Palestine Liberation Front (b. 1948)
2005 – César Lattes, Brazilian physicist and academic (b. 1924)
2005 – Aslan Maskhadov, Chechen commander and politician, 3rd President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (b. 1951)
2007 – John Inman, English actor (b. 1935)
2007 – John Vukovich, American baseball player and coach (b. 1947)
2009 – Hank Locklin, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1918)
2009 – Zbigniew Religa, Polish surgeon and politician, Polish Minister of Health (b. 1938)
2011 – Mike Starr, American bass player (b. 1966)
2012 – Simin Daneshvar, Iranian author and academic (b. 1921)
2012 – Minoru Mori, Japanese businessman, founded the Mori Art Museum (b. 1934)
2012 – Steven Rubenstein, American anthropologist and academic (b. 1962)
2013 – Haseeb Ahsan, Pakistani cricketer and manager (b. 1939)
2013 – John O’Connell, Irish journalist and politician, 17th Irish Minister of Health (b. 1927)
2013 – Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin, German soldier and publisher (b. 1922)
2014 – Leo Bretholz, Austrian-American Holocaust survivor and author (b. 1921)
2014 – William Guarnere, American sergeant (b. 1923)
2015 – Tjol Lategan, South African rugby player (b. 1925)
2015 – Sam Simon, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1955)
2016 – Aldo Ferrer, Argentinian economist and diplomat (b. 1927)
2016 – Ross Hannaford, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1950)
2016 – George Martin, English composer, conductor, and producer (b. 1926)
2018 – Kate Wilhelm, American author (b. 1928)
2019 – Marshall Brodien, American actor (b. 1934)
2019 – Cedrick Hardman, American football player and actor (b. 1948)
2020 – Max von Sydow, Swedish actor (b. 1929)

Holidays and observances on March 8

Christian feast day:
- Edward King (Church of England)
- Felix of Burgundy
- Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (the Church of England, The Episcopal Church (USA))
- John of God
- Philemon the actor
- March 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Canberra Day can fall, while March 14 is the latest; celebrated on the second Monday in March (Australian Capital Territory)
Earliest day on which Commonwealth Day can fall, while March 14 is the latest; celebrated on the second Monday in March (Commonwealth of Nations)
Earliest day on which Decoration Day can fall, while March 14 is the latest; celebrated on the second Wednesday in March (Liberia)
Earliest day on which Passion Sunday can fall, while April 17 is the latest; observed on the fifth Sunday of Lent (Christianity)
International Women’s Day, and its related observances:
- International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day

March 8 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

March 4- History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).
306 – Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia.
852 – Croatian Knez Trpimir I issues a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.
938 – Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, Prince of the Czechs.
1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of Germany.
1238 – The Battle of the Sit River is fought in the northern part of the present-day Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia between the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal during the Mongol invasion of Rus’.
1351 – Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam.
1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) is crowned King of Poland.
1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.
1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.
1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth.
1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter.
1665 – English King Charles II declares war on the Netherlands marking the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.
1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston.
1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect. The United States Bill of Rights is written and proposed to Congress.
1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.
1791 – The Constitutional Act of 1791 is introduced by the British House of Commons in London which envisages the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario).
1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state.
1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress.
1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America, becoming the first President to begin his presidency on March 4.
1804 – Castle Hill Rebellion: Irish convicts rebel against British colonial authority in the Colony of New South Wales.
1813 – Cyril VI of Constantinople is elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
1814 – Americans defeat British forces at the Battle of Longwoods between London, Ontario and Thamesville, near present-day Wardsville, Ontario.
1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated.
1848 – Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will later represent the first constitution of the Regno d’Italia.
1849 – President-Elect Zachary Taylor and Vice President-Elect Millard Fillmore did not take their respective oaths of office (they did so the following day), leading to the erroneous theory that outgoing President pro tempore of the United States Senate David Rice Atchison had assumed the role of acting president for one day.
1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the “Stars and Bars”) is adopted.
1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress.
1882 – Britain’s first electric trams run in east London.
1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 1,710 feet (520 m) long, is opened by the Duke of Rothesay, later King Edward VII.
1899 – Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metres (39 ft) wave that reaches up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300.
1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.
1909 – U.S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism to avoid the restriction of the U.S. Constitution’s Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C. Knox as U.S. Secretary of State.
1913 – First Balkan War: The Greek army engages the Turks at Bizani, resulting in victory two days later.
1913 – The United States Department of Labor is formed.
1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.
1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the 32nd President of the United States.
1933 – Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet.
1933 – The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure – Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates an authoritarian rule by decree.
1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands; the first large scale British Commando raid.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the south-west Pacific comes to an end.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of Fardykambos, one of the first major battles between the Greek Resistance and the occupying Royal Italian Army, begins. It ends on 6 March with the surrender of an entire Italian battalion and the liberation of the town of Grevena.
1944 – World War II: After the success of Big Week, the USAAF begins a daylight bombing campaign of Berlin.
1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.
1960 – The French freighter La Coubre explodes in Havana, Cuba, killing 100.
1962 – A Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7 crashes shortly after takeoff from Cameroon, killing 111 – the worst crash of a DC-7.
1966 – A Canadian Pacific Air Lines DC-8-43 explodes on landing at Tokyo International Airport, killing 64 people.
1966 – In an interview in the London Evening Standard, The Beatles’ John Lennon declares that the band is “more popular than Jesus now”.
1970 – French submarine Eurydice explodes underwater, resulting in the loss of the entire 57-man crew.
1974 – People magazine is published for the first time in the United States as People Weekly.
1976 – The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London by the British parliament.
1977 – The 1977 Vrancea earthquake in eastern and southern Europe kills more than 1,500, mostly in Bucharest, Romania.
1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister.
1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States.
1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley’s Comet and the first images of its nucleus.
1990 – American basketball player Hank Gathers dies after collapsing during the semifinals of a West Coast Conference Tournament game.
1996 – A derailed train in Weyauwega, Wisconsin (USA) causes the emergency evacuation of 2,300 people for 16 days.
1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.
2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA.
2002 – Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah-i-Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.
2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.
2012 – A series of explosions is reported at a munitions dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, killing at least 250 people.
2015 – At least 34 miners die in a suspected gas explosion at the Zasyadko coal mine in the rebel-held Donetsk region of Ukraine.
2018 – Former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, causing a diplomatic uproar that results in mass-expulsions of diplomats from all countries involved.
2019 – The Indian Attack submarine was spotted by the Pakistan Navy.
2020 – Former Daredevil Nik Wallenda is the first person to walk over the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua.

Births on March 4

895 – Liu Zhiyuan, founder of the Later Han Dynasty (d. 948)
977 – Al-Musabbihi, Fatimid historian and official (d. 1030)
1188 – Blanche of Castile, French queen consort (d. 1252)
1394 – Henry the Navigator, Portuguese explorer (d. 1460)
1484 – George, margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (d. 1543)
1492 – Francesco de Layolle, Italian organist and composer (d. 1540)
1502 – Elisabeth of Hesse, princess of Saxony (d. 1557)
1519 – Hindal Mirza, Mughal emperor (d. 1551)
1526 – Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon (d. 1596)
1602 – Kanō Tan’yū, Japanese painter (d. 1674)
1634 – Kazimierz Łyszczyński, Polish philosopher (d. 1689)
1651 – John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, English lawyer, jurist, and politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (d. 1716)
1655 – Fra Galgario, Italian painter (d. 1743)
1665 – Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, Swedish soldier (d. 1694)
1678 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1741)
1702 – Jack Sheppard, English criminal (d. 1724)
1706 – Lauritz de Thurah, Danish architect, designed the Hermitage Hunting Lodge and Gammel Holtegård (d. 1759)
1715 – James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave, English historian and politician (d. 1763)
1719 – George Pigot, 1st Baron Pigot, English politician (d. 1777)
1729 – Anne d’Arpajon, French wife of Philippe de Noailles (d. 1794)
1745 – Charles Dibdin, English actor, playwright, and composer (d. 1814)
1745 – Casimir Pulaski, Polish-American general (d. 1779)
1756 – Henry Raeburn, Scottish painter and educator (d. 1823)
1760 – William Payne, English painter (d. 1830)
1760 – Hugh Ronalds, British nurseryman who cultivated and documented 300 varieties of apples (d. 1833)
1769 – Muhammad Ali, Ottoman military leader and pasha (d. 1849)
1770 – Joseph Jacotot, French philosopher and academic (d. 1840)
1778 – Robert Emmet, Irish commander (d. 1803)
1781 – Rebecca Gratz, American educator and philanthropist (d. 1869)
1782 – Johann Rudolf Wyss, Swiss philosopher, author, and academic (d. 1830)
1792 – Isaac Lea, American conchologist, geologist, and publisher (d. 1886)
1793 – Karl Lachmann, German philologist and critic (d. 1851)
1814 – Napoleon Collins, Rear Admiral of the United States Navy during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War (d. 1875)
1817 – Edwards Pierrepont, American lawyer and politician, 34th United States Attorney General (d. 1892)
1820 – Francesco Bentivegna, Italian rebel leader (d. 1856)
1822 – Jules Antoine Lissajous, French mathematician and academic (d. 1880)
1823 – George Caron, Canadian businessman and politician (d. 1902)
1826 – August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein, German linguist, ethnographer, and theologian (d. 1907)
1826 – John Buford, American general (d. 1863)
1826 – Elme Marie Caro, French philosopher and academic (d. 1887)
1826 – Theodore Judah, American engineer, founded the Central Pacific Railroad (d. 1863)
1828 – Owen Wynne Jones, Welsh clergyman and poet (d. 1870)
1838 – Paul Lacôme, French pianist, cellist, and composer (d. 1920)
1847 – Carl Josef Bayer, Austrian chemist and academic (d. 1904)
1851 – Alexandros Papadiamantis, Greek author and poet (d. 1911)
1854 – Napier Shaw, English meteorologist and academic (d. 1945)
1856 – Alfred William Rich, English painter, author, and educator (d. 1921)
1861 – Arthur Cushman McGiffert, American theologian and author (d. 1933)
1862 – Jacob Robert Emden, Swiss astrophysicist and meteorologist (d. 1940)
1863 – R. I. Pocock, English zoologist and archaeologist (d. 1947)
1863 – John Henry Wigmore, American academic and jurist (d. 1943)
1864 – David W. Taylor, American admiral, architect, and engineer (d. 1940)
1866 – Eugène Cosserat, French mathematician and astronomer (d. 1931)
1867 – Jacob L. Beilhart, American activist, founded the Spirit Fruit Society (d. 1908)
1867 – Charles Pelot Summerall, senior United States Army officer (d. 1955)
1870 – Thomas Sturge Moore, English author and poet (d. 1944)
1871 – Boris Galerkin, Russian mathematician and engineer (d. 1945)
1873 – Guy Wetmore Carryl, American journalist and poet (d. 1904)
1873 – John H. Trumbull, American colonel and politician, 70th Governor of Connecticut (d. 1961)
1875 – Mihály Károlyi, Hungarian politician, President of the Hungary (d. 1955)
1875 – Enrique Larreta, Argentinian historian and author (d. 1961)
1876 – Léon-Paul Fargue, French poet and author (d. 1947)
1876 – Theodore Hardeen, Hungarian-American magician (d. 1945)
1877 – Alexander Goedicke, Russian pianist and composer (d. 1957)
1877 – Fritz Graebner, German geographer and ethnologist (d. 1934)
1877 – Garrett Morgan, African-American inventor (d. 1963)
1878 – Takeo Arishima, Japanese author and critic (d. 1923)
1878 – Egbert Van Alstyne, American pianist and songwriter (d. 1951)
1879 – Bernhard Kellermann, German author and poet (d. 1951)
1880 – Channing Pollock, American playwright and critic (d. 1946)
1881 – Todor Aleksandrov, Bulgarian educator and activist (d. 1924)
1881 – Thomas Sigismund Stribling, American lawyer and author (d. 1965)
1881 – Richard C. Tolman, American physicist and chemist (d. 1948)
1882 – Nicolae Titulescu, Romanian academic and politician, 61st Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs (d. 1941)
1883 – Maude Fealy, American actress and screenwriter (d. 1971)
1883 – Robert Emmett Keane, American actor (d. 1981)
1883 – Sam Langford, Canadian-American boxer (d. 1956)
1884 – Red Murray, American baseball player (d. 1958)
1884 – Lee Shumway, American actor (d. 1959)
1886 – Paul Bazelaire, French cellist and composer (d. 1958)
1888 – Rafaela Ottiano, Italian-American actress (d. 1942)
1888 – Jeff Pfeffer, American baseball player (d. 1972)
1888 – Emma Richter, German paleontologist (d. 1956)
1888 – Knute Rockne, American football player and coach (d. 1931)
1889 – Oscar Chisini, Italian mathematician and statistician (d. 1967)
1889 – Oren E. Long, American soldier and politician, 10th Territorial Governor of Hawaii (d. 1965)
1889 – Pearl White, American actress (d. 1938)
1889 – Robert William Wood, English-American painter (d. 1979)
1890 – Norman Bethune, Canadian soldier and physician (d. 1939)
1891 – Dazzy Vance, American baseball player (d. 1961)
1893 – Charles Herbert Colvin, American engineer, co-founded the Pioneer Instrument Company (d. 1985)
1893 – Adolph Lowe, German sociologist and economist (d. 1995)
1894 – Charles Corm, Lebanese businessman and philanthropist (d. 1963)
1895 – Milt Gross, American animator, director, and screenwriter (d. 1953)
1896 – Kai Holm, Danish actor and director (d. 1985)
1897 – Lefty O’Doul, American baseball player and manager (d. 1969)
1898 – Georges Dumézil, French philologist and academic (d. 1986)
1898 – Hans Krebs, German general (d. 1945)
1899 – Peter Illing, Austrian born, British film and television actor (d. 1966)
1899 – Emilio Prados, Spanish poet and author (d. 1962)
1900 – Herbert Biberman, American director and screenwriter (d. 1971)
1901 – Wilbur R. Franks, Canadian scientist, invented the g-suit (d. 1986)
1901 – Charles Goren, American bridge player and author (d. 1991)
1901 – Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Malagasy-French author, poet, and playwright (d. 1937)
1902 – Rachel Messerer, Lithuanian-Russian actress (d. 1993)
1902 – Russell Reeder, American soldier and author (d. 1998)
1903 – William C. Boyd, American immunologist and chemist (d. 1983)
1903 – Malcolm Dole, American chemist and academic (d. 1990)
1903 – Dorothy Mackaill, English-American actress and singer (d. 1990)
1903 – John Scarne, American magician and author (d. 1985)
1904 – Luis Carrero Blanco, Spanish admiral and politician, 69th President of the Government of Spain (d. 1973)
1904 – George Gamow, Ukrainian-American physicist and cosmologist (d. 1968)
1904 – Joseph Schmidt, Austrian-Hungarian tenor and actor (d. 1942)
1906 – Meindert DeJong, Dutch-American soldier and author (d. 1991)
1906 – Avery Fisher, American violinist and engineer, founded Fisher Electronics (d. 1994)
1906 – Georges Ronsse, Belgian cyclist and manager (d. 1969)
1907 – Edgar Barrier, American actor (d. 1964)
1908 – T. R. M. Howard, American surgeon and activist (d. 1976)
1908 – Thomas Shaw, American singer and guitarist (d. 1977)
1909 – Harry Helmsley, American businessman (d. 1997)
1909 – George Edward Holbrook, American chemist and engineer (d. 1987)
1910 – Tancredo Neves, Brazilian lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of Brazil (d. 1985)
1911 – Charles Greville, 7th Earl of Warwick, English actor (d. 1984)
1912 – Afro Basaldella, Italian painter and academic (d. 1976)
1912 – Ferdinand Leitner, German conductor and composer (d. 1996)
1912 – Carl Marzani, Italian-American activist and publisher (d. 1994)
1913 – Taos Amrouche, Algerian singer and author (d. 1976)
1913 – John Garfield, American actor and singer (d. 1952)
1914 – Barbara Newhall Follett, American author (d. 1939)
1914 – Ward Kimball, American animator, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2002)
1914 – Robert R. Wilson, American physicist, sculptor, and architect (d. 2000)
1915 – László Csatáry, Hungarian art dealer (d. 2013)
1915 – Frank Sleeman, Australian lieutenant and politician, Lord Mayor of Brisbane (d. 2000)
1915 – Carlos Surinach, Spanish-Catalan composer and conductor (d. 1997)
1916 – William Alland, American actor, director, and producer (d. 1997)
1916 – Giorgio Bassani, Italian author and poet (d. 2000)
1916 – Hans Eysenck, German-English psychologist and theorist (d. 1997)
1917 – Clyde McCullough, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 1982)
1918 – Kurt Dahlmann, German pilot, lawyer, and journalist (d. 2017)
1918 – Margaret Osborne duPont, American tennis player (d. 2012)
1919 – Buck Baker, American race car driver (d. 2002)
1919 – Tan Chee Khoon, Malaysian physician and politician (d. 1996)
1920 – Jean Lecanuet, French politician, French Minister of Justice (d. 1993)
1920 – Alan MacNaughtan, Scottish-English actor (d. 2002)
1921 – Halim El-Dabh, Egyptian-American composer and educator (d. 2017)
1921 – Joan Greenwood, English actress (d. 1987)
1921 – Dinny Pails, English-Australian tennis player (d. 1986)
1922 – Richard E. Cunha, American director and cinematographer (d. 2005)
1922 – Dina Pathak, Indian actor and director (d. 2002)
1923 – Russell Freeburg, American journalist and author
1923 – Francis King, English author and poet (d. 2011)
1923 – Patrick Moore, English astronomer and television host (d. 2012)
1924 – Kenneth O’Donnell, American soldier and politician (d. 1977)
1925 – Alan R. Battersby, English chemist and academic (d. 2018)
1925 – Paul Mauriat, French conductor and composer (d. 2006)
1926 – Henri de Contenson, French archaeologist and academic (d. 2019)
1926 – Prince Michel of Bourbon-Parma, French businessman, soldier and race car driver (d. 2018)
1926 – Richard DeVos, American businessman and philanthropist, co-founded Amway (d. 2018)
1926 – Pascual Pérez, Argentinian boxer (d. 1977)
1926 – Don Rendell, English saxophonist and flute player (d. 2015)
1927 – Phil Batt, American soldier and politician, 29th Governor of Idaho
1927 – Thayer David, American actor (d. 1978)
1927 – Jacques Dupin, French poet and critic (d. 2012)
1927 – Robert Orben, American magician and author
1927 – Dick Savitt, American tennis player and businessman
1928 – Samuel Adler, German-American composer and conductor
1928 – Alan Sillitoe, English novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet (d. 2010)
1929 – Bernard Haitink, Dutch violinist and conductor
1929 – Peter Swerling, American theoretician and engineer (d. 2000)
1931 – Wally Bruner, American journalist and television host (d. 1997)
1931 – Bob Johnson, American ice hockey player and coach (d. 1991)
1931 – William Henry Keeler, American cardinal (d. 2017)
1931 – Alice Rivlin, American economist and politician (d. 2019)
1932 – Sigurd Jansen, Norwegian pianist, composer, and conductor
1932 – Ryszard Kapuściński, Polish journalist, photographer, and poet (d. 2007)
1932 – Miriam Makeba, South African singer-songwriter and actress (d. 2008)
1932 – Ed Roth, American illustrator (d. 2001)
1932 – Frank Wells, American businessman (d. 1994)
1933 – Nino Vaccarella, Italian race car driver
1934 – Mario Davidovsky, Argentinian-American composer and academic (d. 2019)
1934 – John Duffey, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1996)
1934 – Anne Haney, American actress (d. 2001)
1934 – Barbara McNair, American singer and actress (d. 2007)
1934 – Sandra Reynolds, South African tennis player
1934 – Janez Strnad, Slovenian physicist and academic (d. 2015)
1935 – Edward Dębicki, Ukrainian-Polish poet and composer
1935 – Bent Larsen, Danish chess player and author (d. 2010)
1936 – Eric Allandale, Dominican trombonist and songwriter (d. 2001)
1936 – Jim Clark, Scottish race car driver (d. 1968)
1936 – Aribert Reimann, German pianist and composer
1937 – José Araquistáin, Spanish footballer
1937 – William Deverell, Canadian lawyer, author, and activist
1937 – Graham Dowling, New Zealand cricketer
1937 – Leslie H. Gelb, American journalist and author (d. 2019)
1937 – Yuri Senkevich, Russian physician and explorer (d. 2003)
1937 – Barney Wilen, French saxophonist and composer (d. 1996)
1937 – Richard B. Wright, Canadian journalist and author (d. 2017)
1938 – Anton Balasingham, Sri Lankan-English negotiator (d. 2006)
1938 – Alpha Condé, Guinean politician, President of Guinea
1938 – Allan Kornblum, American police officer and judge (d. 2010)
1938 – Angus MacLise, American drummer and composer (d. 1979)
1938 – Don Perkins, American football player and sportscaster
1938 – Paula Prentiss, American actress
1938 – Adam Daniel Rotfeld, Polish academic and politician, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs
1939 – Jack Fisher, American baseball player
1939 – Robert Shaye, American film producer
1940 – Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, German scholar and judge
1940 – David Plante, American novelist
1941 – John Hancock, American film and television actor (d. 1992)
1941 – Adrian Lyne, English director, producer, and screenwriter
1941 – James Zagel, American lawyer and judge
1942 – Gloria Gaither, American singer-songwriter
1942 – Charles C. Krulak, American general
1942 – David Matthews, American keyboard player and composer
1942 – Lynn Sherr, American journalist and author
1942 – James Gustave Speth, American lawyer and politician
1942 – Zorán Sztevanovity, Serbian-Hungarian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1943 – Lucio Dalla, Italian singer-songwriter and actor (d. 2012)
1943 – Aldo Rico, Argentinian commander and politician
1944 – Harvey Postlethwaite, English engineer (d. 1999)
1944 – Anthony Ichiro Sanda, Japanese-American physicist and academic
1944 – Len Walker, English footballer and manager
1944 – Bobby Womack, American singer-songwriter (d. 2014)
1945 – Tommy Svensson, Swedish footballer and manager
1945 – Gary Williams, American basketball player and coach
1946 – Michael Ashcroft, English businessman and politician
1946 – Danny Frisella, American baseball player (d. 1977)
1946 – Haile Gerima, Ethiopian born US filmmaker
1946 – Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, American journalist and author
1947 – David Franzoni, American screenwriter and film producer
1947 – Jan Garbarek, Norwegian saxophonist and composer
1947 – Bob Lewis, American guitarist
1947 – Pēteris Plakidis, Latvian pianist and composer (d. 2017)
1948 – Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, New Zealand-Australian author
1948 – James Ellroy, American writer
1948 – Tom Grieve, American baseball player, manager, and sportscaster
1948 – Mike Moran, English musician, songwriter and record producer
1948 – Jean O’Leary, American nun and activist (d. 2005)
1948 – Chris Squire, English singer-songwriter and bass guitarist (d. 2015)
1948 – Shakin’ Stevens, British singer-songwriter
1949 – Sergei Bagapsh, Abkhazian politician, 2nd President of Abkhazia (d. 2011)
1949 – Carroll Baker, Canadian singer-songwriter
1950 – Ofelia Medina, Mexican actress and screenwriter
1950 – Rick Perry, American captain and politician, 47th Governor of Texas
1950 – Safet Plakalo, Bosnian author and playwright (d. 2015)
1951 – Edelgard Bulmahn, German educator and politician, German Federal Minister of Education and Research
1951 – Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, South Korean-American author, director, and producer (d. 1982)
1951 – Kenny Dalglish, Scottish footballer and manager
1951 – Pete Haycock, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013)
1951 – Peter O’Sullivan, Welsh international footballer, winger
1951 – Sam Perlozzo, American baseball player and manager
1951 – Chris Rea, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1951 – Glenis Willmott, English scientist and politician
1951 – Zoran Žižić, Montenegrin politician, 4th Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (d. 2013)
1952 – Peter Kuhfeld, English painter
1952 – Ronn Moss, American singer-songwriter and actor
1952 – Svend Robinson, American-Canadian lawyer and politician
1952 – Umberto Tozzi, Italian singer-songwriter and producer
1953 – John Edwards, Australian director and producer
1953 – Emilio Estefan, Cuban-American drummer and producer
1953 – Paweł Janas, Polish footballer and manager
1953 – Ray Price, Australian rugby player and sportscaster
1953 – Reinhold Roth, German motorcycle racer
1953 – Chris Smith, American lawyer and politician
1953 – Agustí Villaronga, Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter
1953 – Daniel Woodrell, American novelist and short story writer
1954 – Timur Apakidze, Russian general and pilot (d. 2001)
1954 – Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Korean American author (d. 1982)
1954 – François Fillon, French lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of France
1954 – Peter Jacobsen, American golfer and sportscaster
1954 – Catherine O’Hara, Canadian-American actress and comedian
1954 – Irina Ratushinskaya, Russian poet and author (d. 2017)
1955 – Tim Costello, Australian minister and politician
1955 – Joey Jones, Welsh footballer and manager
1957 – Nicholas Coleridge, English journalist and businessman
1957 – Ron Fassler, American film and television actor and author
1957 – Mykelti Williamson, American actor and director
1958 – Patricia Heaton, American actress
1958 – Massimo Mascioletti, Italian rugby player and coach
1958 – Tina Smith, American politician, junior senator of Minnesota
1959 – Rick Ardon, Australian journalist
1959 – Plamen Getov, Bulgarian footballer
1960 – Chonda Pierce, American comedian
1961 – Ray Mancini, American boxer
1961 – Steven Weber, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1961 – Roger Wessels, South African golfer and educator
1962 – Simon Bisley, English author and illustrator
1962 – Paul Canoville, English footballer
1962 – Stephan Reimertz, German historian and author
1963 – Jason Newsted, American heavy metal singer-songwriter and bass player
1964 – Dave Colclough, Welsh computer programmer and poker player (d. 2016)
1964 – Brian Crowley, Irish lawyer and politician
1964 – Tom Lampkin, American baseball player and sportscaster
1964 – Paolo Virzì, Italian director and screenwriter
1965 – Greg Alexander, Australian rugby league player and sportscaster
1965 – Paul W. S. Anderson, English director, producer, and screenwriter
1965 – Andrew Collins, English journalist and screenwriter
1965 – Khaled Hosseini, Afghan-born American novelist
1965 – Yury Lonchakov, Russian colonel, pilot, and astronaut
1965 – John Murphy British film composer
1966 – Emese Hunyady, Hungarian speed skater
1966 – Kevin Johnson, American basketball player and politician, 55th Mayor of Sacramento
1966 – Fiona Ma, American accountant and politician
1966 – Helmut Mayer, Austrian skier
1966 – Glen Nissen, Australian rugby league player
1966 – Dav Pilkey, American author and illustrator
1966 – Grand Puba, American rapper
1966 – Mike Small, American golfer and coach
1967 – Daryll Cullinan, South African cricketer and coach
1967 – Evan Dando, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1967 – Ivan Lewis, English lawyer and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
1967 – Terry Matterson, Australian rugby league player and coach
1967 – Dave Rayner, English cyclist (d. 1994)
1967 – Sam Taylor-Johnson, English filmmaker and photographer
1967 – Kubilay Türkyilmaz, Swiss footballer
1967 – Tim Vine, English comedian, actor, and author
1968 – Giovanni Carrara, Venezuelan baseball player
1968 – Jorge Celedón, Colombian singer
1968 – Patsy Kensit, English model and actress
1968 – Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greek banker and politician, Prime Minister of Greece
1968 – Graham Westley, English footballer and manager
1969 – Pierluigi Casiraghi, Italian footballer and manager
1969 – Wayne Collins, English footballer, midfielder
1969 – Annie Yi, Taiwanese singer, actress, and writer
1970 – Àlex Crivillé, Spanish motorcycle racer
1970 – Will Keen, English actor
1970 – Caroline Vis, Dutch tennis player
1971 – Iain Baird, Canadian soccer player and manager
1971 – Claire Baker, Scottish politician
1971 – Emily Bazelon, American journalist
1971 – Jason Croot, English actor and director
1971 – Anders Kjølholm, Danish bass player
1971 – Satoshi Motoyama, Japanese race car driver
1971 – Geraldine O’Rawe, Northern Irish actress
1972 – Katherine Center, American journalist and author
1972 – Nocturno Culto, Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1972 – Robert Smith, American football player and sportscaster
1972 – Ivy Queen, Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, rapper, actress and record producer
1972 – Jos Verstappen, Dutch race car driver
1972 – Alison Wheeler, English singer-songwriter
1973 – Massimo Brambilla, Italian footballer and coach
1973 – Phillip Daniels, American football player and coach
1973 – Valery Kobelev, Russian ski jumper
1973 – Penny Mordaunt, English lieutenant and politician, Minister of State for the Armed Forces
1973 – Linus of Hollywood, American singer-songwriter and producer
1973 – Len Wiseman, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1973 – Chandra Sekhar Yeleti, Indian director and screenwriter
1974 – Crowbar, American wrestler
1974 – Mladen Krstajić, Serbian footballer and manager
1974 – Karol Kučera, Slovak tennis player
1974 – Ariel Ortega, Argentinian footballer
1974 – Tommy Phelps, South Korean-American baseball player and coach
1974 – ICS Vortex, Norwegian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1974 – David Wagner, American tennis player and educator
1974 – Bill Young, Australian rugby player
1975 – Mats Eilertsen, Norwegian bassist and composer
1975 – Patrick Femerling, German basketball player
1975 – Antti Aalto, Finnish ice hockey player
1975 – Kristi Harrower, Australian basketball player
1975 – Hawksley Workman, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1976 – Robbie Blake, English footballer
1976 – Tommy Jönsson, Swedish footballer
1977 – Nacho Figueras, Argentinian polo player and model
1977 – Traver Rains, American fashion designer and photographer
1978 – Pierre Dagenais, Canadian ice hockey player
1978 – Denis Dallan, Italian rugby player and singer
1978 – Jean-Marc Pelletier, American ice hockey player
1979 – Sarah Stock, Canadian wrestler and trainer
1980 – Rohan Bopanna, Indian tennis player
1980 – Omar Bravo, Mexican footballer
1980 – Suzanna Choffel, American singer-songwriter
1980 – Giedrius Gustas, Lithuanian basketball player
1980 – Scott Hamilton, New Zealand rugby player and coach
1980 – Jack Hannahan, American baseball player
1980 – Michael Henrich, American ice hockey player
1980 – Phil McGuire, Scottish footballer and manager
1980 – Aja Volkman, American singer-songwriter
1981 – Ariza Makukula, Portuguese footballer
1981 – Helen Wyman, English cyclist
1982 – Landon Donovan, American soccer player and coach
1982 – Cate Edwards, American lawyer and author
1982 – Ludmila Ezhova, Russian gymnast
1982 – Yasemin Mori, Turkish singer
1983 – Samuel Contesti, French-Italian figure skater
1983 – Adam Deacon, English film actor, rapper, writer and director
1983 – Jaque Fourie, South African rugby player
1983 – Drew Houston, American billionaire and Internet entrepreneur
1984 – Josh Bowman, English actor
1984 – Tamir Cohen, Israeli footballer
1984 – Anders Grøndal, Norwegian race car driver
1984 – Spencer Larsen, American football player
1984 – Jeremy Loops, South African singer-songwriter and record producer
1984 – Raven Quinn, American singer-songwriter
1984 – Zak Whitbread, American-English footballer
1985 – Jake Buxton, English footballer
1985 – Chinedum Ndukwe, American football player
1985 – Whitney Port, American fashion designer and author
1986 – Steven Burke, English road and track cyclist
1986 – Tom De Mul, Belgian footballer
1986 – Mike Krieger, Brazilian-American computer programmer and businessman, co-founded Instagram
1986 – Siim Roops, Estonian footballer
1986 – Bohdan Shust, Ukrainian footballer
1986 – Manu Vatuvei, New Zealand rugby league player
1986 – Margo Harshman, American actress
1987 – Ben McKinley, Australian footballer
1987 – Cameron Wood, Australian footballer
1987 – Tamzin Merchant, English actress
1988 – Gal Mekel, Israeli basketball player
1988 – Laura Siegemund, German tennis player
1988 – Adam Watts, English footballer
1989 – Benjamin Kiplagat, Ugandan long-distance runner
1990 – Andrea Bowen, American actress
1990 – Draymond Green, American basketball player
1990 – Paddy Madden, Irish footballer
1990 – Fran Mérida, Spanish footballer
1992 – Nick Castellanos, American baseball player
1992 – Erik Lamela, Argentinian international footballer, midfielder
1992 – Bernd Leno, German footballer
1992 – Karl Mööl, Estonian footballer
1993 – Bobbi Kristina Brown, American singer and actress (d. 2015)
1993 – Richard Peniket, English footballer
1994 – Callum Harriott, English footballer
1994 – AJ Tracey, British hip-hop artist and record producer
1995 – Chlöe Howl, British singer-songwriter
1995 – Bill Milner, English actor
1996 – Lukas Webb, Australian rules footballer
2002 – Jacob Hopkins, American actor

Deaths on March 4

306 – Adrian and Natalia of Nicomedia, Christian martyrs
480 – Landry of Sées, French bishop and saint
561 – Pelagius I, pope of the Catholic Church
934 – Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah, Fatimid caliph (b. 873)
1172 – Stephen III, king of Hungary (b. 1147)
1193 – Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid Sultanate (b. 1137)
1238 – Joan of England, queen of Scotland (b. 1210)
1238 – Yuri II, Russian Grand Prince (b. 1189)
1303 – Daniel of Moscow, Russian Grand Duke (b. 1261)
1314 – Jakub Świnka, Polish priest and archbishop
1371 – Jeanne d’Évreux, queen consort of France (b. 1310)
1388 – Thomas Usk, English author
1484 – Saint Casimir, Polish prince (b. 1458)
1496 – Sigismund, archduke of Austria (b. 1427)
1583 – Bernard Gilpin, English priest and theologian (b. 1517)
1604 – Fausto Sozzini, Italian theologian and educator (b. 1539)
1615 – Hans von Aachen, German painter and educator (b. 1552)
1710 – Louis III, duke of Bourbon (b. 1668)
1733 – Claude de Forbin, French admiral and politician (b. 1656)
1744 – John Anstis, English historian and politician (b. 1669)
1762 – Johannes Zick, German painter (b. 1702)
1793 – Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre (b. 1725)
1795 – John Collins, American politician, 3rd Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1717)
1805 – Jean-Baptiste Greuze, French painter (b. 1725)
1807 – Abraham Baldwin, American minister, lawyer, and politician (b. 1754)
1811 – Mariano Moreno, Argentinian journalist, lawyer, and politician (b. 1778)
1832 – Jean-François Champollion, French philologist and scholar (b. 1790)
1851 – James Richardson, English explorer (b. 1809)
1852 – Nikolai Gogol, Ukrainian-Russian short story writer, novelist, and playwright (b. 1809)
1853 – Thomas Bladen Capel, English admiral (b. 1776)
1853 – Christian Leopold von Buch, German geologist and paleontologist (b. 1774)
1858 – Matthew C. Perry, American naval commander (b. 1794)
1864 – Thomas Starr King, American minister and politician (b. 1824)
1866 – Alexander Campbell, Irish-American minister and theologian (b. 1788)
1872 – Carsten Hauch, Danish poet and playwright (b. 1790)
1883 – Alexander H. Stephens, American lawyer and politician, Vice President of the Confederate States of America (b. 1812)
1888 – Amos Bronson Alcott, American philosopher and educator (b. 1799)
1903 – Joseph Henry Shorthouse, English author (b. 1834)
1906 – John Schofield, American general and politician, 28th United States Secretary of War (b. 1831)
1915 – William Willett, English inventor, founded British Summer Time (b. 1856)
1916 – Franz Marc, German painter (b. 1880)
1925 – Moritz Moszkowski, Polish-German pianist and composer (b. 1854)
1925 – James Ward, English psychologist and philosopher (b. 1843)
1925 – John Montgomery Ward, American baseball player and manager (b. 1860)
1927 – Ira Remsen, American chemist and academic (b. 1846)
1938 – George Foster Peabody, American banker and philanthropist (b. 1852)
1938 – Jack Taylor, American baseball player (b. 1874)
1940 – Hamlin Garland, American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer (b. 1860)
1941 – Ludwig Quidde, German activist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1858)
1944 – Fannie Barrier Williams, American educator and activist (b. 1855)
1944 – Louis Buchalter, American mob boss (b. 1897)
1944 – Louis Capone, Italian-American gangster (b. 1896)
1944 – René Lefebvre, French businessman (b. 1879)
1945 – Lucille La Verne, American actress (b. 1872)
1945 – Mark Sandrich, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1900)
1948 – Antonin Artaud, French actor and director (b. 1896)
1949 – Clarence Kingsbury, English cyclist (b. 1882)
1952 – Charles Scott Sherrington, English neurophysiologist and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1857)
1954 – Noel Gay, English composer and songwriter (b. 1898)
1960 – Herbert O’Conor, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 51st Governor of Maryland (b. 1896)
1963 – William Carlos Williams, American poet, short story writer, and essayist (b. 1883)
1969 – Nicholas Schenck, Russian-American businessman (b. 1881)
1972 – Harold Barrowclough, New Zealand general, lawyer, and politician, 8th Chief Justice of New Zealand (b. 1894)
1972 – Charles Biro, American author and illustrator (b. 1911)
1974 – Adolph Gottlieb, American painter and sculptor (b. 1903)
1976 – John Marvin Jones, American judge and politician (b. 1882)
1976 – Walter H. Schottky, Swiss-German physicist and engineer (b. 1886)
1977 – Anatol E. Baconsky, Romanian poet, author, and critic (b. 1925)
1977 – Nancy Tyson Burbidge, Australian botanist and curator (b. 1912)
1977 – Andrés Caicedo, Colombian author, poet, and playwright (b. 1951)
1977 – William Paul, American lawyer and politician (b. 1885)
1977 – Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, German jurist and politician, German Minister for Foreign Affairs (b. 1887)
1978 – Wesley Bolin, American businessman and politician, 15th Governor of Arizona (b. 1909)
1978 – Joe Marsala, American clarinet player and songwriter (b. 1907)
1979 – Willi Unsoeld, American mountaineer and educator (b. 1926)
1980 – Alan Hardaker, English lieutenant and businessman (b. 1912)
1981 – Torin Thatcher, American actor (b. 1905)
1981 – Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer, German admiral (b. 1900)
1986 – Albert L. Lehninger, American biochemist and academic (b. 1917)
1986 – Richard Manuel, Canadian singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1943)
1986 – Elizabeth Smart, Canadian poet and author (b. 1913)
1987 – Seibo Kitamura, Japanese sculptor (b. 1884)
1988 – Beatriz Guido, Argentine author and screenwriter (b. 1924)
1989 – Tiny Grimes, American guitarist (b. 1916)
1990 – Hank Gathers, American basketball player (b. 1967)
1991 – Godfrey Bryan, English cricketer (b. 1902)
1992 – Art Babbitt, American animator and director (b. 1907)
1992 – Pare Lorentz, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1905)
1993 – Art Hodes, Ukrainian-American pianist and composer (b. 1904)
1993 – Tomislav Ivčić, Croatian singer-songwriter and politician (b. 1953)
1993 – Izaak Kolthoff, Dutch chemist and academic (b. 1894)
1993 – Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, English lieutenant and politician, Secretary of State for the Environment (b. 1929)
1994 – John Candy, Canadian comedian and actor (b. 1950)
1994 – George Edward Hughes, Irish-Scottish philosopher and author (b. 1918)
1995 – Matt Urban, American colonel, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1919)
1996 – Minnie Pearl, American entertainer (b. 1912)
1996 – John Sauer, American football player, coach, and sportscaster (b. 1925)
1997 – Joe Baker-Cresswell, English captain (b. 1901)
1997 – Robert H. Dicke, American physicist and astronomer (b. 1916)
1998 – Ivan Dougherty, Australian general (b. 1907)
1999 – Harry Blackmun, American lawyer and judge (b. 1908)
1999 – Del Close, American actor and educator (b. 1934)
1999 – Miłosz Magin, Polish pianist and composer (b. 1929)
2000 – Hermann Brück, German-Scottish physicist and astronomer (b. 1905)
2000 – Michael Noonan, New Zealand-Australian author and screenwriter (b. 1921)
2000 – Ta-You Wu, Chinese physicist and academic (b. 1907)
2001 – Gerardo Barbero, Argentinian chess player (b. 1961)
2001 – Jean René Bazaine, French painter and author (b. 1904)
2001 – Fred Lasswell, American cartoonist (b. 1916)
2001 – Jim Rhodes, American businessman and politician, 61st Governor of Ohio (b. 1909)
2001 – Harold Stassen, American educator and politician, 25th Governor of Minnesota (b. 1907)
2002 – Ugnė Karvelis, Lithuanian author and translator (b. 1935)
2002 – Elyne Mitchell, Australian skier and author (b. 1913)
2002 – Velibor Vasović, Serbian footballer and manager (b. 1939)
2003 – Jaba Ioseliani, Georgian playwright, academic, and politician (b. 1926)
2003 – Sébastien Japrisot, French author, screenwriter, and director (b. 1931)
2004 – Claude Nougaro, French singer-songwriter (b. 1929)
2005 – Nicola Calipari, Italian general (b. 1953)
2005 – Yuriy Kravchenko, Ukrainian police officer and politician (b. 1951)
2005 – Carlos Sherman, Uruguayan-Belarusian author and activist (b. 1934)
2006 – John Reynolds Gardiner, American author and engineer (b. 1944)
2006 – Edgar Valter, Estonian author and illustrator (b. 1929)
2007 – Thomas Eagleton, American lawyer and politician, 38th Lieutenant Governor of Missouri (b. 1929)
2007 – Tadeusz Nalepa, Polish singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1934)
2007 – Ian Wooldridge, English journalist (b. 1932)
2008 – Gary Gygax, American game designer, co-created Dungeons & Dragons (b. 1938)
2008 – Leonard Rosenman, American composer and conductor (b. 1924)
2009 – Yvon Cormier, Canadian wrestler (b. 1938)
2009 – Horton Foote, American playwright and screenwriter (b. 1916)
2009 – George McAfee, American football player (b. 1918)
2010 – Raimund Abraham, Austrian architect and educator, designed the Austrian Cultural Forum New York (b. 1933)
2010 – Johnny Alf, Brazilian pianist and composer (b. 1929)
2010 – Vladislav Ardzinba, Abkhazian historian and politician, 1st President of Abkhazia (b. 1945)
2010 – Fred Wedlock, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1942)
2011 – Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, Nepalese journalist and politician, 29th Prime Minister of Nepal (b. 1924)
2011 – Vivienne Harris, English journalist and publisher, co-founded the Jewish Telegraph (b. 1921)
2011 – Ed Manning, American basketball player and coach (b. 1943)
2011 – Arjun Singh, Indian politician (b. 1930)
2011 – Alenush Terian, Iranian astronomer and physicist (b. 1920)
2011 – Simon van der Meer, Dutch-Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1925)
2012 – Paul McBride, Scottish lawyer and politician (b. 1965)
2012 – Don Mincher, American baseball player (b. 1938)
2013 – Lillian Cahn, Hungarian-American businesswoman, co-founded Coach, Inc. (b. 1923)
2013 – Mickey Moore, Canadian-American actor and director (b. 1914)
2013 – Toren Smith, Canadian businessman, founded Studio Proteus (b. 1960)
2014 – Mark Freidkin, Russian author and poet (b. 1953)
2014 – Elaine Kellett-Bowman, English lawyer and politician (b. 1923)
2014 – Jack Kinzler, American engineer (b. 1920)
2014 – Wu Tianming, Chinese director and producer (b. 1939)
2015 – Dušan Bilandžić, Croatian historian and politician (b. 1924)
2015 – Ray Hatton, English-American runner, author, and academic (b. 1932)
2016 – Bud Collins, American journalist and sportscaster (b. 1929)
2016 – Pat Conroy, American author (b. 1945)
2016 – P. A. Sangma, Indian lawyer and politician, Speaker of the Lok Sabha (b. 1947)
2016 – Zhou Xiaoyan, Chinese soprano and educator (b. 1917)
2017 – Clayton Yeutter, American politician (b. 1930)
2018 – Davide Astori, Italian soccer player (b. 1987)
2019 – Keith Flint, English singer (The Prodigy) (b. 1969)
2019 – Luke Perry, American actor (b. 1966)
2020 – Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Peruvian politician and diplomat

Holidays and observances on March 4

Christian feast day:
- Adrian of Nicomedia
- Casimir
- Felix of Rhuys
- Giovanni Antonio Farina (Catholic Church)
- Blessed Humbert III, Count of Savoy (Roman Catholic Church)
- Paul Cuffee (Episcopal Church)
- Peter of Pappacarbone
- Blessed Zoltán Meszlényi
- March 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
St Casimir’s Day (Poland and Lithuania)

March 4- History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

February 29 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

February 29, also known as leap day or leap year day, is a date added to most years that are divisible by 4, such as 2016, 2020, and 2024. A leap day is added in various solar calendars (calendars based on the Earth’s revolution around the Sun), including the Gregorian calendar standard in most of the world. Lunisolar calendars (whose months are based on the phases of the Moon) instead add a leap or intercalary month

In the Gregorian calendar, years that are divisible by 100, but not by 400, do not contain a leap day. Thus, 1700, 1800, and 1900 did not contain a leap day; neither will 2100, 2200, and 2300. Conversely, 1600 and 2000 did and 2400 will. Years containing a leap day are called leap years. Years not containing a leap day are called common years. In the Chinese calendar, this day will only occur in years of the monkey, dragon, and rat.

A leap day is observed because the Earth’s period of orbital revolution around the Sun takes approximately six hours longer than 365 whole days. A leap day compensates for this lag, realigning the calendar with the Earth’s position in the Solar System; otherwise, seasons would occur later than intended in the calendar year. The Julian calendar used in Christendom until the 16th century added a leap day every four years; but this rule adds too many days (roughly three every 400 years), making the equinoxes and solstices shift gradually to earlier dates. By the 16th century the vernal equinox had drifted to March 11, so the Gregorian calendar was introduced both to shift it back by omitting several days, and to reduce the number of leap years via the aforementioned century rule to keep the equinoxes more or less fixed and the date of Easter consistently close to the vernal equinox.

Leap days can present a particular problem in computing known as the leap year bug when February 29 is not handled correctly in logic that accepts or manipulates dates. For example, this has happened with ATMs and Microsoft’s cloud system Azure.

Leap years

Although most modern calendar years have 365 days, a complete revolution around the Sun (one solar year) takes approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds (or, for simplicity’s sake, approximately 365 days and 6 hours, or 365.25 days) .An extra 23 hours, 15 minutes, and 4 seconds thus accumulates every four years (again, for simplicity’s sake, approximately an extra 24 hours, or 1 day, every four years), requiring that an extra calendar day be added to align the calendar with the Sun’s apparent position. Without the added day, in future years the seasons would occur later in the calendar, eventually leading to confusion about when to undertake activities dependent on weather, ecology, or hours of daylight.

Solar years are actually slightly shorter than 365 days and 6 hours (365.25 days), which had been known since the 2nd century BC when Hipparchus stated that it lasted 365 + 1/4 − 1/300 days, but this was ignored by Julius Caesar and his astronomical adviser Sosigenes. The Gregorian calendar corrected this by adopting the length of the tropical year stated in three medieval sources, the Alfonsine tables, De Revolutionibus, and the Prutenic Tables, truncated to two sexagesimal places, 365 14/60 33/3600 days or 365 + 1/4 − 3/400 days or 365.2425 days. The length of the tropical year in 2000 was 365.24217 mean solar daysAdding a calendar day every four years, therefore, results in an excess of around 44 minutes every four years, or about 3 days every 400 years. To compensate for this, three days are removed every 400 years. The Gregorian calendar reform implements this adjustment by making an exception to the general rule that there is a leap year every four years. Instead, a year divisible by 100 is not a leap year unless that year is also divisible by 400. This means that the years 1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years, while the years 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300, and 2500 are not leap years.

Modern (Gregorian) calendar

The Gregorian calendar repeats itself every 400 years, which is exactly 20,871 weeks including 97 leap days (146,097 days). Over this period, February 29 falls on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday 13 times; Friday and Saturday 14 times; and Monday and Wednesday 15 times. Except for a century mark that is not a multiple of 400, consecutive leap days fall in order Sunday, Friday, Wednesday, Monday, Saturday, Thursday, Tuesday, and repeats again.

Early Roman calendar

Adding a leap day (after 23 February) shifts the commemorations in the 1962 Roman Missal.

The calendar of the Roman king Numa Pompilius had only 355 days (even though it was not a lunar calendar) which meant that it would quickly become unsynchronized with the solar year. An earlier Roman solution to this problem was to lengthen the calendar periodically by adding extra days to February, the last month of the year. February consisted of two parts, each with an odd number of days. The first part ended with the Terminalia on the 23rd, which was considered the end of the religious year, and the five remaining days formed the second part. To keep the calendar year roughly aligned with the solar year, a leap month, called Mensis Intercalaris (“intercalary month”), was added from time to time between these two parts of February. The (usual) second part of February was incorporated in the intercalary month as its last five days, with no change either in their dates or the festivals observed on them. This followed naturally because the days after the Ides (13th) of February (in an ordinary year) or the Ides of Intercalaris (in an intercalary year) both counted down to the Kalends of March (i.e. they were known as “the nth day before the Kalends of March”). The Nones (5th) and Ides of Intercalaris occupied their normal positions.

The third-century writer Censorinus says:

When it was thought necessary to add (every two years) an intercalary month of 22 or 23 days, so that the civil year should correspond to the natural (solar) year, this intercalation was in preference made in February, between Terminalia [23rd]and Regifugium [24th].

Julian reform

The set leap day was introduced in Rome as a part of the Julian reform in the 1st century BCE. As before, the intercalation was made after February 23. The day following the Terminalia (February 23) was doubled, forming the “bis sextum“—literally ‘twice sixth’, since February 24 was ‘the sixth day before the Kalends of March’ using Roman inclusive counting (March 1 was the Kalends of March and was also the first day of the calendar year). Inclusive counting initially caused the Roman priests to add the extra day every three years instead of four; Augustus was compelled to omit leap years for a few decades to return the calendar to its proper position. Although there were exceptions, the first day of the bis sextum (February 24) was usually regarded as the intercalated or “bissextile” day since the 3rd century CE. February 29 came to be regarded as the leap day when the Roman system of numbering days was replaced by sequential numbering in the late Middle Ages, although this has only been formally enacted in Sweden and Finland. In Britain, the extra day added to leap years remains notionally the 24th, although the 29th remains more visible on the calendar.

Born on February 29

A person born on February 29 may be called a “leapling”, a “leaper”, or a “leap-year baby”. Some leaplings celebrate their birthday in non-leap years on either February 28 or March 1, while others only observe birthdays on the authentic intercalary date, February 29.

Legal status: The effective legal date of a leapling’s birthday in non-leap years varies between jurisdictions.

In the United Kingdom and its former colony Hong Kong, when a person born on February 29 turns 18, they are considered to have their birthday on March 1 in the relevant year.

In New Zealand, a person born on February 29 is deemed to have their birthday on February 28 in non-leap years, for the purposes of Driver Licensing under §2(2) of the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Rule 1999. The net result is that for drivers aged 75, or over 80, their driver licence expires at the end of the last day of February, even though their birthday would otherwise fall on the first day in March in non-leap years. Otherwise, New Zealand legislation is silent on when a person born on February 29 has their birthday, although case law would suggest that age is computed based on the number of years elapsed, from the day after the date of birth, and that the person’s birth day then occurs on the last day of the year period. This differs from English common law where a birthday is considered to be the start of the next year, the preceding year ending at midnight on the day preceding the birthday. While a person attains the same age on the same day, it also means that, in New Zealand, if something must be done by the time a person attains a certain age, that thing can be done on the birthday that they attain that age and still be lawful.

In Taiwan, the legal birthday of a leapling is February 28 in common years:

If a period fixed by weeks, months, and years does not commence from the beginning of a week, month, or year, it ends with the ending of the day which proceeds the day of the last week, month, or year which corresponds to that on which it began to commence. But if there is no corresponding day in the last month, the period ends with the ending of the last day of the last month.

Thus, in England and Wales or in Hong Kong, a person born on February 29 will have legally reached 18 years old on March 1. If they were born in Taiwan they legally become 18 on February 28, a day earlier.

In the United States, according to John Reitz, a professor of law at the University of Iowa, there is no “… statute or general rule that has anything to do with leap day.” Reitz speculates that “March 1 would likely be considered the legal birthday in non-leap years of someone born on leap day,”using the same reasoning as described for the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. However, for the purposes of Social Security, a person attains the next age the day before the anniversary of birth. Therefore, Social Security would recognize February 28 as the change in age for leap year births, not March 1

In fiction

There are many instances in children’s literature where a person’s claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out to be based on counting only their leap-year birthdays.

A similar device is used in the plot of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance: as a child, Frederic was apprenticed to a band of pirates until his 21st birthday. Having passed his 21st year, he leaves the pirate band and falls in love. However, since he was born on February 29, his 21st birthday will not arrive until he is eighty-eight (since 1900 was not a leap year), so he must leave his fiancée and return to the pirates.

Since 1967, February 29 has been the official birthday of Superman, but not Clark Kent.

February 29 in History

1504 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Jamaican natives to provide him with supplies.
1644 – Abel Tasman’s second Pacific voyage begins.
1704 – Queen Anne’s War: French forces and Native Americans stage a raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts Bay Colony, killing 56 villagers and taking more than 100 captive.
1712 – February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Julian calendar.
1720 – Ulrika Eleonora, Queen of Sweden abdicates in favour of her husband, who becomes King Frederick I on March 24.
1752 – King Alaungpaya founds Konbaung Dynasty, the last dynasty of Burmese monarchy.
1768 – Polish nobles form the Bar Confederation.
1796 – The Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain comes into force, facilitating ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.
1864 – American Civil War: Kilpatrick–Dahlgren Raid fails: Plans to free 15,000 Union soldiers being held near Richmond, Virginia are thwarted.
1892 – St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated.
1912 – The Piedra Movediza (Moving Stone) of Tandil falls and breaks.
1916 – Tokelau is annexed by the United Kingdom.
1916 – Child labor: In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from 12 to 14 years old.
1920 – Czechoslovak National Assembly adopts the Constitution.
1936 – February 26 Incident in Tokyo ends.
1940 – 12th Academy Awards: For her performance as “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
1940 – Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations.
1940 – In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden’s Consul General in San Francisco.
1944 – World War II: The Admiralty Islands are invaded in Operation Brewer led by American General Douglas MacArthur.
1960 – The 5.7 M_w  Agadir earthquake shakes coastal Morocco with a maximum perceived intensity of X (Extreme), destroying Agadir, and leaving 12,000 dead and another 12,000 injured.
1972 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization: South Korea withdraws 11,000 of its 48,000 troops from Vietnam.
1980 – Gordie Howe of the Hartford Whalers makes NHL history as he scores his 800th goal.
1984 – Pierre Trudeau announces his retirement as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister of Canada.
1988 – South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with one hundred other clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.
1988 – Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the House of Commons of Canada to come out as gay.
1992 – First day of Bosnia and Herzegovina independence referendum.
1996 – Faucett Flight 251 crashes in the Andes; all 123 passengers and crew die.
1996 – Siege of Sarajevo officially ends.
2000 – Second Chechen War: Eighty-four Russian paratroopers are killed in a rebel attack on a guard post near Ulus Kert.
2004 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide is removed as President of Haiti following a coup.
2008 – The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence decides to withdraw Prince Harry from a tour of Afghanistan “immediately” after a leak leads to his deployment being reported by foreign media.
2008 – Misha Defonseca admits to fabricating her memoir, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, in which she claims to have lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust.
2012 – Tokyo Skytree construction is completed. It is the tallest tower in the world, 634 meters high, and the second-tallest artificial structure on Earth, next to Burj Khalifa.

Births on February 29

1468 – Pope Paul III (d. 1549)
1528 – Albert V, Duke of Bavaria (d. 1579)
1528 – Domingo Báñez, Spanish theologian (d. 1604)
1572 – Edward Cecil, 1st Viscount Wimbledon (d. 1638)
1576 – Antonio Neri, Florentine priest and glassmaker (d. 1614)
1640 – Benjamin Keach, Particular Baptist preacher and author whose name was given to Keach’s Catechism (d. 1704)
1692 – John Byrom, English poet and educator (d. 1763)
1724 – Eva Marie Veigel, Austrian-English dancer (d. 1822)
1736 – Ann Lee, English-American religious leader, founded the Shakers (d. 1784)
1792 – Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer (d. 1868)
1812 – James Milne Wilson, Scottish-Australian soldier and politician, 8th Premier of Tasmania (d. February 29, 1880)
1828 – Emmeline B. Wells, American journalist, poet, and activist (d. 1921)
1836 – Dickey Pearce, American baseball player and manager (d. 1908)
1852 – Frank Gavan Duffy, Irish-Australian lawyer and judge, 4th Chief Justice of Australia (d. 1936)
1860 – Herman Hollerith, American statistician and businessman, co-founded the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (d. 1929)
1876 – William Stewart, Scottish footballer
1884 – Richard S. Aldrich, American lawyer and politician (d. 1941)
1892 – Augusta Savage, American sculptor (d. 1962)
1896 – Morarji Desai, Indian civil servant and politician, 4th Prime Minister of India (d. 1995)
1896 – William A. Wellman, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1975)
1904 – Jimmy Dorsey, American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader (d. 1957)
1904 – Pepper Martin, American baseball player and manager (d. 1965)
1908 – Balthus, French-Swiss painter and illustrator (d. 2001)
1908 – Dee Brown, American historian and author (d. 2002)
1908 – Alf Gover, English cricketer and coach (d. 2001)
1908 – Louie Myfanwy Thomas, Welsh writer (d. 1968)
1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer and actress (d. 1994)
1916 – James B. Donovan, American lawyer (d. 1970)
1916 – Leonard Shoen, founder of U-Haul Corp. (d. 1999)
1920 – Fyodor Abramov, Russian author and critic (d. 1983)
1920 – Arthur Franz, American actor (d. 2006)
1920 – James Mitchell, American actor and dancer (d. 2010)
1920 – Michèle Morgan, French-American actress and singer (d. 2016)
1920 – Howard Nemerov, American poet and academic (d. 1991)
1920 – Rolland W. Redlin, American lawyer and politician (d. 2011)
1924 – David Beattie, New Zealand judge and politician, 14th Governor-General of New Zealand (d. 2001)
1924 – Carlos Humberto Romero, Salvadoran politician, President of El Salvador (d. 2017)
1924 – Al Rosen, American baseball player and manager (d. 2015)
1928 – Joss Ackland, English actor
1928 – Jean Adamson, British writer and illustrator
1928 – Vance Haynes, American archaeologist, geologist, and author
1928 – Seymour Papert, South African mathematician and computer scientist, co-created the Logo programming language (d. 2016)
1932 – Gene H. Golub, American mathematician and academic (d. 2007)
1932 – Masten Gregory, American race car driver (d. 1985)
1932 – Reri Grist, American soprano and actress
1932 – Jaguar, Brazilian cartoonist
1932 – Gavin Stevens, Australian cricketer
1936 – Jack Lousma, American colonel, astronaut, and politician
1936 – Henri Richard, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2020)
1936 – Alex Rocco, American actor (d. 2015)
1936 – Nh. Dini, Indonesian writer (d. 2018)
1940 – Sonja Barend, Dutch talk show host
1940 – Bartholomew I of Constantinople
1940 – William H. Turner, Jr., American horse trainer
1944 – Ene Ergma, Estonian physicist and politician
1944 – Dennis Farina, American police officer and actor (d. 2013)
1944 – Nicholas Frayling, English priest and academic
1944 – Phyllis Frelich, American actress (d. 2014)
1944 – Steve Mingori, American baseball player (d. 2008)
1944 – Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Italian author and illustrator
1944 – Lennart Svedberg, Swedish ice hockey player (d. 1972).
1948 – Hermione Lee, English author, critic, and academic
1948 – Manoel Maria, Brazilian footballer
1948 – Patricia A. McKillip, American author
1948 – Henry Small, American-born Canadian singer
1952 – Sharon Dahlonega Raiford Bush, American journalist and producer
1952 – Tim Powers, American author and educator
1952 – Raisa Smetanina, Russian cross-country skier
1952 – Bart Stupak, American police officer and politician
1956 – Jonathan Coleman, English-Australian radio and television host
1956 – Bob Speller, Canadian businessman and politician, 30th Canadian Minister of Agriculture
1956 – Aileen Wuornos, American serial killer (d. 2002)
1960 – Lucian Grainge, English businessman
1960 – Khaled, Algerian singer-songwriter
1960 – Richard Ramirez, American serial killer (d. 2013)
1964 – Dave Brailsford, English cyclist and coach
1964 – Lyndon Byers, Canadian ice hockey player and radio host
1964 – Mervyn Warren, American tenor, composer, and producer
1968 – Chucky Brown, American basketball player and coach
1968 – Pete Fenson, American curler and sportscaster
1968 – Naoko Iijima, Japanese actress and model
1968 – Bryce Paup, American football player and coach
1968 – Howard Tayler, American author and illustrator
1968 – Eugene Volokh, Ukrainian-American lawyer and educator
1968 – Frank Woodley, Australian actor, producer, and screenwriter
1972 – Mike Pollitt, English footballer and coach
1972 – Sylvie Lubamba, Italian showgirl
1972 – Antonio Sabàto, Jr., Italian-American model and actor
1972 – Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain
1972 – Dave Williams, American singer (d. 2002)
1972 – Saul Williams, American singer-songwriter
1972 – Pedro Zamora, Cuban-American activist and educator (d. 1994)
1976 – Vonteego Cummings, American basketball player
1976 – Gehad Grisha, Egyptian soccer referee
1976 – Katalin Kovács, Hungarian sprint kayaker
1976 – Terrence Long, American baseball player
1976 – Ja Rule, American rapper and actor
1980 – Çağdaş Atan, Turkish footballer and coach
1980 – Chris Conley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1980 – Patrick Côté, Canadian mixed martial artist
1980 – Simon Gagné, Canadian ice hockey player
1980 – Rubén Plaza, Spanish cyclist
1980 – Peter Scanavino, American actor
1980 – Clinton Toopi, New Zealand rugby league player
1980 – Taylor Twellman, American soccer player and sportscaster
1984 – Rica Imai, Japanese model and actress
1984 – Cullen Jones, American swimmer
1984 – Nuria Martínez, Spanish basketball player
1984 – Adam Sinclair, Indian field hockey player
1984 – Rakhee Thakrar, English actress
1984 – Dennis Walger, German rugby player
1984 – Cam Ward, Canadian ice hockey player
1984 – Mark Foster, American singer, songwriter and musician
1988 – Lena Gercke, German model and television host
1988 – Benedikt Höwedes, German footballer
1988 – Brent Macaffer, Australian Rules footballer
1988 – Bobby Sanguinetti, American ice hockey player
1988 – Milan Melindo, Filipino boxer
1992 – Sean Abbott, Australian cricketer
1992 – Ben Hampton, Australian rugby league player
1992 – Eric Kendricks, American football player
1992 – Caitlin EJ Meyer, American actress
1996 – Nelson Asofa-Solomona, New Zealand rugby league player
1996 – Reece Prescod, British sprinter
1996 – Claudia Williams, New Zealand tennis player
2000 – Ferran Torres, Spanish footballer

Deaths on February 29

468 – Pope Hilarius
992 – Oswald of Worcester, Anglo-Saxon archbishop and saint (b. 925)
1212 – Hōnen, Japanese monk, founded Jōdo-shū (b. 1133)
1460 – Albert III, Duke of Bavaria-Munich (b. 1401)
1528 – Patrick Hamilton, Scottish Protestant reformer and martyr (b. 1504)
1592 – Alessandro Striggio, Italian composer and diplomat (b. 1540)
1600 – Caspar Hennenberger, German pastor, historian and cartographer (b. 1529)
1604 – John Whitgift, English archbishop and academic (b. 1530)
1740 – Pietro Ottoboni, Italian cardinal (b. 1667)
1744 – John Theophilus Desaguliers, French-English physicist and philosopher (b. 1683)
1792 – Johann Andreas Stein, German piano builder (b. 1728)
1820 – Johann Joachim Eschenburg, German historian and critic (b. 1743)
1848 – Louis-François Lejeune, French general, painter and lithographer (b. 1775)
1852 – Matsudaira Katataka, Japanese daimyō (b. 1806)
1868 – Ludwig I of Bavaria (b. 1786)
1880 – James Milne Wilson, Scottish-Australian soldier and politician, 8th Premier of Tasmania (b. February 29, 1812)
1908
- Pat Garrett, American sheriff (b. 1850)
- John Hope, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow, Scottish-Australian politician, 1st Governor-General of Australia (b. 1860)
1920 – Ernie Courtney, American baseball player (b. 1875)
1928
- Adolphe Appia, Swiss architect and theorist (b. 1862)
- Ina Coolbrith, American poet and librarian (b. 1841)
1940 – E. F. Benson, English archaeologist and author (b. 1867)
1944 – Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, Finnish lawyer, judge and politician, 3rd President of Finland (b. 1861)
1948
- Robert Barrington-Ward, English lawyer and journalist (b. 1891)
- Rebel Oakes, American baseball player and manager (b. 1883)
1952 – Quo Tai-chi, Chinese politician and diplomat, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations (b. 1888)
1956 – Elpidio Quirino, Filipino lawyer and politician, 6th President of the Philippines (b. 1890)
1960
- Melvin Purvis, American police officer and FBI agent (b. 1903)
- Walter Yust, American journalist and author (b. 1894)
1964 – Frank Albertson, American actor and singer (b. 1909)
1968
- Lena Blackburne, American baseball player, coach and manager (b. 1886)
- Tore Ørjasæter, Norwegian poet and educator (b. 1886)
1972 – Tom Davies, American football player and coach (b. 1896)
1976 – Florence P. Dwyer, American politician (b. 1902)
1980
- Yigal Allon, Israeli general and politician, Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1918)
- Gil Elvgren, American painter and illustrator (b. 1914)
1984 – Ludwik Starski, Polish screenwriter and songwriter (b. 1903)
1988 – Sidney Harmon, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1907)
1992 – Ruth Pitter, English poet and author (b. 1897)
1996
- Wes Farrell, American singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1939)
- Ralph Rowe, American baseball player, coach and manager (b. 1924)
2000 – Dennis Danell, American guitarist (b. 1961)
2004
- Kagamisato Kiyoji, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 42nd Yokozuna (b. 1923)
- Jerome Lawrence, American playwright and author (b. 1915)
- Harold Bernard St. John, Barbadian lawyer and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Barbados (b. 1931)
- Lorrie Wilmot, South African cricketer (b. 1943)
2008
- Janet Kagan, American author (b. 1946)
- Erik Ortvad, Danish painter and illustrator (b. 1917)
- Akira Yamada, Japanese scholar and philosopher (b. 1922)
2012
- Roland Bautista, American guitarist (b. 1951)
- Davy Jones, English singer, guitarist and actor (b. 1945)
- Sheldon Moldoff, American illustrator (b. 1920)
- P. K. Narayana Panicker, Indian social leader (b. 1930)
2016
- Wenn V. Deramas, Filipino director and screenwriter (b. 1966)
- Gil Hill, American police officer, actor and politician (b. 1931)
- Josefin Nilsson, Swedish singer (b. 1969)
- Louise Rennison, English author (b. 1951)
- Mumtaz Qadri, Pakistani assassin (b. 1985)

Holidays and observances on February 29

As a Christian feast day:
- Auguste Chapdelaine (one of the Martyr Saints of China)
- Oswald of Worcester (in leap year only)
- Saint John Cassian
- February 29 in the Orthodox church
The fourth day of Ayyám-i-Há (Bahá’í Faith) (observed on this date only if Bahá’í Naw-Rúz falls on March 21)
Rare Disease Day (in leap years; celebrated in common years on February 28)
Bachelor’s Day (Ireland, United Kingdom)

Folk traditions

There is a popular tradition known as Bachelor’s Day in some countries allowing a woman to propose marriage to a man on February 29If the man refuses, he then is obliged to give the woman money or buy her a dress. In upper-class societies in Europe, if the man refuses marriage, he then must purchase 12 pairs of gloves for the woman, suggesting that the gloves are to hide the woman’s embarrassment of not having an engagement ring. In Ireland, the tradition is supposed to originate from a deal that Saint Bridget struck with Saint Patrick.

In the town of Aurora, Illinois, single women are deputized and may arrest single men, subject to a four-dollar fine, every February 29.

In Greece, it is considered unlucky to marry on a leap day.

February 29 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

February 14 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

748 – Abbasid Revolution: The Hashimi rebels under Abu Muslim Khorasani take Merv, capital of the Umayyad province Khorasan, marking the consolidation of the Abbasid revolt.
842 – Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in the French and German languages.
1014 – Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry of Bavaria, King of Germany and of Italy, as Holy Roman Emperor.
1076 – Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
1130 – Pope Innocent II is elected.
1349 – Several hundred Jews are burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews are forcibly removed from Strasbourg.
1400 – Richard II of England dies, most probably from starvation, in Pontefract Castle, on the orders of Henry Bolingbroke.
1530 – Spanish conquistadores, led by Nuño de Guzmán, overthrow and execute Tangaxuan II, the last independent monarch of the Tarascan state in present-day central Mexico.
1556 – Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.
1556 – Coronation of Akbar.
1655 – The Mapuches launch coordinated attacks against the Spanish in Chile beginning the Mapuche uprising of 1655.
1778 – The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-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.
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.
1804 – Karađorđe leads the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire.
1831 – Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.
1835 – The original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in the Latter Day Saint movement, is formed in Kirtland, Ohio.
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, 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 – Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
1879 – The War of the Pacific breaks out when the Chilean Army occupies the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.
1899 – Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.
1900 – British forces begin the Battle of the Tugela Heights in an effort to lift the Siege of Ladysmith.
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 and the last contiguous U.S. state.
1912 – The U.S. Navy commissions its first class of diesel-powered submarines.
1919 – The Polish–Soviet War begins.
1920 – The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago.
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.
1942 – Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.
1943 – World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated.
1943 – World War II: Tunisia Campaign: General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim’s Fifth Panzer Army launches a concerted attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.
1944 – World War II: In the Action of 14 February 1944, a Royal Navy submarine sinks a German-controlled Italian submarine in the Strait of Malacca.
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.
1945 – World War II: Navigational error leads to the mistaken bombing of Prague, Czechoslovakia by an American squadron of B-17s assisting in the Soviet’s Vistula–Oder Offensive.
1945 – World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans
1945 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.
1946 – The Bank of England is nationalized.
1949 – The Knesset (parliament of Israel) convenes for the first time.
1949 – The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada. The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
1961 – Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California.
1966 – Australian currency is decimalized.
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.
1983 – United American Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee collapses. Its president, Jake Butcher, is later convicted of fraud.
1989 – Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster.
1989 – Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.
1990 – Ninety-two people are killed when Indian Airlines Flight 605 crashes in Bangalore, India.
1990 – The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later become famous as Pale Blue Dot.
1998 – An oil tanker train collides with a freight train in Yaoundé, Cameroon, spilling fuel oil. One person scavenging the oil created a massive explosion which killed 120.
2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
2004 – In a suburb of Moscow, Russia, the roof of the Transvaal water park collapses, killing more than 25 people, and wounding more than 100 others.
2005 – In Beirut, 23 people, including former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, are killed when the equivalent of around 1,000 kg of TNT is detonated while Hariri’s motorcade drives through the city.
2005 – Seven people are killed and 151 wounded in a series of bombings by suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants that hit Makati, Davao City, and General Santos City, all in the Philippines.
2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source for viral videos.
2008 – Northern Illinois University shooting: A gunman opens fire in a lecture hall of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb County, Illinois, resulting in six fatalities (including the gunman) and 21 injuries.
2011 – As a part of Arab Spring, the Bahraini uprising begins with a ‘Day of Rage’.
2018 – Jacob Zuma resigns as President of South Africa.
2018 – A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 15 injuries.
2019 – Pulwama attack takes place in Lethpora in Pulwama district, Jammu and Kashmir, India in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel and a suicide bomber were killed and 35 were injured.

Births on February 14

1404 – Leon Battista Alberti, Italian painter, poet, and philosopher (d. 1472)
1408 – John FitzAlan, 14th Earl of Arundel (d. 1435)
1452 – Pandolfo Petrucci, tyrant of Siena (d. 1512)
1468 – Johannes Werner, German priest and mathematician (d. 1522)
1483 – Babur, Moghul emperor (d. 1530)
1490 – Valentin Friedland, German scholar and educationist of the Reformation (d. 1556)
1513 – Domenico Ferrabosco, Italian composer (d. 1573)
1545 – Lucrezia de’ Medici, Duchess of Ferrara (d. 1561)
1602 – Francesco Cavalli, Italian composer (d. 1676)
1614 – John Wilkins, English bishop, academic and natural philosopher (d. 1672)
1625 – Countess Palatine Maria Eufrosyne of Zweibrücken, Swedish princess (d. 1687)
1628 – Valentine Greatrakes, Irish faith healer (d. 1683)
1640 – Countess Palatine Anna Magdalena of Birkenfeld-Bischweiler (d. 1693)
1670 – Rajaram Raj Bhonsle, third Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire (d. 1700)
1679 – Georg Friedrich Kauffmann, German organist and composer (d. 1735)
1692 – Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, French author and playwright (d. 1754)
1701 – Enrique Flórez, Spanish historian and author (d. 1773)
1763 – Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general (d. 1813)
1782 – Eleanora Atherton, English philanthropist (d. 1870)
1784 – Heinrich Baermann, German clarinetist (d. 1847)
1799 – Walenty Wańkowicz, Polish painter and illustrator (d. 1842)
1800 – Emory Washburn, American historian, lawyer, and politician, 22nd Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1877)
1808 – Michael Costa, Italian-English conductor and composer (d. 1884)
1813 – Lydia Hamilton Smith, African-American businesswoman (d. 1884)
1819 – Christopher Latham Sholes, American journalist and politician, invented the typewriter (d. 1890)
1824 – Winfield Scott Hancock, American general and politician (d. 1886)
1828 – Edmond François Valentin About, French journalist and author (d. 1885)
1835 – Piet Paaltjens, Dutch minister and poet (d. 1894)
1838 – Margaret E. Knight, American inventor (d. 1914)
1846 – Julian Scott, American soldier and drummer, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1901)
1847 – Anna Howard Shaw, American physician, minister, and activist (d. 1919)
1848 – Benjamin Baillaud, French astronomer and academic (d. 1934)
1855 – Frank Harris, Irish author and journalist (d. 1931)
1859 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., American engineer, inventor of the Ferris wheel (d. 1896)
1860 – Eugen Schiffer, German lawyer and politician, Vice-Chancellor of Germany (d. 1954)
1869 – Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist and meteorologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1959)
1878 – Julius Nieuwland, Belgian priest, chemist and academic (d. 1936)
1882 – John Barrymore, American actor (d. 1942)
1884 – Nils Olaf Chrisander, Swedish actor and director (d. 1947)
1884 – Kostas Varnalis, Greek poet and playwright (d. 1974)
1890 – Nina Hamnett, Welsh-English painter and author (d. 1956)
1890 – Dick Richards Welsh international footballer, forward
1891 – Katherine Stinson, American aviator (d. 1977)
1892 – Radola Gajda, Czech commander and politician (d. 1948)
1894 – Jack Benny, American actor and producer (d. 1974)
1895 – Wilhelm Burgdorf, German general (d. 1945)
1895 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973)
1898 – Bill Tilman, English mountaineer and explorer (d. 1977)
1898 – Fritz Zwicky, Swiss-American physicist and astronomer (d. 1974)
1900 – Jessica Dragonette, American singer (d. 1980)
1903 – Stuart Erwin, American actor (d. 1967)
1905 – Thelma Ritter, American actress and singer (d. 1969)
1907 – Johnny Longden, English-American jockey and trainer (d. 2003)
1911 – Willem Johan Kolff, Dutch physician and inventor (d. 2009)
1912 – Tibor Sekelj, Hungarian lawyer, explorer, and author (d. 1988)
1913 – Mel Allen, American sportscaster (d. 1996)
1913 – Woody Hayes, American football player and coach (d. 1987)
1913 – Jimmy Hoffa, American trade union leader (d. 1975)
1913 – James Pike, American bishop (d. 1969)
1916 – Marcel Bigeard, French general (d. 2010)
1916 – Sally Gray, English actress and singer (d. 2006)
1916 – Masaki Kobayashi, Japanese director and producer (d. 1996)
1916 – Edward Platt, American actor (d. 1974)
1917 – Herbert A. Hauptman, American mathematician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)
1921 – Hugh Downs, American journalist, game show host, and producer
1921 – Hazel McCallion, Canadian businesswoman and politician, 3rd Mayor of Mississauga
1923 – Jay Hebert, American golfer (d. 1997)
1924 – Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma (d. 2017)
1927 – Lois Maxwell, Canadian-Australian model and actress (d. 2007)
1928 – William Allain, American soldier and politician, 58th Governor of Mississippi (d. 2013)
1928 – Vicente T. Blaz, American general and politician (d. 2014)
1929 – Vic Morrow, American actor and director (d. 1982)
1931 – Bernie Geoffrion, Canadian-American ice hockey player and coach (d. 2006)
1931 – Brian Kelly, American actor and director (d. 2005)
1932 – Harriet Andersson, Swedish actress
1934 – Florence Henderson, American actress and singer (d. 2016)
1935 – David Wilson, Baron Wilson of Tillyorn, Scottish academic and diplomat, 27th Governor of Hong Kong
1936 – Anna German, Polish singer (d. 1982)
1937 – John MacGregor, Baron MacGregor of Pulham Market, English politician, Secretary of State for Transport
1937 – Magic Sam, American singer and guitarist (d. 1969)
1939 – Razzy Bailey, American country music singer-songwriter and musician
1939 – Blowfly, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2016)
1939 – Eugene Fama, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1940 – James Maynard, American businessman, co-founded Golden Corral
1941 – Donna Shalala, American academic and politician, 18th United States Secretary of Health and Human Services
1941 – Paul Tsongas, American lawyer and politician (d. 1997)
1942 – Michael Bloomberg, American businessman and politician, 108th Mayor of New York City
1942 – Andrew Robinson, American actor and director
1942 – Ricardo Rodríguez, Mexican race car driver (d. 1962)
1943 – Eric Andersen, American singer-songwriter
1943 – Maceo Parker, American saxophonist
1943 – Aaron Russo, American director and producer (d. 2007)
1944 – Carl Bernstein, American journalist and author
1944 – Alan Parker, English director, producer, and screenwriter
1944 – Ronnie Peterson, Swedish race car driver (d. 1978)
1945 – Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein
1945 – Rod Masterson, American lieutenant and actor (d. 2013)
1946 – Bernard Dowiyogo, Nauru politician, President of Nauru (d. 2003)
1946 – Gregory Hines, American actor, singer, and dancer (d. 2003)
1947 – Tim Buckley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1975)
1947 – Judd Gregg, American lawyer and politician, 76th Governor of New Hampshire
1948 – Kitten Natividad, Mexican-American actress and dancer
1948 – Pat O’Brien, American journalist and author
1948 – Wally Tax, Dutch singer-songwriter (d. 2005)
1948 – Teller, American magician and actor
1950 – Roger Fisher, American guitarist and songwriter
1951 – Terry Gross, American radio host and producer
1951 – Kevin Keegan, English footballer and manager
1952 – Sushma Swaraj, Indian lawyer and politician, Indian Minister of External Affairs (d. 2019)
1954 – Jam Mohammad Yousaf, Pakistani politician, Chief Minister of Balochistan (d. 2013)
1955 – Carol Kalish, American publisher (d. 1991)
1956 – Howard Davis Jr., American boxer and trainer (d. 2015)
1956 – Dave Dravecky, American baseball player
1956 – Katharina Fritsch, German sculptor and academic
1957 – Alan Hunter, American television host and actor
1957 – Soile Isokoski, Finnish soprano and actress
1957 – Alan Smith, English bishop
1958 – Grant Thomas, Australian footballer and coach
1959 – Renée Fleming, American soprano and actress
1960 – Philip Jones, English admiral
1960 – Jim Kelly, American football player and businessman
1960 – Meg Tilly, American actress and author
1963 – Enrico Colantoni, Canadian actor, director, and producer
1963 – John Marzano, American baseball player (d. 2008)
1964 – Gianni Bugno, Italian cyclist and sportscaster
1966 – Petr Svoboda, Czech ice hockey player and agent
1967 – Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Greek-English businessman, founded easyJet
1967 – Manuela Maleeva, Bulgarian-Swiss tennis player
1967 – Mark Rutte, Dutch businessman and politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
1968 – Jules Asner, American model and television host
1968 – Chris Lewis, Guyanese-English cricketer
1968 – Scott McClellan, American civil servant and author, 25th White House Press Secretary
1969 – Meg Hillier, English journalist and politician, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
1970 – Giuseppe Guerini, Italian cyclist
1970 – Sean Hill, American ice hockey player
1970 – Simon Pegg, English actor, director, and producer
1971 – Kris Aquino, Filipino talk show host, actress, and producer
1971 – Gheorghe Mureșan, Romanian basketball player
1972 – Drew Bledsoe, American football player and coach
1972 – Musōyama Masashi, Japanese sumo wrestler
1972 – Najwa Nimri, Spanish actress and singer
1972 – Jaan Tallinn, Estonian computer programmer, co-developed Skype
1972 – Rob Thomas, American singer-songwriter
1973 – H. D. Ackerman, South African cricketer
1973 – Tyus Edney, American basketball player and coach
1973 – Steve McNair, American football player (d. 2009)
1973 – Annalisa Buffa, Italian mathematician
1974 – Valentina Vezzali, Italian fencer and politician
1976 – Liv Kristine, Norwegian singer-songwriter
1976 – Rie Rasmussen, Danish model, film director, writer, photographer, and actress
1977 – Cadel Evans, Australian cyclist
1977 – Jim Jefferies, Australian comedian and actor
1977 – Darren Purse, English footballer
1977 – Elmer Symons, South African motorcycle racer (d. 2007)
1977 – Anna Erschler, Russian mathematician
1977 – Robert J. Jackson Jr., American law professor
1978 – Richard Hamilton, American basketball player
1978 – Darius Songaila, Lithuanian basketball player and coach
1980 – Josh Senter, American screenwriter and producer
1980 – Michelle Ye, Hong Kong actress and producer
1981 – Matteo Brighi, Italian footballer
1981 – Randy de Puniet, French motorcycle racer
1981 – Brad Halsey, American baseball player (d. 2014)
1982 – Marián Gáborík, Slovak ice hockey player
1982 – John Halls, English footballer and model
1982 – Lenka Tvarošková, Slovak tennis player
1983 – Callix Crabbe, Virgin Islander baseball player
1983 – Rocky Elsom, Australian rugby player
1983 – Bacary Sagna, French footballer
1985 – Karima Adebibe, English model and actress
1985 – Tyler Clippard, American baseball player
1985 – Heart Evangelista, Filipino singer and actress
1985 – Philippe Senderos, Swiss international footballer, centre back
1985 – Miki Yeung, Hong Kong singer and actress
1986 – Michael Ammermüller, German race car driver
1986 – Oliver Lee, English actor, director, and screenwriter
1986 – Gao Lin, Chinese footballer
1987 – Edinson Cavani, Uruguayan footballer
1987 – Tom Pyatt, Canadian ice hockey player
1987 – David Wheater, English footballer
1988 – Katie Boland, Canadian actress, producer, and screenwriter
1988 – Ángel Di María, Argentinian footballer
1988 – Siim Liivik, Estonian ice hockey player
1988 – Asia Nitollano, American singer and dancer
1989 – Néstor Calderón, Mexican footballer
1989 – Adam Matuszczyk, Polish footballer
1989 – Emma Miskew, Canadian curler
1989 – Brandon Sutter, Canadian ice hockey player
1989 – Jurij Tepeš, Slovenian ski jumper
1989 – Kristian Thomas, English gymnast
1990 – Sefa Yılmaz, German-Turkish footballer
1991 – Daniela Mona Lambin, Estonian footballer
1991 – Chris Rowney, English footballer
1992 – Christian Eriksen, Danish footballer
1992 – Freddie Highmore, English actor
1996 – Lucas Hernandez, French footballer

Deaths on February 14

869 – Cyril, Greek missionary bishop (b. 827)
945 – Lian Chongyu, Chinese general
945 – Zhu Wenjin, Chinese emperor
1009 – Bruno of Querfurt, German missionary bishop
1010 – Fujiwara no Korechika, Japanese nobleman (b. 974)
1140 – Leo I, Armenian prince
1140 – Sobĕslav I, duke of Bohemia
1164 – Sviatoslav Olgovich, Kievan prince
1229 – Rǫgnvaldr Guðrøðarson, king of the Isles
1317 – Margaret of France, queen of England
1400 – Richard II, king of England (b. 1367)
1440 – Dietrich of Oldenburg, German nobleman
1489 – Nicolaus von Tüngen, prince-bishop of Warmia
1528 – Edzard I, German nobleman (b. 1462)
1549 – Il Sodoma, Italian painter (b. 1477)
1571 – Odet de Coligny, French cardinal (b. 1517)
1676 – Abraham Bosse, French engraver and illustrator (b. 1602)
1714 – Maria Luisa of Savoy, queen of Spain (b. 1688)
1737 – Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot, English lawyer and politician Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1685)
1744 – John Hadley, English mathematician, invented the octant (b. 1682)
1779 – James Cook, English captain, cartographer, and explorer (b. 1728)
1780 – William Blackstone, English jurist and politician (b. 1723)
1782 – Singu Min, Burmese king (b. 1756)
1808 – John Dickinson, American lawyer and politician 5th Governor of Delaware (b. 1732)
1831 – Vicente Guerrero, Mexican general and politician, 2nd President of Mexico (b. 1782)
1831 – Henry Maudslay, English engineer (b. 1771)
1870 – St. John Richardson Liddell, American general (b. 1815)
1881 – Fernando Wood, American merchant and politician, 73rd Mayor of New York City (b. 1812)
1884 – Lydia Hamilton Smith, African-American businesswoman (b. 1813)
1885 – Jules Vallès, French journalist and author (b. 1832)
1891 – William Tecumseh Sherman, American general (b. 1820)
1894 – Eugène Charles Catalan, Belgian-French mathematician and academic (b. 1814)
1901 – Edward Stafford, Scottish-New Zealand educator and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1819)
1910 – Giovanni Passannante, Italian anarchist (b. 1849)
1922 – Heikki Ritavuori, Finnish lawyer and politician (b. 1880)
1929 – Thomas Burke, American sprinter, coach, and lawyer (b. 1875)
1930 – Thomas Mackenzie, Scottish-New Zealand cartographer and politician, 18th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1853)
1933 – Carl Correns, German botanist and geneticist (b. 1864)
1942 – Adnan Saidi, Malayan lieutenant (b. 1915)
1943 – Dora Gerson, German actress and singer (b. 1899)
1943 – David Hilbert, Russian-German mathematician, physicist, and philosopher (b. 1862)
1948 – Mordecai Brown, American baseball player and manager (b. 1876)
1949 – Yusuf Salman Yusuf, Iraqi politician (b. 1901)
1950 – Karl Guthe Jansky, American physicist and engineer (b. 1905)
1952 – Maurice De Waele, Belgian cyclist (b. 1896)
1958 – Abdur Rab Nishtar, Pakistani politician, 2nd Governor of Punjab (b. 1899)
1959 – Baby Dodds, American drummer (b. 1898)
1967 – Sig Ruman, German-American actor (b. 1884)
1969 – Vito Genovese, Italian-American mob boss (b. 1897)
1970 – Herbert Strudwick, English cricketer and coach (b. 1880)
1974 – Stewie Dempster, New Zealand cricketer and coach (b. 1903)
1975 – Julian Huxley, English biologist and eugenicist, co-founded the World Wide Fund for Nature (b. 1887)
1975 – P. G. Wodehouse, English novelist and playwright (b. 1881)
1979 – Adolph Dubs, American lieutenant and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Afghanistan (b. 1920)
1983 – Lina Radke, German runner and coach (b. 1903)
1986 – Edmund Rubbra, English composer and conductor (b. 1901)
1987 – Dmitry Kabalevsky, Russian pianist and composer (b. 1904)
1988 – Frederick Loewe, German-American composer (b. 1901)
1989 – James Bond, American ornithologist and zoologist (b. 1900)
1989 – Vincent Crane, English pianist (b. 1943)
1994 – Andrei Chikatilo, Soviet serial killer (b. 1936)
1994 – Christopher Lasch, American historian and critic (b. 1932)
1995 – Michael V. Gazzo, American actor and playwright (b. 1923)
1995 – U Nu, Burmese politician, 1st Prime Minister of Burma (b. 1907)
1996 – Bob Paisley, English footballer and manager (b. 1919)
1999 – John Ehrlichman, American lawyer and politician, 12th White House Counsel (b. 1925)
1999 – Buddy Knox, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1933)
2002 – Nándor Hidegkuti, Hungarian footballer and manager (b. 1922)
2002 – Mick Tucker, English drummer (b. 1947)
2003 – Johnny Longden, English jockey and trainer (b. 1907)
2004 – Marco Pantani, Italian cyclist (b. 1970)
2005 – Rafic Hariri, Lebanese businessman and politician, 60th Prime Minister of Lebanon (b. 1944; assassinated)
2006 – Lynden David Hall, English singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1974)
2007 – Ryan Larkin, Canadian animator and director (b. 1943)
2007 – Gareth Morris, English flute player and educator (b. 1920)
2009 – Bernard Ashley, English engineer and businessman, co-founded Laura Ashley plc (b. 1926)
2009 – Louie Bellson, American drummer and composer (b. 1924)
2010 – Doug Fieger, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1952)
2010 – Dick Francis, Welsh jockey and author (b. 1920)
2010 – Linnart Mäll, Estonian historian, orientalist, and translator (b. 1938)
2011 – George Shearing, English-American pianist and composer (b. 1919)
2012 – Mike Bernardo, South African boxer and martial artist (b. 1969)
2012 – Tonmi Lillman, Finnish drummer and producer (b. 1973)
2012 – Dory Previn, American singer-songwriter (b. 1925)
2012 – Péter Rusorán, Hungarian swimmer, water polo player, and coach (b. 1940)
2013 – Glenn Boyer, American historian and author (b. 1924)
2013 – Ronald Dworkin, American philosopher and scholar (b. 1931)
2014 – Tom Finney, English footballer (b. 1922)
2014 – Chris Pearson, Canadian lawyer and politician, 1st Premier of Yukon (b. 1931)
2014 – Mike Stepovich, American lawyer and politician, Governor of Alaska Territory (b. 1919)
2015 – Louis Jourdan, French-American actor and singer (b. 1921)
2015 – Philip Levine, American poet and academic (b. 1928)
2015 – Franjo Mihalić, Croatian-Serbian runner and coach (b. 1920)
2016 – Eric Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury, English lieutenant, engineer, and politician (b. 1928)
2016 – Steven Stucky, American composer and academic (b. 1949)
2018 – Ruud Lubbers, Dutch politician and diplomat, Prime Minister and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (b. 1939)
2018 – Morgan Tsvangirai, 2nd Prime Minister of Zimbabwe (b. 1952).

Holidays and observances on February 14

Christian feast day:
- Cyril and Methodius, patron saints of Europe (Roman Catholic Church)
- Manchan
- Valentine (Valentine’s Day)
- February 14 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Statehood Day (Arizona, United States)
Statehood Day (Oregon, United States)
Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Armenian Apostolic Church)
Parents’ Worship Day (parts of India)

February 14 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

February 12 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

1429 – English forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orléans in the Battle of the Herrings.
1502 – Isabella I issues an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.
1541 – Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia.
1593 – Japanese invasion of Korea: Approximately 3,000 Joseon defenders led by general Kwon Yul successfully repel more than 30,000 Japanese forces in the Siege of Haengju.
1689 – The Convention Parliament declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.
1733 – Georgia Day: Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, by settling at Savannah.
1771 – Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden.
1817 – An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops at the Battle of Chacabuco.
1818 – Bernardo O’Higgins formally approves the Chilean Declaration of Independence near Concepción, Chile.
1825 – The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.
1832 – Ecuador annexes the Galápagos Islands.
1855 – Michigan State University is established.
1894 – Anarchist Émile Henry hurls a bomb into the Cafe Terminus in Paris, killing one person and wounding 20.
1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.
1909 – New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster of the 20th century happens when the SS Penguin, an inter-island ferry, sinks and explodes at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.
1912 – The Xuantong Emperor, the last Emperor of China, abdicates.
1915 – In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.
1921 – Bolsheviks launch a revolt in Georgia as a preliminary to the Red Army invasion of Georgia.
1924 – George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue received its premiere in a concert titled “An Experiment in Modern Music”, in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Paul Whiteman and his band, with Gershwin playing the piano.
1935 – USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sinks.
1946 – World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.
1946 – African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the civil rights movement and partially inspires Orson Welles’ film Touch of Evil.
1947 – The largest observed iron meteorite until that time creates an impact crater in Sikhote-Alin, in the Soviet Union.
1947 – Christian Dior unveils a “New Look”, helping Paris regain its position as the capital of the fashion world.
1961 – The Soviet Union launches Venera 1 towards Venus.
1963 – Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.
1965 – Malcolm X visits Smethwick in Birmingham following the racially-charged 1964 United Kingdom general election.
1968 – Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre.
1974 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.
1983 – One hundred women protest in Lahore, Pakistan against military dictator Zia-ul-Haq’s proposed Law of Evidence. The women were tear-gassed, baton-charged and thrown into lock-up. The women were successful in repealing the law.
1988 – Cold War: The 1988 Black Sea bumping incident: The U.S. missile cruiser USS Yorktown (CG-48) is intentionally rammed by the Soviet frigate Bezzavetnyy in the Soviet territorial waters, while Yorktown claims innocent passage.
1990 – Carmen Lawrence becomes the first female Premier in Australian history when she becomes Premier of Western Australia.
1992 – The current Constitution of Mongolia comes into effect.
1993 – Two-year-old James Bulger is abducted from New Strand Shopping Centre by two ten-year-old boys, who later torture and murder him.
1994 – Four thieves break into the National Gallery of Norway and steal Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream.
1999 – United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
2001 – NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
2002 – The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. He dies four years later before its conclusion.
2002 – An Iran Airtour Tupolev Tu-154 crashes in the mountains outside Khorramabad, Iran while descending for a landing at Khorramabad Airport, killing 119.
2004 – The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.
2009 – Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York while on approach to Buffalo Niagara International Airport, killing all on board and one on the ground.
2016 – Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill sign an Ecumenical Declaration in the first such meeting between leaders of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches since their split in 1054.
2019 – The country known as the Republic of Macedonia renames itself the Republic of North Macedonia in accordance with the Prespa agreement, settling a long-standing naming dispute with Greece.

Births on February 12

AD 41 – Britannicus, Roman son of Claudius (d. 55)
528 – Daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei, nominal empress regnant of Northern Wei
661 – Princess Ōku of Japan (d. 702)
1074 – Conrad II of Italy (d. 1101)
1218 – Kujo Yoritsune, Japanese shōgun (d. 1256)
1322 – John Henry, Margrave of Moravia (d. 1375)
1443 – Giovanni II Bentivoglio, Italian noble (d. 1508)
1480 – Frederick II of Legnica, Duke of Legnica (d. 1547)
1540 – Won Gyun, Korean general and admiral (d. 1597)
1567 – Thomas Campion, English composer, poet, and physician (d. 1620)
1584 – Caspar Barlaeus, Dutch historian, poet, and theologian (d. 1648)
1602 – Michelangelo Cerquozzi, Italian painter (d. 1660)
1606 – John Winthrop the Younger, English-American lawyer and politician, Governor of Connecticut (d. 1676)
1608 – Daniello Bartoli, Italian Jesuit priest (d. 1685)
1637 – Jan Swammerdam, Dutch biologist and zoologist (d. 1680)
1663 – Cotton Mather, English-American minister and author (d. 1728)
1665 – Rudolf Jakob Camerarius, German botanist and physician (d. 1721)
1704 – Charles Pinot Duclos, French author (d. 1772)
1706 – Johann Joseph Christian, German Baroque sculptor and woodcarver (d. 1777)
1728 – Étienne-Louis Boullée, French architect (d. 1799)
1753 – François-Paul Brueys d’Aigalliers, French admiral (d. 1798)
1761 – Jan Ladislav Dussek, Czech pianist and composer (d. 1812)
1768 – Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1835)
1775 – Louisa Adams, English-American wife of John Quincy Adams, 6th First Lady of the United States (d. 1852)
1777 – Bernard Courtois, French chemist and academic (d. 1838)
1777 – Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, German author and poet (d. 1843)
1785 – Pierre Louis Dulong, French physicist and chemist (d. 1838)
1787 – Norbert Provencher, Canadian bishop and missionary (d. 1853)
1788 – Carl Reichenbach, German chemist and philosopher (d. 1869)
1791 – Peter Cooper, American businessman and philanthropist, founded Cooper Union (d. 1883)
1794 – Alexander Petrov, Russian chess player and composer (d. 1867)
1794 – Valentín Canalizo, Mexican general and politician. 14th President (1843-1844) (d. 1850)
1804 – Heinrich Lenz, German-Italian physicist and academic (d. 1865)
1809 – Charles Darwin, English geologist and theorist (d. 1882)
1809 – Abraham Lincoln, American lawyer and politician, 16th President of the United States (d. 1865)
1819 – William Wetmore Story, American sculptor, architect, poet and editor
1824 – Dayananda Saraswati, Indian monk and philosopher, founded Arya Samaj (d. 1883)
1828 – George Meredith, English novelist and poet (d. 1909)
1837 – Thomas Moran, British-American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School (d. 1926)
1857 – Eugène Atget, French photographer (d. 1927)
1857 – Bobby Peel, English cricketer and coach (d. 1943)
1861 – Lou Andreas-Salomé, Russian-German psychoanalyst and author (d. 1937)
1866 – Lev Shestov, Russian philosopher (d. 1938)
1869 – Kiến Phúc, Vietnamese emperor (d. 1884)
1870 – Marie Lloyd, English actress and singer (d. 1922)
1876 – 13th Dalai Lama (d. 1933)
1877 – Louis Renault, French engineer and businessman, co-founded Renault (d. 1944)
1880 – George Preca, Maltese priest and saint (d. 1962)
1880 – John L. Lewis, American miner and union leader (d. 1969)
1881 – Anna Pavlova, Russian-English ballerina and actress (d. 1931)
1882 – Walter Nash, English-New Zealand lawyer and politician, 27th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1968)
1884 – Max Beckmann, German painter and sculptor (d. 1950)
1884 – Johan Laidoner, Estonian-Russian general (d. 1953)
1884 – Alice Roosevelt Longworth, American author (d. 1980)
1884 – Marie Vassilieff, Russian-French painter (d. 1957)
1885 – Julius Streicher, German publisher, founded Der Stürmer (d. 1946)
1889 – Bhante Dharmawara, Cambodian monk, lawyer, and judge (d. 1999)
1893 – Omar Bradley, American general (d. 1981)
1895 – Kristian Djurhuus, Faroese lawyer and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (d. 1984)
1897 – Charles Groves Wright Anderson, South African-Australian colonel and politician (d. 1988)
1897 – Lincoln LaPaz, American astronomer and academic (d. 1985)
1898 – Wallace Ford, English-American actor and singer (d. 1966)
1900 – Roger J. Traynor, American lawyer and jurist, 23rd Chief Justice of California (d. 1983)
1902 – William Collier, Jr., American actor, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1987)
1903 – Jorge Basadre, Peruvian historian (d. 1980)
1903 – Chick Hafey, American baseball player and manager (d. 1973)
1904 – Ted Mack, American radio and television host (d. 1976)
1907 – Joseph Kearns, American actor (d. 1962)
1908 – Jean Effel, French painter, caricaturist, illustrator and journalist (d. 1982)
1908 – Jacques Herbrand, French mathematician and philosopher (d. 1931)
1909 – Zoran Mušič, Slovene painter and illustrator (d. 2005)
1909 – Sigmund Rascher, German physician (d. 1945)
1911 – Charles Mathiesen, Norwegian speed skater (d. 1994)
1912 – R. F. Delderfield, English author and playwright (d. 1972)
1914 – Tex Beneke, American singer, saxophonist, and bandleader (d. 2000)
1914 – Johanna von Caemmerer, German mathematician (d. 1971)
1915 – Lorne Greene, Canadian-American actor (d. 1987)
1915 – Olivia Hooker, African-American sailor (d. 2018)
1916 – Joseph Alioto, American lawyer and politician, 36th Mayor of San Francisco (d. 1998)
1917 – Al Cervi, American basketball player and coach (d. 2009)
1917 – Dom DiMaggio, American baseball player (d. 2009)
1918 – Norman Farberow, American psychologist and academic (d. 2015)
1918 – Julian Schwinger, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
1919 – Forrest Tucker, American actor (d. 1986)
1920 – Raymond Mhlaba, South African anti-apartheid and ANC activist (d. 2005)
1922 – Hussein Onn, Malaysian lawyer and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Malaysia (d. 1990)
1923 – Franco Zeffirelli, Italian director, producer, and politician (d. 2019)
1925 – Sir Anthony Berry, British Conservative politician (d. 1984)
1925 – Joan Mitchell, American-French painter (d. 1992)
1926 – Rolf Brem, Swiss sculptor and illustrator (d. 2014)
1926 – Joe Garagiola, Sr., American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 2016)
1926 – Charles Van Doren, American academic (d. 2019)
1928 – Vincent Montana, Jr., American drummer and composer (d. 2013)
1930 – John Doyle, Irish hurler and politician (d. 2010)
1930 – Arlen Specter, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician (d. 2012)
1931 – Janwillem van de Wetering, Dutch-American author and translator (d. 2008)
1932 – Axel Jensen, Norwegian author and poet (d. 2003)
1932 – Julian Simon, American economist, author, and academic (d. 1998)
1933 – Costa-Gavras, Greek-French director and producer
1933 – Brian Carlson, Australian rugby league player (d. 1987)
1934 – Annette Crosbie, Scottish actress
1934 – Anne Osborn Krueger, American economist and academic
1934 – Bill Russell, American basketball player and coach
1935 – Gene McDaniels, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2011)
1936 – Alan Ebringer, Australian immunologist, professor at King’s College in the University of London
1938 – Judy Blume, Jewish-American author and educator
1939 – Leon Kass, American physician, scientist, and educator
1939 – Ray Manzarek, American singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer (d. 2013)
1941 – Hubert Marcoux, Canadian solo sailor and author (d. 2009)
1941 – Dominguinhos, Brazilian singer-songwriter and accordion player (d. 2013)
1941 – Naomi Uemura, Japanese mountaineer and explorer (d. 1984)
1942 – Ehud Barak, Israeli general and politician, 10th Prime Minister of Israel
1942 – Pat Dobson, American baseball player, coach, and manager (d. 2006)
1945 – Maud Adams, Swedish model and actress
1945 – David D. Friedman, American economist, physicist, and scholar
1946 – Jean Eyeghé Ndong, Gabonese politician, Prime Minister of Gabon
1946 – Ajda Pekkan, Turkish singer-songwriter and actress
1948 – Ray Kurzweil, American computer scientist and engineer
1948 – Nicholas Soames, English politician, Minister of State for the Armed Forces
1950 – Angelo Branduardi, Italian singer-songwriter and guitarist
1950 – Steve Hackett, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1950 – Michael Ironside, Canadian actor, director, and screenwriter
1952 – Simon MacCorkindale, English actor, director, and producer (d. 2010)
1952 – Michael McDonald, American singer-songwriter and keyboard player
1953 – Joanna Kerns, American actress and director
1954 – Joseph Jordania, Georgian-Australian musicologist and academic
1954 – Tzimis Panousis, Greek comedian, singer, and author (d. 2018)
1954 – Phil Zimmermann, American cryptographer and programmer
1955 – Bill Laswell, American bass player and producer
1955 – Chet Lemon, American baseball player and coach
1956 – Arsenio Hall, American actor and talk show host
1956 – Ad Melkert, Dutch lawyer and politician, Dutch Minister of Social Affairs and Employment
1956 – Brian Robertson, Scottish rock guitarist and songwriter
1958 – Outback Jack, Australian-American wrestler
1961 – Jim Harris, Canadian environmentalist and politician
1961 – Michel Martelly, Haitian singer and politician, 56th President of Haiti
1961 – Di Farmer, Queensland Member of Parliament
1964 – Omar Hakim, American drummer, producer, arranger, and composer
1965 – Rubén Amaro, Jr., American baseball player and manager
1965 – Christine Elise, American actress and producer
1965 – David Westlake, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1966 – Paul Crook, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer
1968 – Josh Brolin, American actor
1968 – Chynna Phillips, American singer and actress
1969 – Darren Aronofsky, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1969 – Alemayehu Atomsa, Ethiopian educator and politician (d. 2014)
1969 – Steve Backley, English javelin thrower
1969 – Anneli Drecker, Norwegian singer and actress
1969 – Hong Myung-bo, South Korean footballer and manager
1970 – Jim Creeggan, Canadian singer-songwriter and bass player
1970 – Bryan Roy, Dutch footballer and manager
1970 – Judd Winick, American author and illustrator
1971 – Scott Menville, American voice actor, singer, actor and musician
1973 – Gianni Romme, Dutch speed skater
1973 – Tara Strong, Canadian voice actress and singer
1974 – Naseem Hamed, English boxer
1976 – Christian Cullen, New Zealand rugby player
1977 – Jimmy Conrad, American soccer player and manager
1978 – Paul Anderson, English actor
1978 – Brett Hodgson, Australian rugby league player and coach
1979 – Antonio Chatman, American football player
1979 – Jesse Spencer, Australian actor and violinist
1980 – Juan Carlos Ferrero, Spanish tennis player
1980 – Sarah Lancaster, American actress
1980 – Christina Ricci, American actress and producer
1980 – Gucci Mane, American rapper
1981 – Wade McKinnon, Australian rugby league player
1982 – Jonas Hiller, Swiss ice hockey player
1982 – Louis Tsatoumas, Greek long jumper
1982 – Anthony Tuitavake, New Zealand rugby player
1983 – Carlton Brewster, American football player and coach
1984 – Brad Keselowski, American race car driver
1984 – Andrei Sidorenkov, Estonian footballer
1984 – Peter Vanderkaay, American swimmer
1988 – DeMarco Murray, American football player
1988 – Nicolás Otamendi, Argentine footballer
1988 – Mike Posner, American singer-songwriter and producer
1990 – Robert Griffin III, American football player
1991 – Patrick Herrmann, German footballer
1994 – Arman Hall, American sprinter
1999 – Maggie Coles-Lyster, Canadian cyclist
2000 – Kim Ji-min, South Korean actress

Deaths on February 12

821 – Benedict of Aniane, French monk and saint (b. 747)
890 – Henjō, Japanese priest and poet (b. 816)
981 – Ælfstan, bishop of Ramsbury
901 – Antony II, patriarch of Constantinople
914 – Li, empress of Yan
941 – Wulfhelm, Archbishop of Canterbury
1247 – Ermesinde, Countess of Luxembourg, ruler (b. 1185)
1266 – Amadeus of the Amidei, Italian saint
1517 – Catherine of Navarre (b. 1468)
1538 – Albrecht Altdorfer, German painter, engraver, and architect (b. 1480)
1554 – Lord Guildford Dudley, English son of Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland (b. 1536; executed)
1554 – Lady Jane Grey, de facto monarch of England and Ireland for nine days (b. 1537; executed)
1571 – Nicholas Throckmorton, English politician and diplomat (b. 1515)
1590 – François Hotman, French lawyer and author (b. 1524)
1600 – Edward Denny, Knight Banneret of Bishop’s Stortford, English soldier, privateer and adventurer (b. 1547)
1612 – Jodocus Hondius, Flemish cartographer (b. 1563)
1624 – George Heriot, Scottish goldsmith and philanthropist, founded George Heriot’s School (b. 1563)
1713 – Jahandar Shah, Mughal emperor (b. 1664)
1728 – Agostino Steffani, Italian priest and composer (b. 1653)
1763 – Pierre de Marivaux, French author and playwright (b. 1688)
1771 – Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden (b. 1710)
1789 – Ethan Allen, American farmer, general, and politician (b. 1738)
1799 – Lazzaro Spallanzani, Italian biologist and physiologist (b. 1729)
1804 – Immanuel Kant, German anthropologist, philosopher, and academic (b. 1724)
1834 – Friedrich Schleiermacher, German philosopher and scholar (b. 1768)
1886 – Randolph Caldecott, English-American painter and illustrator (b. 1846)
1894 – Hans von Bülow, German pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1830)
1896 – Ambroise Thomas, French composer and academic (b. 1811)
1912 – Gerhard Armauer Hansen, Norwegian physician (b. 1841)
1915 – Émile Waldteufel, French pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1837)
1916 – Richard Dedekind, German mathematician, philosopher, and academic (b. 1831)
1929 – Lillie Langtry, English singer and actress (b. 1853)
1931 – Samad bey Mehmandarov, Azerbaijani-Russian general and politician, 3rd Azerbaijani Minister of Defense (b. 1855)
1935 – Auguste Escoffier, French chef and author (b. 1846)
1942 – Eugene Esmonde, Irish-English lieutenant and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (b. 1909)
1942 – Avraham Stern, Polish-Israeli militant leader (b. 1907)
1942 – Grant Wood, American painter and academic (b. 1891)
1947 – Moses Gomberg, Ukrainian-American chemist and academic (b. 1866)
1949 – Hassan al-Banna, Egyptian educator, founded the Muslim Brotherhood (b. 1906)
1954 – Dziga Vertov, Polish-Russian director and screenwriter (b. 1896)
1958 – Douglas Hartree, English mathematician and physicist (b. 1897)
1960 – Oskar Anderson, Bulgarian-German mathematician and academic (b. 1887)
1970 – Clare Turlay Newberry, American author and illustrator (b. 1903)
1971 – James Cash Penney, American businessman and philanthropist, founded J. C. Penney (b. 1875)
1975 – Carl Lutz, Swiss vice-consul to Hungary during WWII, credited with saving over 62,000 Jews (b. 1895)
1976 – Sal Mineo, American actor (b. 1939)
1977 – Herman Dooyeweerd, Dutch philosopher and scholar (b. 1894)
1979 – Jean Renoir, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1894)
1980 – Muriel Rukeyser, American poet and activist (b. 1913)
1982 – Victor Jory, Canadian-American actor (b. 1902)
1983 – Eubie Blake, American pianist and composer (b. 1887)
1984 – Anna Anderson, Polish-American woman, who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1896)
1984 – Julio Cortázar, Belgian-Argentinian author and poet (b. 1914)
1985 – Nicholas Colasanto, American actor and director (b. 1924)
1989 – Thomas Bernhard, Austrian playwright and author (b. 1931)
1991 – Roger Patterson, American bass player (b. 1968)
1992 – Bep van Klaveren, Dutch boxer (b. 1907)
1994 – Donald Judd, American painter and sculptor (b. 1928)
1995 – Philip Taylor Kramer, American bass player (b. 1952)
1998 – Gardner Ackley, American economist and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Italy (b. 1915)
2000 – Tom Landry, American football player and coach (b. 1924)
2000 – Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist, created Peanuts (b. 1922)
2001 – Kristina Söderbaum, Swedish-German actress and producer (b. 1912)
2002 – John Eriksen, Danish footballer (b. 1957)
2005 – Dorothy Stang, American-Brazilian nun and missionary (b. 1931)
2007 – Ann Barzel, American writer and dance critic (b. 1905)
2007 – Peggy Gilbert, American saxophonist and bandleader (b. 1905)
2008 – David Groh, American actor (b. 1939)
2009 – victims of Colgan Air Flight 3407:
- Alison Des Forges, American historian and activist (b. 1942)
- Beverly Eckert, American activist (b. 1951)
- Mat Mathews, Dutch accordion player (b. 1924)
- Coleman Mellett, American guitarist (b. 1974)
- Gerry Niewood, American saxophonist (b. 1943)
2010 – Nodar Kumaritashvili, Georgian luger (b. 1988)
2011 – Peter Alexander, Austrian singer and actor (b. 1926)
2011 – Betty Garrett, American actress, singer, and dancer (b. 1919)
2011 – Kenneth Mars, American actor and comedian (b. 1935)
2012 – Zina Bethune, American actress, dancer, and choreographer (b. 1945)
2012 – Denis Flannery, Australian rugby player and coach (b. 1928)
2012 – David Kelly, Irish actor (b. 1929)
2012 – John Severin, American illustrator (b. 1921)
2013 – Sattam bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabian prince (b. 1941)
2013 – Reginald Turnill, English journalist and author (b. 1915)
2013 – Hennadiy Udovenko, Ukrainian politician and diplomat, 2nd Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ukraine (b. 1931)
2014 – Sid Caesar, American actor and comedian (b. 1922)
2014 – John Pickstone, English historian and author (b. 1944)
2015 – Movita Castaneda, American actress and singer (b. 1916)
2015 – Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, Malaysian cleric and politician, 12th Menteri Besar of Kelantan (b. 1931)
2015 – Gary Owens, American radio host and voice actor (b. 1934)
2015 – Steve Strange, Welsh singer (b. 1959)
2016 – Dominique D’Onofrio, Italian-Belgian footballer and coach (b. 1953)
2016 – Yannis Kalaitzis, Greek cartoonist (b. 1945)
2016 – Yan Su, Chinese general and composer (b. 1930)
2017 – Al Jarreau, American singer (b. 1940)
2017 – Anna Marguerite McCann, first female American underwater archaeologist (b. 1933)
2017 – Ren Xinmin, Chinese rocket scientist (b. 1915)
2019 – Gordon Banks, English footballer (b. 1937)
2019 – Lyndon LaRouche, American political activist (b. 1922)
2019 – Pedro Morales, Puerto Rican professional wrestler and commentator (b. 1942)
2020 – Christie Blatchford, Canadian newspaper columnist, journalist and broadcaster (b. 1951)

Holidays and observances on February 12

Christian feast day:
- Benedict of Aniane
- Damian of Alexandria
- Julian the Hospitaller
- Martyrs of Abitinae
- February 12 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Darwin Day (International)
Georgia Day (Georgia (U.S. state))
Lincoln’s Birthday (United States)
National Freedom to Marry Day (United States)
Red Hand Day (United Nations)
Union Day (Myanmar)
Youth Day (Venezuela)

February 12 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

February 11 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
AD 55 – The death under mysterious circumstances of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman empire, on the eve of his coming of age clears the way for Nero to become Emperor.
1534 – Henry VIII of England is recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.
1659 – The assault on Copenhagen by Swedish forces is beaten back with heavy losses.
1794 – First session of United States Senate opens to the public.
1808 – Jesse Fell burns anthracite on an open grate as an experiment in heating homes with coal.
1812 – Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry is accused of “gerrymandering” for the first time.
1823 – Carnival tragedy of 1823: About 110 boys are killed during a stampede at the Convent of the Minori Osservanti in Valletta, Malta.
1826 – University College London is founded as University of London.
1840 – Gaetano Donizetti’s opera La fille du régiment receives its first performance in Paris, France.
1843 – Giuseppe Verdi’s opera I Lombardi alla prima crociata receives its first performance in Milan, Italy.
1855 – Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia.
1856 – The Kingdom of Awadh is annexed by the British East India Company and Wajid Ali Shah, the king of Awadh, is deposed.
1858 – Bernadette Soubirous’s first vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France.
1861 – American Civil War: The United States House of Representatives unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state.
1873 – King Amadeo I of Spain abdicates.
1889 – Meiji Constitution of Japan is adopted.
1903 – Anton Bruckner’s 9th Symphony receives its first performance in Vienna, Austria.
1906 – Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical Vehementer Nos.
1919 – Friedrich Ebert (SPD), is elected President of Germany.
1929 – Kingdom of Italy and the Vatican sign the Lateran Treaty.
1937 – The Flint sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers trade union.
1938 – BBC Television produces the world’s first ever science fiction television programme, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Čapek play R.U.R., that coined the term “robot”.
1942 – World War II: Second day of the Battle of Bukit Timah is fought in Singapore.
1953 – Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower denies all appeals for clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
1953 – The Soviet Union breaks off diplomatic relations with Israel.
1959 – The Federation of Arab Emirates of the South is created as a protectorate of the United Kingdom.
1970 – Japan launches Ohsumi, becoming the fourth nation to put an object into orbit using its own booster.
1971 – Cold War: the Seabed Arms Control Treaty opened for signature outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor in international waters.
1979 – The Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
1990 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa after 27 years as a political prisoner.
1990 – Buster Douglas, a 42:1 underdog, knocks out Mike Tyson in ten rounds at Tokyo to win boxing’s world Heavyweight title.
1997 – Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
1999 – Pluto crosses Neptune’s orbit, ending a nearly 20-year period when it was closer to the Sun than the gas giant; Pluto is not expected to interact with Neptune’s orbit again until 2231.
2001 – A Dutch programmer launched the Anna Kournikova virus infecting millions of emails via a trick photo of the tennis star.
2008 – Rebel East Timorese soldiers seriously wound President José Ramos-Horta. Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado is killed in the attack.
2011 – Arab Spring: The first wave of the Egyptian revolution culminates in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and the transfer of power to the Supreme Military Council after 17 days of protests.
2013 – The Vatican confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI would resign the papacy as a result of his advanced age.
2014 – A military transport plane crashes in a mountainous area of Oum El Bouaghi Province in eastern Algeria, killing 77 people.
2015 – A university student was murdered as she resisted an attempted rape in Turkey, sparking nationwide protests and public outcry against harassment and violence against women.
2016 – A man shoots six people dead at an education center in Jizan Province, Saudi Arabia.
2017 – North Korea test fires a ballistic missile across the Sea of Japan.
2018 – Saratov Airlines Flight 703 crashes near Moscow, Russia with 71 deaths and no survivors.

Births on February 11

1380 – Poggio Bracciolini, Italian scholar and translator (d. 1459)
1466 – Elizabeth of York (d. 1503)
1535 – Pope Gregory XIV (d. 1591)
1568 – Honoré d’Urfé, French author and playwright (d. 1625)
1649 – William Carstares, Scottish minister and academic (d. 1715)
1657 – Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, French poet and playwright (d. 1757)
1708 – Egidio Duni, Italian composer (d. 1775)
1764 – Joseph Chénier, French poet and playwright (d. 1811)
1776 – Ioannis Kapodistrias, Greek politician, 1st Governor of Greece (d. 1831)
1800 – Henry Fox Talbot, English photographer and politician, invented the calotype (d. 1877)
1802 – Lydia Maria Child, American journalist, author, and activist (d. 1880)
1805 – Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Native American-French Canadian explorer (d. 1866)
1812 – Alexander H. Stephens, American lawyer and politician, Vice President of the Confederate States of America (d. 1883)
1813 – Otto Ludwig, German author, playwright, and critic (d. 1865)
1821 – Auguste Mariette, French archaeologist and scholar (d. 1881)
1830 – Hans Bronsart von Schellendorff, Prussian pianist and composer (d. 1913)
1833 – Melville Fuller, American lawyer and jurist, Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1910)
1839 – Josiah Willard Gibbs, American physicist (d. 1903)
1845 – Ahmet Tevfik Pasha, Ottoman soldier and politician, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1936)
1847 – Thomas Edison, American engineer and businessman, developed the light bulb and phonograph (d. 1931)
1855 – Ellen Day Hale, American painter and author (b. 1855)
1860 – Rachilde, French author and playwright (d. 1953)
1863 – John F. Fitzgerald, American politician; Mayor of Boston (d. 1950)
1864 – Louis Bouveault, French chemist (d. 1909)
1869 – Helene Kröller-Müller, German-Dutch art collector and philanthropist, founded the Kröller-Müller Museum (d. 1939)
1869 – Else Lasker-Schüler, German poet and author (d. 1945)
1874 – Elsa Beskow, Swedish author and illustrator (d. 1953)
1881 – Carlo Carrà, Italian painter (d. 1966)
1897 – Emil Leon Post, Polish-American mathematician and logician (d.1954)
1898 – Leo Szilard, Hungarian-American physicist and academic (d. 1964)
1900 – Ellen Broe, Danish nurse, pioneer in nursing education (d. 1994)
1900 – Hans-Georg Gadamer, German philosopher and scholar (d. 2002)
1900 – Jōsei Toda, Japanese educator and activist (d. 1958)
1902 – Arne Jacobsen, Danish architect, designed Radisson Blu Royal Hotel (d. 1971)
1904 – Keith Holyoake, New Zealand farmer and politician, Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1983)
1904 – Lucile Randon, French Supercentenarian
1908 – Philip Dunne, American screenwriter (d. 1992)
1908 – Vivian Fuchs, English explorer (d. 1999)
1909 – Max Baer, American boxer and actor (d. 1959)
1909 – Joseph L. Mankiewicz, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1993)
1912 – Rudolf Firkušný, Czech-American pianist and educator (d. 1994)
1914 – Matt Dennis, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 2002)
1914 – Josh White, American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1969)
1915 – Patrick Leigh Fermor, English soldier, author, and scholar (d. 2011)
1915 – Richard Hamming, American mathematician and academic (d. 1998)
1917 – Sidney Sheldon, American author and screenwriter (d. 2007)
1920 – Farouk I, King of Egypt (d. 1965)
1920 – Daniel F. Galouye, American author (d. 1976)
1920 – Billy Halop, American actor (d. 1976)
1920 – Daniel James, Jr., American general and pilot (d. 1978)
1921 – Lloyd Bentsen, American colonel and politician, United States Secretary of the Treasury (d. 2006)
1921 – Ottavio Missoni, Italian hurdler and fashion designer, founded Missoni (d. 2013)
1923 – Antony Flew, English philosopher and academic (d. 2010)
1924 – Budge Patty, American tennis player
1925 – Virginia E. Johnson, American psychologist and academic (d. 2013)
1925 – Kim Stanley, American actress (d. 2001)
1926 – Paul Bocuse, French chef (d. 2018)
1926 – Leslie Nielsen, Canadian-American actor and producer (d. 2010)
1930 – Roy De Forest, American painter and academic (d. 2007).
1932 – Dennis Skinner, English miner and politician
1934 – Mel Carnahan, American lieutenant, lawyer, and politician, Governor of Missouri (d. 2000)
1934 – Tina Louise, American actress and singer
1934 – Manuel Noriega, Panamanian general and politician, Military leader of Panama (d. 2017)
1934 – Mary Quant, British fashion designer
1934 – David Taylor, English veterinarian and television host (d. 2013)
1935 – Gene Vincent, American singer and guitarist (d. 1971)
1936 – Burt Reynolds, American actor and director (d. 2018)
1937 – Ian Gow, British Member of Parliament who was assassinated by the IRA (d. 1990)
1937 – Bill Lawry, Australian cricketer and sportscaster
1937 – Eddie Shack, Canadian ice hockey player
1937 – Phillip Walker, American singer and guitarist (d. 2010)
1938 – Bevan Congdon, New Zealand cricketer (d. 2018)
1939 – Gerry Goffin, American songwriter (d. 2014)
1940 – Mick Staton, American soldier and politician (d. 2014)
1941 – Sérgio Mendes, Brazilian pianist and composer
1942 – Otis Clay, American singer-songwriter (d. 2016)
1943 – Joselito, Spanish singer and actor
1943 – Alan Rubin, American trumpet player (d. 2011)
1944 – Mike Oxley, American lawyer and politician (d. 2016)
1944 – Joy Williams, American novelist, short story writer, and essayist
1946 – Ian Porterfield, Scottish footballer and manager (d. 2007)
1947 – Yukio Hatoyama, Japanese engineer and politician and Prime Minister of Japan
1947 – Derek Shulman, Scottish singer-songwriter and producer
1951 – Mike Leavitt, American politician, 14th Governor of Utah
1953 – Philip Anglim, American actor
1953 – Jeb Bush, American banker, politician and Governor of Florida
1953 – Tom Veryzer, American baseball player (d. 2014)
1954 – Wesley Strick, American director and screenwriter
1956 – Didier Lockwood, French violinist (d. 2018)
1959 – Roberto Moreno, Brazilian race car driver
1960 – Richard Mastracchio, American engineer and astronaut
1962 – Tammy Baldwin, American lawyer and politician
1962 – Sheryl Crow, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1964 – Sarah Palin, American journalist, politician and Governor of Alaska
1964 – Ken Shamrock, American martial artist and wrestler
1965 – Vicki Wilson, Australian netball player
1968 – Mo Willems, American author and illustrator
1969 – Jennifer Aniston, American actress and producer
1969 – Andreas Hilfiker, Swiss footballer
1969 – John Salako, Nigerian-English footballer, manager, and sportscaster
1971 – Damian Lewis, English actor
1972 – Steve McManaman, English footballer
1973 – Varg Vikernes, Norwegian guitarist and songwriter
1974 – Nick Barmby, English international footballer, midfielder and manager
1974 – D’Angelo, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1974 – Jaroslav Špaček, Czech ice hockey player and coach
1975 – Andy Lally, American race car driver
1975 – Callum Thorp, Australian cricketer
1975 – Jacque Vaughn, American basketball player and coach
1976 – Tony Battie, American basketball player and sportscaster
1979 – Brandy Norwood, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress
1982 – Ľubomíra Kalinová, Slovak biathlete
1982 – Neil Robertson, Australian snooker player
1983 – Rafael van der Vaart, Dutch international footballer, midfielder
1984 – Maarten Heisen, Dutch sprinter
1984 – Marco Marcato, Italian cyclist
1984 – Maxime Talbot, Canadian ice hockey player
1985 – Šárka Strachová, Czech skier
1987 – Luca Antonelli, Italian footballer
1987 – Juanmi Callejón, Spanish footballer
1987 – Ellen van Dijk, Dutch cyclist
1987 – Brian Matusz, American baseball player
1987 – Jan Smeekens, Dutch speed skater
1988 – Vlad Moldoveanu, Romanian basketball player
1990 – Javier Aquino, Mexican footballer
1991 – Nikola Mirotic, Spanish basketball player
1992 – Lasse Norman Hansen, Danish track and road cyclist
1993 – Ben McLemore, American basketball player
1994 – Dansby Swanson, American baseball player
1996 – Jonathan Tah, German footballer

Deaths on February 11

AD 55 – Britannicus, Roman son of Claudius (b. 41)
244 – Gordian III, Roman emperor (b. 225)
641 – Heraclius, Byzantine emperor (b. 575)
731 – Pope Gregory II (b. 669)
824 – Pope Paschal I
1141 – Hugh of Saint Victor, German philosopher and theologian (b. 1096)
1503 – Elizabeth of York (b. 1466)
1626 – Pietro Cataldi, Italian mathematician and astronomer (b. 1548)
1650 – René Descartes, French mathematician and philosopher (b. 1596)
1755 – Francesco Scipione, marchese di Maffei, Italian archaeologist, playwright, and critic (b. 1675)
1763 – William Shenstone, English poet and gardener (b. 1714)
1795 – Carl Michael Bellman, Swedish poet and composer (b. 1740)
1829 – Alexander Griboyedov, Russian poet, playwright, and composer (b. 1795)
1862 – Elizabeth Siddal, English poet and artist’s model (b. 1829)
1868 – Léon Foucault, French physicist and academic (b. 1819)
1898 – Félix María Zuloaga, Mexican general and unconstitutional interim president (1858 and 1860-1862) (b. 1813)
1901 – Milan I of Serbia (b. 1855)
1917 – Oswaldo Cruz, Brazilian physician and epidemiologist (b. 1872)
1918 – Alexey Kaledin, Russian general (b. 1861)
1931 – Charles Algernon Parsons, English-Irish engineer, invented the steam turbine (b. 1854)
1940 – John Buchan, Scottish-Canadian historian and politician, Governor General of Canada (b. 1875)
1940 – Ellen Day Hale, American painter and author (b. 1855)
1942 – Jamnalal Bajaj, Indian businessman and philanthropist (b. 1884)
1947 – Martin Klein, Estonian wrestler and coach (b. 1884)
1948 – Sergei Eisenstein, Russian director and screenwriter (b. 1898)
1949 – Axel Munthe, Swedish doctor (b. 1857)
1958 – Ernest Jones, Welsh neurologist and psychoanalyst (b. 1879)
1963 – John Olof Dahlgren, Swedish-American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1872)
1963 – Sylvia Plath, American poet, novelist, and short story writer (b. 1932)
1967 – A. J. Muste, Dutch-American minister and activist (b. 1885)
1968 – Howard Lindsay, American playwright (b. 1889)
1973 – J. Hans D. Jensen, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1907)
1975 – Richard Ratsimandrava, Malagasy colonel and politician, President of Madagascar (b. 1931)
1976 – Lee J. Cobb, American actor (b. 1911)
1976 – Alexander Lippisch, German pilot and engineer (b. 1894)
1977 – Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, Indian lawyer and politician, President of India (b. 1905)
1977 – Louis Beel, Dutch academic and politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (b. 1902)
1978 – James Bryant Conant, American chemist and academic (b. 1893)
1978 – Harry Martinson, Swedish novelist, essayist, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1904)
1982 – Eleanor Powell, American actress and dancer (b. 1912)
1985 – Henry Hathaway, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1898)
1986 – Frank Herbert, American journalist and author (b. 1920)
1989 – George O’Hanlon, American actor and voice artist (b. 1912)
1993 – Robert W. Holley, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1922)
1994 – Neil Bonnett, American race car driver (b. 1946)
1994 – Sorrell Booke, American lieutenant, actor, and director (b. 1930)
1994 – William Conrad, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1920)
1994 – Paul Feyerabend, Austrian-Swiss philosopher and academic (b. 1924)
1996 – Amelia Rosselli, Italian poet and author (b. 1930)
2000 – Lord Kitchner, Trinidadian singer (b. 1922)
2000 – Roger Vadim, French director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1928)
2002 – Frankie Crosetti, American baseball player and coach (b. 1910)
2002 – Barry Foster, English actor (b. 1931)
2004 – Shirley Strickland, Australian runner (b. 1925)
2005 – Jack L. Chalker, American author (b. 1944)
2006 – Peter Benchley, American author and screenwriter (b. 1940)
2006 – Ken Fletcher, Australian tennis player (b. 1940)
2006 – Jackie Pallo, English wrestler and actor (b. 1926)
2008 – Tom Lantos, American lawyer and politician (b. 1928)
2008 – Frank Piasecki, American engineer (b. 1919)
2009 – Estelle Bennett, American singer (b. 1941)
2009 – Willem Johan Kolff, Dutch-American physician and academic (b. 1911)
2010 – Heward Grafftey, Canadian businessman and politician (b. 1928)
2010 – Alexander McQueen, English fashion designer, founder of his eponymous brand (b. 1969)
2011 – Chuck Tanner, American baseball player and manager (b. 1928)
2012 – Siri Bjerke, Norwegian politician, Norwegian Minister of the Environment (b. 1958)
2012 – Aharon Davidi, Israeli general (b. 1927)
2012 – Whitney Houston, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress (b. 1963)
2013 – Rick Huxley, English bass player (b. 1940)
2014 – Alice Babs, Swedish singer and actress (b. 1924)
2014 – Tito Canepa, Dominican-American painter (b. 1916)
2014 – Fernando González Pacheco, Colombian journalist and actor (b. 1932)
2015 – Roger Hanin, French actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1925)
2015 – Bob Simon, American journalist (b. 1941)
2015 – Jerry Tarkanian, American basketball player and coach (b. 1930)
2016 – Kevin Randleman, American mixed martial artist and wrestler (b. 1971)
2016 – Zeng Xuelin, Thai-Chinese footballer and manager (b. 1929)
2017 – Fab Melo, Brazilian basketball player (b. 1990)
2017 – Jaap Rijks, Dutch Olympian (b. 1919)
2018 – Vic Damone, American singer, songwriter and actor (b. 1928)
2018 – Asma Jahangir, Pakistani human-rights lawyer and social activist (b. 1952)
2018 – Jan Maxwell, American stage and television actress (b. 1956)
2018 – Qazi Wajid, Pakistani drama actor, writer and artist (b. 1930)

Holidays and observances on February 11

Christian feast day:
- Blaise Eastern Orthodox liturgics
- Cædmon, first recorded Christian poet in England, circa 680 CE (Anglicanism)
- Gobnait
- Gregory II
- Lazarus of Milan
European 112 Day (European Union)
Armed Forces Day (Liberia)
Evelio Javier Day (Panay Island, the Philippines)
Feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes (Catholic Church), and its related observance
- World Day of the Sick (Roman Catholic Church)
Inventors’ Day (United States)
National Foundation Day (Japan)
Youth Day (Cameroon)
International Day of Women and Girls in Science (UN Women)

February 11 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

February 10 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

1258 – Mongol invasions: Baghdad falls to the Mongols, bringing the Islamic Golden Age to an end.
1306 – In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn sparking the revolution in the Wars of Scottish Independence.
1355 – The St Scholastica Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.
1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.
1567 – Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is found strangled following an explosion at the Kirk o’ Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland, a suspected assassination.
1712 – Huilliches in Chiloé rebel against Spanish encomenderos.
1763 – French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.
1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians.
1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
1846 – First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon: British defeat Sikhs in the final battle of the war.
1861 – Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1862 – American Civil War: A Union naval flotilla destroys the bulk of the Confederate Mosquito Fleet in the Battle of Elizabeth City on the Pasquotank River in North Carolina.
1906 – HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships is christened and launched by King Edward VII.
1920 – Józef Haller de Hallenburg performs symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.
1920 – About 75 % of the population in Zone I votes to join Denmark in the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites.
1923 – Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas
1930 – The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng launches the failed Yên Bái mutiny in hope to overthrow French protectorate over Vietnam.
1933 – In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf. Schaaf dies four days later.
1936 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italian troops launched the Battle of Amba Aradam against Ethiopian defenders.
1939 – Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists conclude their conquest of Catalonia and seal the border with France.
1940 – The Soviet Union begins mass deportations of Polish citizens from occupied eastern Poland to Siberia.
1940 – Cartoon characters Tom and Jerry make their debut with Puss Gets the Boot.
1942 – World War II: Imperial Japanese Army capture Banjarmasin, capital of Borneo in Dutch East Indies.
1943 – World War II: Attempting to completely lift the Siege of Leningrad, the Soviet Red Army engages German troops and Spanish volunteers in the Battle of Krasny Bor.
1947 – The Paris Peace Treaties are signed by Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and the Allies of World War II.
1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.
1962 – Cold War: Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
1962 – Roy Lichtenstein’s first solo exhibition opened, and it included Look Mickey, which featured his first employment of Ben-Day dots, speech balloons and comic imagery sourcing, all of which he is now known for.
1964 – Melbourne–Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with and sinks the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, killing 82.
1967 – The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
1972 – Ras Al Khaimah joins the United Arab Emirates, now making up seven emirates.
1984 – Kenyan soldiers kill an estimated 5000 ethnic Somali Kenyans in the Wagalla massacre.
1989 – Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.
1996 – IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess for the first time.
2003 – France and Belgium break the NATO procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq.
2007 – Then Illinois senator Barack Obama announces his candidacy for president in the 2008 elections, which he later goes on to win.
2009 – The communications satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 collide in orbit, destroying both.
2013 – Thirty-six people are killed and 39 others are injured in a stampede in Allahabad, India, during the Kumbh Mela festival.
2016 – South Korea decides to stop the operation of the Kaesong joint industrial complex with North Korea in response to the launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4.
2018 – 19 people are killed and 66 injured when a Kowloon Motor Bus double-decker on route 872 in Hong Kong overturns.

Births on February 10

1486 – George of the Palatinate, German bishop (d. 1529)
1499 – Thomas Platter, Swiss author and scholar (d. 1582)
1514 – Domenico Bollani, Bishop of Milan (d. 1579)
1606 – Christine of France, Duchess of Savoy (d. 1663)
1609 – John Suckling, English poet and playwright (d. 1642)
1627 – Cornelis de Bie, Flemish poet and jurist (d. 1715)
1685 – Aaron Hill, English poet and playwright (d. 1750)
1696 – Johann Melchior Molter, German violinist and composer (d. 1765)
1744 – William Cornwallis, English admiral and politician (d. 1819)
1766 – Benjamin Smith Barton, American botanist and physician (d. 1815)
1775 – Charles Lamb, English poet and essayist (d. 1834)
1785 – Claude-Louis Navier, French physicist and engineer (d. 1836)
1795 – Ary Scheffer, Dutch-French painter and academic (d. 1858)
1797 – George Chichester, 3rd Marquess of Donegall (d. 1883)
1821 – Roberto Bompiani, Italian painter and sculptor (d. 1908)
1824 – Samuel Plimsoll, English merchant and politician (d. 1898)
1842 – Agnes Mary Clerke, Irish astronomer and author (d. 1907)
1843 – Adelina Patti, Italian-French opera singer (d. 1919)
1846 – Lord Charles Beresford, Irish admiral and politician (d. 1919)
1846 – Ira Remsen, American chemist and academic (d. 1927)
1847 – Nabinchandra Sen, Bangladeshi poet and author (d. 1909)
1859 – Alexandre Millerand, French lawyer and politician, 12th President of France (d. 1943)
1867 – Robert Garran, Australian lawyer and public servant (d. 1957)
1868 – Prince Waldemar of Prussia (d. 1879)
1868 – William Allen White, American journalist and author (d. 1944)
1869 – Royal Cortissoz, American art critic (d. 1948)
1879 – Ernst Põdder, Estonian general (d. 1932)
1881 – Pauline Brunius, Swedish actress and director (d. 1954)
1883 – Edith Clarke, American electrical engineer (d. 1959)
1883 – H.V. Hordern, Australian cricketer (d. 1938)
1889 – Cevdet Sunay, Turkish general and politician, 5th President of Turkey (d. 1982)
1890 – Fanny Kaplan, Ukrainian-Russian activist (d. 1918)
1890 – Boris Pasternak, Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1960)
1892 – Alan Hale Sr., American actor and director (d. 1950)
1893 – Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and pianist (d. 1980)
1893 – Bill Tilden, American tennis player and coach (d. 1953)
1894 – Harold Macmillan, English captain and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1986)
1897 – Judith Anderson, Australian actress (d. 1992)
1897 – John Franklin Enders, American virologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)
1898 – Bertolt Brecht, German director, playwright, and poet (d. 1956)
1898 – Joseph Kessel, French journalist and author (d. 1979)
1901 – Stella Adler, American actress and educator (d. 1992)
1902 – Walter Houser Brattain, Chinese-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
1903 – Waldemar Hoven, German physician (d. 1948)
1903 – Matthias Sindelar, Austrian footballer and manager (d. 1939)
1904 – John Farrow, Australian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1963)
1905 – Walter A. Brown, American businessman, founded the Boston Celtics (d. 1964)
1905 – Chick Webb, American drummer and bandleader (d. 1939)
1906 – Lon Chaney Jr., American actor (d. 1973)
1907 – Anthony Cottrell, New Zealand rugby player (d. 1988)
1908 – Jean Coulthard, Canadian composer and educator (d. 2000)
1909 – Min Thu Wun, Burmese poet, scholar, and politician (d. 2004)
1910 – Dominique Pire, Belgian friar, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1969)
1914 – Larry Adler, American harmonica player, composer, and actor (d. 2001)
1915 – Vladimir Zeldin, Russian actor (d. 2016)
1919 – Ioannis Charalambopoulos, Greek colonel and politician, Deputy Prime Minister of Greece (d. 2014)
1920 – Alex Comfort, English physician and author (d. 2000)
1920 – Neva Patterson, American actress (d. 2010)
1920 – José Manuel Castañón, Spanish lawyer and author (d. 2001)
1922 – Árpád Göncz, Hungarian author, playwright, and politician, 1st President of Hungary (d. 2015)
1922 – José Gabriel da Costa later known as Mestre Gabriel, Brazilian spiritual leader, founder of the União do Vegetal (d. 1971)
1923 – Allie Sherman, American football player and coach (d. 2015)
1924 – Max Ferguson, Canadian radio host and actor (d. 2013)
1924 – Bud Poile, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 2005)
1925 – Pierre Mondy, French actor and director (d. 2012)
1926 – Sidney Bryan Berry, American general (d. 2013)
1926 – Danny Blanchflower, Northern Irish soldier, footballer and manager (d. 1993)
1927 – Leontyne Price, American operatic soprano
1929 – Jerry Goldsmith, American composer and conductor (d. 2004)
1929 – Jim Whittaker, American mountaineer
1929 – Lou Whittaker, American mountaineer
1930 – E. L. Konigsburg, American author and illustrator (d. 2013)
1930 – Robert Wagner, American actor and producer
1931 – James Edward Maceo West, American inventor and acoustician
1932 – Barrie Ingham, English-American actor (d. 2015)
1933 – Richard Schickel, American journalist, author, and critic (d. 2017)
1933 – Faramarz Payvar, Iranian santur player and composer (d. 2009)
1935 – Theodore Antoniou, Greek composer and conductor (d. 2018)
1937 – Anne Anderson, Scottish physiologist and academic (d. 1983)
1937 – Roberta Flack, American singer-songwriter and pianist
1939 – Adrienne Clarkson, Hong Kong-Canadian journalist and politician, 26th Governor General of Canada
1939 – Deolinda Rodríguez de Almeida, Angolan nationalist (d. 1967)
1940 – Mary Rand, English sprinter and long jumper
1940 – Kenny Rankin, American singer-songwriter (d. 2009)
1941 – Michael Apted, English director and producer
1944 – Peter Allen, Australian singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (d. 1992)
1944 – Frank Keating, American lawyer and politician, 25th Governor of Oklahoma
1944 – Frances Moore Lappé, American author and activist
1944 – Rufus Reid, American bassist and composer
1945 – Delma S. Arrigoitia, Puerto Rican historian, author, educator and lawyer
1947 – Louise Arbour, Canadian lawyer and jurist
1947 – Butch Morris, American cornet player, composer, and conductor (d. 2013)
1947 – Nicholas Owen, English journalist
1949 – Nigel Olsson, English rock drummer and singer-songwriter
1950 – Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexican economist and politician (d. 1994)
1950 – Mark Spitz, American swimmer
1951 – Bob Iger, American media executive
1952 – Lee Hsien Loong, Singaporean general and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Singapore
1955 – Jim Cramer, American television personality, pundit, and author
1955 – Greg Norman, Australian golfer and sportscaster
1956 – Enele Sopoaga, Tuvaluan politician, 12th Prime Minister of Tuvalu
1957 – Katherine Freese, American astrophysicist and academic
1959 – John Calipari, American basketball player and coach
1960 – Jim Kent, American biologist, computer programmer, academic
1961 – Alexander Payne, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1961 – George Stephanopoulos, American television journalist
1962 – Randy Velischek, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1962 – Cliff Burton, American heavy metal bassist (d. 1986)
1963 – Lenny Dykstra, American baseball player
1964 – Glenn Beck, American journalist, producer, and author
1966 – Natalie Bennett, Australian-English journalist and politician
1966 – Daryl Johnston, American football player and sportscaster
1967 – Laura Dern, American actress, director, and producer
1967 – Jacky Durand, French cyclist and sportscaster
1967 – Vince Gilligan, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1968 – Peter Popovic, Swedish ice hockey player and coach
1968 – Garrett Reisman, American engineer and astronaut
1969 – Joe Mangrum, American painter and sculptor
1969 – James Small, South African rugby player (d. 2019)
1970 – Melissa Doyle, Australian journalist and author
1970 – Noureddine Naybet, Moroccan international footballer, central defender and manager
1970 – Åsne Seierstad, Norwegian journalist and author
1971 – Lorena Rojas, Mexican actress and singer (d. 2015)
1972 – Michael Kasprowicz, Australian cricketer
1973 – Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, English businesswoman and politician
1974 – Elizabeth Banks, American actress
1974 – Ty Law, American football player
1974 – Ivri Lider, Israeli singer
1974 – Henry Paul, New Zealand rugby player and coach
1976 – Lance Berkman, American baseball player and coach
1976 – Keeley Hawes, English actress
1977 – Salif Diao, Senegalese footballer
1979 – Joey Hand, American race car driver
1980 – César Izturis, Venezuelan baseball player
1980 – Enzo Maresca, Italian footballer
1980 – Mike Ribeiro, Canadian ice hockey player
1981 – Uzo Aduba, American actress
1981 – Stephanie Beatriz, American actress
1981 – Andrew Johnson, English international footballer, forward and club ambassador
1981 – Holly Willoughby, English model and television host
1982 – Justin Gatlin, American sprinter
1982 – Tarmo Neemelo, Estonian footballer
1982 – Hamad Al-Tayyar, Kuwaiti footballer
1982 – Iafeta Paleaaesina, New Zealand rugby league player
1983 – Vic Fuentes, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1984 – Greg Bird, Australian rugby league player
1984 – Alex Gordon, American baseball player
1984 – Kim Hyo-jin, South Korean actress
1985 – Selçuk İnan, Turkish footballer
1985 – Paul Millsap, American basketball player
1986 – Jeff Adrien, American basketball player
1986 – Josh Akognon, American basketball player
1986 – Radamel Falcao, Colombian footballer
1986 – Roberto Jiménez Gago, Spanish footballer
1986 – Viktor Troicki, Serbian tennis player
1987 – Jakub Kindl, Czech ice hockey player
1987 – Facundo Roncaglia, Argentinian footballer
1988 – Francesco Acerbi, Italian footballer
1989 – Liam Hendriks, Australian baseball player
1990 – Barbara Guarischi, Italian cyclist
1990 – Choi Soo-young, South Korean singer-songwriter, actress, and dancer
1991 – Rebecca Dempster, Scottish footballer
1991 – Emma Roberts, American actress
1992 – Haruka Nakagawa, Japanese singer and actress
1992 – Reinhold Yabo, German footballer
1993 – Max Kepler, German baseball player
1993 – Filip Twardzik, Czech footballer
1993 – Luis Madrigal, Mexican footballer
1994 – Kang Seul-gi, South Korean singer and member of Red Velvet
1995 – Carolane Soucisse, Canadian ice dancer
1996 – Emanuel Mammana, Argentinian footballer
1997 – Lilly King, American swimmer
1997 – Chloë Grace Moretz, American actress
1997 – Nadia Podoroska, Argentinian tennis player
2000 – Yara Shahidi, American actress and model

Deaths on February 10

547 – Scholastica, Christian nun
1127 – William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (b. 1071)
1163 – Baldwin III of Jerusalem (b. 1130)
1242 – Emperor Shijō of Japan (b. 1231)
1242 – Saint Verdiana, Italian recluse (b. 1182)
1280 – Margaret II, Countess of Flanders (b. 1202)
1306 – John “the Red” Comyn, Scottish nobleman
1307 – Temür Khan, Emperor Chengzong of Yuan (b. 1265)
1346 – Blessed Clare of Rimini (b. 1282)
1471 – Frederick II, Margrave of Brandenburg (b. 1413)
1524 – Catherine of Saxony, Archduchess of Austria (b. 1468)
1526 – John V, Count of Oldenburg, German noble (b. 1460)
1567 – Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary, Queen of Scots (b. 1545)
1576 – Wilhelm Xylander, German scholar, translator, and academic (b. 1532)
1686 – William Dugdale, English genealogist and historian (b. 1605)
1755 – Montesquieu, French lawyer and philosopher (b. 1689)
1782 – Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, German theologian and author (b. 1702)
1829 – Pope Leo XII (b. 1760)
1837 – Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet and author (b. 1799)
1854 – José Joaquín de Herrera, Mexican politician and general. President three times (1844–1854) (b. 1792)
1857 – David Thompson, English-Canadian surveyor and explorer (b. 1770)
1865 – Heinrich Lenz, Estonian-Italian physicist and academic (b. 1804)
1879 – Honoré Daumier, French illustrator and painter (b. 1808)
1887 – Ellen Wood, English author (b. 1814)
1891 – Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian-Swedish mathematician and physicist (b. 1850)
1904 – John A. Roche, American lawyer and politician, 30th Mayor of Chicago (b. 1844)
1906 – Ezra Butler Eddy, American-Canadian businessman and politician (b. 1827)
1912 – Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, English surgeon and academic (b. 1827)
1913 – Konstantinos Tsiklitiras, Greek long jumper (b. 1888)
1917 – John William Waterhouse, English soldier and painter (b. 1849)
1918 – Abdul Hamid II, Ottoman sultan (b. 1842)
1918 – Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, Italian soldier and journalist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1833)
1920 – Henry Strangways, English-Australian politician, 12th Premier of South Australia (b. 1832)
1923 – Wilhelm Röntgen, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1845)
1928 – José Sánchez del Río, Mexican martyr and saint (b. 1913)
1932 – Edgar Wallace, English author and screenwriter (b. 1875)
1939 – Pope Pius XI (b. 1857)
1944 – E. M. Antoniadi, Greek-French astronomer and chess player (b. 1870)
1945 – Anacleto Díaz, Filipino lawyer and jurist (b. 1878)
1950 – Marcel Mauss, French sociologist and anthropologist (b. 1872)
1956 – Leonora Speyer, American poet and violinist (b. 1872)
1956 – Emmanouil Tsouderos, Greek banker and politician, 132nd Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1882)
1957 – Laura Ingalls Wilder, American author (b. 1867)
1960 – Aloysius Stepinac, Croatian cardinal (b. 1898)
1966 – Billy Rose, American composer and songwriter (b. 1899)
1967 – Dionysios Kokkinos, Greek historian and author (b. 1884)
1975 – Nikos Kavvadias, Greek sailor and poet (b. 1910)
1979 – Edvard Kardelj, Slovene general and politician, 2nd Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia (b. 1910)
1992 – Alex Haley, American soldier, journalist, and author (b. 1921)
1993 – Fred Hollows, New Zealand-Australian ophthalmologist and academic (b. 1929)
1995 – Paul Monette, American author, poet, and activist (b. 1945)
1997 – Brian Connolly, Scottish musician, lead singer The Sweet (b. 1945)
2000 – Jim Varney, American actor, comedian and writer (b. 1949)
2001 – Abraham Beame, American academic and politician, 104th Mayor of New York City (b. 1906)
2001 – Buddy Tate, American saxophonist and clarinet player (b. 1913)
2002 – Dave Van Ronk, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1936)
2003 – Edgar de Evia, Mexican-American photographer (b. 1910)
2003 – Albert J. Ruffo, American lawyer and politician, Mayor of San Jose (b. 1908)
2003 – Ron Ziegler, American politician, 14th White House Press Secretary (b. 1939)
2005 – Arthur Miller, American actor, playwright, and author (b. 1915)
2006 – James Yancey, American record producer and rapper (b. 1974)
2008 – Roy Scheider, American actor and boxer (b. 1932)
2010 – Fred Schaus, American basketball player and coach (b. 1925)
2010 – Charles Wilson, American lieutenant and politician (b. 1933)
2011 – Trevor Bailey, English cricketer and journalist (b. 1923)
2012 – Lloyd Morrison, New Zealand banker and businessman, founded H. R. L. Morrison & Co (b. 1957)
2012 – Jeffrey Zaslow, American journalist and author (b. 1958)
2013 – W. Watts Biggers, American author, screenwriter, and animator (b. 1927)
2013 – David Hartman, American-Israeli rabbi and philosopher, founded the Shalom Hartman Institute (b. 1931)
2014 – Stuart Hall, Jamaican-English sociologist and theorist (b. 1932)
2014 – Shirley Temple, American actress and diplomat (b. 1928)
2015 – Naseer Aruri, Palestinian scholar and activist (b. 1934)
2015 – Karl Josef Becker, German cardinal and theologian (b. 1928)
2015 – Deng Liqun, Chinese theorist and politician (b. 1915)
2016 – Fatima Surayya Bajia, Indian-Pakistani author and playwright (b. 1930)
2017 – Mike Ilitch, American businessman (b. 1929)
2019 – Carmen Argenziano, American actor (b. 1943)
2019 – Jan-Michael Vincent, American actor (b. 1944)

Holidays and observances on February 10

Christian feast day:
- Austrebertha
- Charalambos
- José Sánchez del Río
- Scholastica
- February 10 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Feast of St. Paul’s Shipwreck (Malta)
Fenkil Day (Eritrea)
Kurdish Authors Union Day (Iraqi Kurdistan)
National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe (Italy)

February 10 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

February 9 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

February 9 in History

474 – Zeno is crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
1003 – Boleslaus III is restored to authority with armed support from Bolesław I the Brave of Poland.
1555 – Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.
1621 – Gregory XV becomes Pope, the last Pope elected by acclamation.
1654 – The Capture of Fort Rocher takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.
1778 – Rhode Island becomes the fourth US state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
1788 – The Habsburg Empire joins the Russo-Turkish War in the Russian camp.
1825 – After no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the US presidential election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as President of the United States.
1849 – The new Roman Republic is declared.
1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
1870 – US president Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.
1889 – US president Grover Cleveland signs a bill elevating the United States Department of Agriculture to a Cabinet-level agency.
1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.
1900 – The Davis Cup competition is established.
1904 – Russo-Japanese War: Battle of Port Arthur concludes.
1907 – The Mud March is the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).
1913 – A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.
1920 – Under the terms of the Svalbard Treaty, international diplomacy recognizes Norwegian sovereignty over Arctic archipelago Svalbard, and designates it as demilitarized.
1922 – Brazil becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1934 – The Balkan Entente is formed.
1941 – World War II: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa, Italy, is struck by a bomb which fails to detonate.
1942 – World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.
1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time (aka War Time) is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.
1943 – World War II: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.
1945 – World War II: Battle of the Atlantic: HMS Venturer sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat.
1945 – World War II: A force of Allied aircraft unsuccessfully attacked a German destroyer in Førdefjorden, Norway.
1950 – Second Red Scare: US Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.
1951 – Korean War: The two-day Geochang massacre begins as a battalion of the 11th Division of the South Korean Army kills 719 unarmed citizens in Geochang, in the South Gyeongsang district of South Korea
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 a “record-busting” audience of 73 million viewers across the USA.
1965 – The United States Marine Corps sends a MIM-23 Hawk missile battalion to South Vietnam, the first American troops in-country without an official advisory or training mission.
1971 – The 6.5–6.7 M_w  Sylmar earthquake hits the Greater Los Angeles Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 64 and injuring 2,000.
1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to be voted into the USA’s Baseball Hall of Fame.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned Moon landing.
1975 – The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
1976 – Aeroflot Flight 3739, a Tupolev Tu-104, crashes during takeoff from Irkutsk Airport, killing 24.
1978 – The Budd Company unveils its first SPV-2000 self-propelled railcar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1986 – Halley’s Comet last appeared in the inner Solar System.
1991 – Voters in Lithuania vote for independence.
1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares the end to its 18-month ceasefire and explodes a large bomb in London’s Canary Wharf, killing two people.
1996 – Copernicium is discovered, by Sigurd Hofmann, Victor Ninov et al.
2016 – Two passenger trains collided in the German town of Bad Aibling in the state of Bavaria. Twelve people died, and 85 others were injured.
2018 – Winter Olympics: Opening ceremony is performed in Pyeongchang County in South Korea.

Births on February 9

1060 – Honorius II, pope of the Catholic Church (d. 1130)
1274 – Louis of Toulouse, French bishop (d. 1297)
1313 – Maria of Portugal, Queen of Castile, Portuguese infanta (d. 1357)
1344 – Meinhard III, count of Tyrol (d. 1363)
1441 – Ali-Shir Nava’i, Turkic poet, linguist, and painter (d. 1501)
1533 – Shimazu Yoshihisa, Japanese daimyō (d. 1611)
1579 – Johannes Meursius, Dutch classical scholar (d. 1639)
1651 – Procopio Cutò, French entrepreneur (d. 1727)
1666 – George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney, Scottish field marshal (d. 1737)
1711 – Luis Vicente de Velasco e Isla, Spanish sailor and commander (d. 1762)
1737 – Thomas Paine, English-American philosopher, author, and activist (d. 1809)
1741 – Henri-Joseph Rigel, German-French composer (d. 1799)
1748 – Sir John Duckworth, 1st Baronet, English admiral and politician, Commodore Governor of Newfoundland (d. 1817)
1763 – Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden (d. 1830)
1769 – George W. Campbell, Scottish-American lawyer and politician, 5th United States Secretary of the Treasury (d. 1848)
1773 – William Henry Harrison, American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (d. 1841)
1775 – Farkas Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician and academic (d. 1856)
1781 – Johann Baptist von Spix, German biologist and explorer (d. 1826)
1783 – Vasily Zhukovsky, Russian poet and translator (d. 1852)
1789 – Franz Xaver Gabelsberger, German engineer, invented Gabelsberger shorthand (d. 1849)
1800 – Hyrum Smith, American religious leader (d. 1844)
1814 – Samuel J. Tilden, American lawyer and politician, 28th Governor of New York (d. 1886)
1815 – Federico de Madrazo, Spanish painter (d.1894)
1834 – Felix Dahn, German lawyer, historian, and author (d. 1912)
1826 – Keʻelikōlani, Hawaiian royal and governor (d. 1883)
1837 – José Burgos, Filipino priest and revolutionary (d. 1872)
1839 – Silas Adams, American colonel, lawyer, and politician (d. 1896)
1846 – Wilhelm Maybach, German engineer and businessman, founded Maybach (d. 1929)
1846 – Whitaker Wright, English businessman and financier (d. 1904)
1847 – Hugh Price Hughes, Welsh-English clergyman and theologian (d. 1902)
1854 – Aletta Jacobs, Dutch physician and suffrage activist (d. 1929)
1856 – Hara Takashi, Japanese politician, 10th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1921)
1859 – Akiyama Yoshifuru, Japanese general (d. 1930)
1863 – Anthony Hope, English author and playwright (d. 1933)
1864 – Miina Härma, Estonian organist, composer, and conductor (d. 1941)
1865 – Mrs. Patrick Campbell, English-French actress (d. 1940)
1865 – Erich von Drygalski, German geographer and geophysicist (d. 1949)
1867 – Natsume Sōseki, Japanese author and poet (d. 1916)
1871 – Howard Taylor Ricketts, American pathologist and physician (d. 1910)
1874 – Amy Lowell, American poet, critic, and educator (d. 1925)
1876 – Arthur Edward Moore, New Zealand-Australian politician, 23rd Premier of Queensland (d. 1963)
1878 – Jack Kirwan, Irish international footballer (d. 1959)
1880 – Lipót Fejér, Hungarian mathematician and academic (d. 1959)
1883 – Jules Berry, French actor and director (d. 1951)
1885 – Alban Berg, Austrian composer and educator (d. 1935)
1885 – Clarence H. Haring, American historian and author (d. 1960)
1889 – Larry Semon, American actor, producer, director and screenwriter (d. 1928)
1891 – Ronald Colman, English-American actor (d. 1958)
1892 – Peggy Wood, American actress (d. 1978)
1893 – Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas, Greek lawyer and politician, 163rd Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1987)
1895 – Hermann Brill, German lawyer and politician, 8th Minister-President of Thuringia (d. 1959)
1896 – Alberto Vargas, Peruvian-American painter and illustrator (d. 1982)
1897 – Charles Kingsford Smith, Australian captain and pilot (d. 1935)
1898 – Jūkichi Yagi, Japanese poet and educator (d. 1927)
1901 – Brian Donlevy, American actor (d. 1972)
1901 – James Murray, American actor (d. 1936)
1905 – David Cecil, 6th Marquess of Exeter, English hurdler and politician (d. 1981)
1906 – André Kostolany, Hungarian-French economist and journalist (d. 1999)
1907 – Trường Chinh, Vietnamese politician, 4th President of Vietnam (d. 1988)
1907 – Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter, English-Canadian mathematician and academic (d. 2003)
1909 – Heather Angel, English-American actress (d. 1986)
1909 – Carmen Miranda, Portuguese-Brazilian actress, singer, and dancer (d. 1955)
1909 – Dean Rusk, American colonel and politician, 54th United States Secretary of State (d. 1994)
1910 – Jacques Monod, French biochemist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)
1911 – William Orlando Darby, American general (d. 1945)
1912 – Futabayama Sadaji, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 35th Yokozuna (d. 1968)
1912 – Ginette Leclerc, French actress (d. 1992)
1914 – Ernest Tubb, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1984)
1916 – Tex Hughson, American baseball player (d. 1993)
1918 – Lloyd Noel Ferguson, African American chemist (d. 2011)
1920 – Fred Allen, New Zealand rugby player and coach (d. 2012)
1922 – Kathryn Grayson, American actress and soprano (d. 2010)
1922 – Jim Laker, English cricketer and sportscaster (d. 1986)
1922 – C. P. Krishnan Nair, Indian businessman, founded The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts (d. 2014)
1922 – Robert E. Ogren, American zoologist (d. 2005)
1923 – Brendan Behan, Irish rebel, poet, and playwright (d. 1964)
1923 – Tonie Nathan, American radio host, producer, and politician (d. 2014)
1925 – John B. Cobb, American philosopher and theologian
1925 – Burkhard Heim, German physicist and academic (d. 2001)
1926 – Garret FitzGerald, Irish lawyer and politician, 7th Taoiseach of Ireland (d. 2011)
1927 – Richard A. Long, American historian and author (d. 2013)
1928 – Frank Frazetta, American painter and illustrator (d. 2010)
1928 – Rinus Michels, Dutch footballer and coach (d. 2005)
1928 – Roger Mudd, American journalist
1929 – A. R. Antulay, Indian social worker and politician, 8th Chief Minister of Maharashtra (d. 2014)
1929 – Clement Meadmore, Australian-American sculptor (d. 2005)
1930 – Garner Ted Armstrong, American evangelist and author (d. 2003)
1931 – Thomas Bernhard, Austrian author, poet, and playwright (d. 1989)
1931 – Josef Masopust, Czech footballer and coach (d. 2015)
1931 – Robert Morris, American sculptor and painter (d. 2018)
1932 – Tatsuro Hirooka, Japanese baseball player and manager
1932 – Gerhard Richter, German painter and photographer
1935 – Lionel Fanthorpe, English-Welsh priest, journalist, and author
1936 – Clive Swift, English actor and singer-songwriter (d. 2019)
1937 – Clete Boyer, American baseball player and manager (d. 2007)
1938 – Ron Logan, Disney theatrical producer and professor
1939 – Mahala Andrews, British vertebrae palaeontologist (d. 1997)
1939 – Barry Mann, American pianist, songwriter, and producer
1939 – Janet Suzman, South African-British actress and director
1940 – Brian Bennett, English drummer and songwriter
1940 – J. M. Coetzee, South African-Australian novelist, essayist, and linguist, Nobel Prize laureate
1941 – Kermit Gosnell, American abortionist and serial killer
1941 – Sheila Kuehl, American actress, lawyer, gay rights activist, and politician
1942 – Carole King, American singer-songwriter and pianist
1943 – Barbara Lewis, American soul/R&B singer-songwriter
1943 – Joe Pesci, American actor
1943 – Joseph Stiglitz, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1944 – Derryn Hinch, New Zealand-Australian radio and television host and politician
1944 – Alice Walker, American novelist, short story writer, and poet
1945 – Mia Farrow, American actress, activist, and former fashion model
1945 – Yoshinori Ohsumi, Japanese cell biologist, 2016 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine
1945 – Carol Wood, American mathematician and academic
1946 – Bob Eastwood, American golfer
1946 – Vince Papale, American football player and sportscaster
1946 – Jim Webb, American captain and politician, 18th United States Secretary of the Navy
1947 – Carla Del Ponte, Swiss lawyer and diplomat
1947 – Joe Ely, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1947 – Major Harris, American R&B singer (d. 2012)
1947 – Alexis Smirnoff, Canadian-American wrestler and actor (d. 2019)
1948 – Guy Standing, English economist and academic
1949 – Bernard Gallacher, Scottish golfer and journalist
1949 – Judith Light, American actress
1950 – Richard F. Colburn, American sergeant and politician
1951 – David Pomeranz, American singer, musician, and composer
1952 – Danny White, American football player and sportscaster
1953 – Ciarán Hinds, Irish actor
1953 – Ezechiele Ramin, Italian missionary, priest, and martyr (d. 1985)
1953 – Gabriel Rotello, American journalist and author, founded OutWeek
1954 – Jo Duffy, American author
1954 – Chris Gardner, American businessman and philanthropist
1954 – Kevin Warwick, English cybernetics scientist
1955 – Jerry Beck, American historian and author
1955 – Jimmy Pursey, English singer-songwriter and producer
1955 – Charles Shaughnessy, English actor
1956 – Mookie Wilson, American baseball player and coach
1957 – Terry McAuliffe, American businessman and politician, 72nd Governor of Virginia
1957 – Gordon Strachan, Scottish footballer and manager
1958 – Sandy Lyle, Scottish golfer
1958 – Chris Nilan, American ice hockey player, coach, and radio host
1960 – Holly Johnson, English singer-songwriter and bass player
1960 – David Simon, American journalist, author, screenwriter, and television producer
1960 – Peggy Whitson, American biochemist and astronaut
1961 – John Kruk, American baseball player and sportscaster
1962 – Anik Bissonnette, Canadian ballerina
1963 – Brian Greene, American physicist
1963 – Peter Rowsthorn, Australian comedian and actor
1963 – Travis Tritt, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1964 – Debrah Miceli, Italian-American wrestler and manager
1964 – Dewi Morris, English rugby player
1964 – Ernesto Valverde, Spanish footballer and manager
1964 – Alejandro Ávila, Mexican telenovela actor
1964 – Ernesto Valverde, Spanish footballer and manager
1965 – Dieter Baumann, German runner
1966 – Harald Eia, Norwegian comedian, actor, and screenwriter
1967 – Todd Pratt, American baseball player and coach
1967 – Dan Shulman, Canadian sportscaster
1967 – Gaston Browne, Antiguan and Barbudan Prime Minister
1968 – Alejandra Guzmán, Mexican singer-songwriter and actress
1968 – Derek Strong, American basketball player and race car driver
1968 – Gloria Trevi, Mexican singer and actress
1969 – Jimmy Smith, American football player
1970 – Glenn McGrath, Australian cricketer and sportscaster
1971 – Matt Gogel, American golfer
1971 – Johan Mjällby, Swedish footballer and manager
1972 – Darren Ferguson, Scottish footballer and manager
1973 – Svetlana Boginskaya, Belarusian gymnast
1973 – Colin Egglesfield, American actor
1973 – Makoto Shinkai, Japanese animator, director, and screenwriter
1974 – Jordi Cruyff, Dutch footballer and manager
1974 – Brad Maynard, American football player
1974 – Amber Valletta, American model
1974 – John Wallace, American basketball player and coach
1975 – Kurt Asle Arvesen, Norwegian cyclist and coach
1975 – Clinton Grybas, Australian journalist and sportscaster (d. 2008)
1975 – Vladimir Guerrero, Dominican-American baseball player
1976 – Charlie Day, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1978 – A. J. Buckley, Irish-Canadian actor, director, and screenwriter
1979 – Akinori Iwamura, Japanese baseball player
1979 – Irina Slutskaya, Russian figure skater
1980 – Angelos Charisteas, Greek footballer
1980 – Margarita Levieva, Russian-American actress
1980 – Manu Raju, American journalist
1981 – Tom Hiddleston, English actor, producer, and musical performer
1981 – Daisuke Sekimoto, Japanese wrestler
1982 – Domingo Cisma, Spanish footballer
1982 – Jameer Nelson, American basketball player
1982 – Ami Suzuki, Japanese singer-songwriter and actress
1982 – Chris Weale, English footballer and manager
1983 – Mikel Arruabarrena, Spanish footballer
1984 – Maurice Ager, American basketball player, singer, and producer
1984 – Shōhōzan Yūya, Japanese sumo wrestler
1985 – David Gallagher, American actor
1987 – Sam Coulson, English guitarist
1987 – Michael B. Jordan, American actor
1987 – Davide Lanzafame, Italian footballer
1987 – Magdalena Neuner, German biathlete
1988 – Lotte Friis, Danish swimmer
1989 – Maxime Dufour-Lapointe, Canadian skier
1990 – Tariq Sims, Australian-Fijian rugby league player
1991 – Logan Ryan, American football player
1992 – Kyle Feldt, Australian rugby league player
1992 – Mitchell Frei, Australian rugby league player
1992 – Avan Jogia, Canadian actor
1993 – Niclas Füllkrug, German footballer
1995 – André Burakovsky, Swedish ice hockey player
1995 – Mario Pašalić, Croatian footballer
1997 – Saquon Barkley, American football player

Deaths on February 9

966 – Ono no Michikaze, Japanese calligrapher (b. 894)
967 – Sayf al-Dawla, emir of Aleppo (b. 916)
978 – Luitgarde, duchess consort of Normandy
1011 – Bernard I, Duke of Saxony
1014 – Yang Yanzhao, Chinese general
1135 – Tai Zong, Chinese emperor (b. 1075)
1199 – Minamoto no Yoritomo, Japanese shōgun (b. 1147)
1251 – Matthias II, duke of Lorraine
1407 – William I, margrave of Meissen (b. 1343)
1450 – Agnès Sorel, French mistress of Charles VII of France (b. 1421)
1555 – John Hooper, English bishop and martyr (b. 1495)
1555 – Rowland Taylor, English priest and martyr (b. 1510)
1588 – Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz, Spanish admiral (b. 1526)
1600 – John Frederick, Duke of Pomerania (b. 1542)
1619 – Lucilio Vanini, Italian physician and philosopher (b. 1585)
1640 – Murad IV, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1612)
1670 – Frederick III of Denmark (b. 1609)
1675 – Gerrit Dou, Dutch painter (b. 1613)
1709 – François Louis, Prince of Conti (b. 1664)
1777 – Seth Pomeroy, American general and gunsmith (b. 1706)
1803 – Jean François de Saint-Lambert, French soldier, poet, and philosopher (b. 1716)
1857 – Dionysios Solomos, Greek poet and translator (b. 1798)
1874 – Jules Michelet, French historian, philosopher, and academic (b. 1798)
1881 – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and philosopher (b. 1821)
1891 – Johan Jongkind, Dutch painter (b. 1819)
1903 – Charles Gavan Duffy, Irish-Australian politician, 8th Premier of Victoria (b. 1816)
1906 – Paul Laurence Dunbar, American author, poet, and playwright (b. 1872)
1928 – William Gillies, Australian politician, 21st Premier of Queensland (b. 1868)
1930 – Richard With, Norwegian captain and businessman, founded Hurtigruten (b. 1846)
1932 – Junnosuke Inoue, Japanese businessman and banker (b. 1869)
1932 – A.K. Golam Jilani, Bangladeshi soldier and activist (b. 1904)
1945 – Ella D. Barrier, American educator (b. 1852)
1950 – Ted Theodore, Australian politician, 20th Premier of Queensland (b. 1884)
1951 – Eddy Duchin, American pianist, bandleader, and actor (b. 1910)
1957 – Miklós Horthy, Hungarian admiral and politician, Regent of Hungary (b. 1868)
1960 – Alexandre Benois, Russian painter and critic (b. 1870)
1960 – Ernő Dohnányi, Hungarian pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1877)
1965 – Khan Bahadur Ahsanullah, Bangladeshi theologian and educator (b. 1874)
1966 – Sophie Tucker, Russian-born American singer (b. 1884)
1969 – George “Gabby” Hayes, American actor and singer (b. 1885)
1976 – Percy Faith, Canadian composer and conductor (b. 1908)
1977 – Sergey Ilyushin, Russian engineer and businessman, founded the Ilyushin Design Company (b. 1894)
1978 – Costante Girardengo, Italian cyclist and coach (b. 1893)
1979 – Allen Tate, American poet and academic (b. 1899)
1980 – Tom Macdonald, Welsh journalist and author (b. 1900)
1981 – M. C. Chagla, Indian jurist and politician, Indian Minister of External Affairs (b. 1900)
1981 – Bill Haley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1925)
1984 – Yuri Andropov, Russian lawyer and politician (b. 1914)
1989 – Osamu Tezuka, Japanese illustrator, animator, and producer (b. 1928)
1994 – Howard Martin Temin, American geneticist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1934)
1995 – J. William Fulbright, American lawyer and politician (b. 1905)
1995 – David Wayne, American actor (b. 1914)
1998 – Maurice Schumann, French journalist and politician, French Minister of Foreign Affairs (b. 1911)
2001 – Herbert A. Simon, American political scientist, economist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1916)
2002 – Isabelle Holland, Swiss-American author (b. 1920)
2002 – Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (b. 1930)
2003 – Masatoshi Gündüz Ikeda, Japanese-Turkish mathematician and academic (b. 1926)
2004 – Claude Ryan, Canadian journalist and politician (b. 1925)
2005 – Robert Kearns, American engineer, invented the windscreen wiper (b. 1927)
2006 – Freddie Laker, English pilot and businessman, founded Laker Airways (b. 1922)
2007 – Hank Bauer, American baseball player and manager (b. 1922)
2007 – Ian Richardson, Scottish actor (b. 1934)
2008 – Christopher Hyatt, American occultist and author (b. 1943)
2008 – Jazeh Tabatabai, Iranian painter, poet, and sculptor (b. 1931)
2009 – Orlando “Cachaíto” López, Cuban bassist and composer (b. 1933)
2010 – Walter Frederick Morrison, American businessman, invented the Frisbee (b. 1920)
2011 – Miltiadis Evert, Greek lawyer and politician, 69th Mayor of Athens (b. 1939)
2012 – O. P. Dutta, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1922)
2012 – John Hick, English philosopher and academic (b. 1922)
2012 – Joe Moretti, Scottish-South African guitarist and songwriter (b. 1938)
2013 – Richard Artschwager, American painter, illustrator, and sculptor (b. 1923)
2013 – Keiko Fukuda, Japanese-American martial artist and trainer (b. 1913)
2013 – Jimmy Smyth, Irish hurler (b. 1931)
2014 – Gabriel Axel, Danish actor, director, and producer (b. 1918)
2014 – Hal Herring, American football player and coach (b. 1924)
2014 – Logan Scott-Bowden, English general (b. 1920)
2015 – Liu Han, Chinese businessman and philanthropist (b. 1965)
2015 – Ed Sabol, American film producer, co-founded NFL Films (b. 1916)
2016 – Sushil Koirala, Nepalese politician, 37th Prime Minister of Nepal (b. 1939)
2016 – Zdravko Tolimir, Bosnian Serb military commander (b. 1948)
2017 – André Salvat, French Army colonel (b. 1920)
2018 – Reg E. Cathey, American actor of stage, film, and television (b. 1958)
2018 – Nebojša Glogovac, Serbian actor (b. 1969)
2018 – Jóhann Jóhannsson, Icelandic composer (b. 1969)
2018 – John Gavin, American actor and United States ambassador to Mexico (b. 1931)
2020 – Sergiy Vilkomir, Ukrainian-born computer scientist (b. 1956)

Holidays and observances on February 9

Christian feast day:
- Alto of Altomünster
- Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich
- Ansbert of Rouen
- Apollonia
- Bracchio
- Blessed Leopold of Alpandeire
- Maron (Maronite Church)
- Miguel Febres Cordero
- Nebridius
- Sabinus of Canosa
- Teilo (Wales)
- February 9 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Earliest day on which Clean Monday can fall, while March 15 is the latest; celebrated on the first Monday of Great Lent. (Eastern Christianity)
Earliest day on which People’s Sunday can fall, while March 15 is the latest; celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent. (Malta)
St. Maroun’s Day (public holiday in Lebanon)

February 9 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

February 4 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

This day marks the approximate midpoint of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and of summer in the Southern Hemisphere (starting the season at the December solstice).

February 4 in History

211 – Following the death of Rome’s Emperor Septimius Severus at Eboracum (modern York, England) while preparing to lead a campaign against the Caledonians, the empire is left in the control of his two quarreling sons, Caracalla and Geta, whom he had instructed to make peace.
960 – The coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song, initiating the Song dynasty period of China that would last more than three centuries.
1169 – A strong earthquake struck the Ionian coast of Sicily, causing tens of thousands of injuries and deaths, especially in Catania.
1454 – In the Thirteen Years’ War, the Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sends a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master.
1555 – John Rogers is burned at the stake, becoming the first English Protestant martyr under Mary I of England.
1703 – In Edo (now Tokyo), all but one of the Forty-seven Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master’s death.
1758 – The city of Macapá in Brazil is founded by Sebastião Veiga Cabral.
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 First Republic. It would be reestablished in the French West Indies in 1802.
1797 – The Riobamba earthquake strikes Ecuador, causing up to 40,000 casualties.
1801 – John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.
1810 – Napoleonic Wars: Britain seizes Guadeloupe.
1820 – The Chilean Navy under the command of Lord Cochrane completes the two-day long Capture of Valdivia with just 300 men and two ships.
1825 – The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal.
1846 – The first Mormon pioneers make their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Salt Lake Valley.
1859 – The Codex Sinaiticus is discovered in Egypt.
1861 – American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six break-away U.S. states meet and form the Confederate States of America.
1899 – The Philippine–American War begins with the Battle of Manila.
1932 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Harbin, Manchuria, falls to Japan.
1938 – Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Armed Forces High Command.
1941 – The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
1945 – World War II: Santo Tomas Internment Camp is liberated from Japanese authority.
1945 – World War II: The Yalta Conference between the “Big Three” (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea.
1945 – World War II: The British Indian Army and Imperial Japanese Army begin a series of battles known as the Battle of Pokoku and Irrawaddy River operations.
1948 – Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.
1961 – The Angolan War of Independence and the greater Portuguese Colonial War begin.
1966 – All Nippon Airways Flight 60 plunges into Tokyo Bay, killing 133.
1967 – Lunar Orbiter program: Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft.
1969 – Yasser Arafat takes over as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California.
1974 – M62 coach bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb on a bus carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel in Yorkshire, England. Nine soldiers and three civilians are killed.
1975 – Haicheng earthquake (magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale) occurs in Haicheng, Liaoning, China.
1976 – In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000.
1977 – A Chicago Transit Authority elevated train rear-ends another and derails, killing 11 and injuring 180, the worst accident in the agency’s history.
1992 – A coup d’état is led by Hugo Chávez against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
1997 – En route to Lebanon, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 troop-transport helicopters collide in mid-air over northern Galilee, Israel killing 73.
1998 – The 5.9 M_w  Afghanistan earthquake shakes the Takhar Province with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). With 2,323 killed, and 818 injured, damage is considered extreme.
1999 – Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot 41 times by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city.
2000 – The World Summit Against Cancer for the New Millennium, Charter of Paris is signed by the President of France, Jacques Chirac and the Director General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, initiating World Cancer Day which is held on February 4 every year.
2003 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia adopts a new constitution, becoming a loose confederacy between Montenegro and Serbia.
2004 – Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin.
2015 – TransAsia Airways Flight 235 with 58 people on board, en route from the Taiwanese capital Taipei to Kinmen, crashes into the Keelung River just after take-off, killing 43 people.
2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic causes all casinos in Macau to be closed down for 15 days.

Births on February 4

1447 – Lodovico Lazzarelli, Italian poet (d. 1500)
1495 – Francesco II Sforza, Duke of Milan (d. 1535)
1495 – Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller (d. 1568)
1505 – Mikołaj Rej, Polish poet and author (d. 1580)
1575 – Pierre de Bérulle, French cardinal and theologian, founded the French school of spirituality (d. 1629)
1646 – Hans Erasmus Aßmann, German poet and politician (d. 1699)
1676 – Giacomo Facco, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1753)
1677 – Johann Ludwig Bach, German violinist and composer (d. 1731)
1688 – Pierre de Marivaux, French author and playwright (d. 1763)
1725 – Dru Drury, English entomologist and author (d. 1804)
1740 – Carl Michael Bellman, Swedish poet and composer (d. 1795)
1778 – Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, Swiss botanist, mycologist, and academic (d. 1841)
1799 – Almeida Garrett, Portuguese journalist and author (d. 1854)
1818 – Emperor Norton, San Francisco eccentric and visionary (d. 1880)^{citation needed}
1831 – Oliver Ames, American financier and politician, 35th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1895)
1848 – Jean Aicard, French poet, author, and playwright (d. 1921)
1849 – Jean Richepin, French poet, author, and playwright (d. 1926)
1862 – Édouard Estaunié, French novelist (d. 1942)
1865 – Abe Isoo, Japanese minister and politician (d. 1949)
1868 – Constance Markievicz, Irish revolutionary and first woman elected to the UK House of Commons (d. 1927)
1871 – Friedrich Ebert, German lawyer and politician, 1st President of Germany (d. 1925)
1872 – Gotse Delchev, Bulgarian and Macedonian revolutionary activist (d. 1903)
1873 – Étienne Desmarteau, Canadian shot putter and discus thrower (d. 1905)
1875 – Ludwig Prandtl, German physicist and engineer (d. 1953)
1877 – Eddie Cochems, American football player and coach (d. 1953)
1881 – Eulalio Gutiérrez, Mexican general and politician, President of Mexico (d. 1939)
1881 – Fernand Léger, French painter and sculptor (d. 1955)
1883 – Reinhold Rudenberg, German-American inventor and a pioneer of electron microscopy (d. 1961)
1891 – M. A. Ayyangar, Indian lawyer and politician, 2nd Speaker of the Lok Sabha (d. 1978)
1892 – E. J. Pratt, Canadian poet and academic (d. 1964)
1895 – Nigel Bruce, English actor (d. 1953)
1896 – Friedrich Glauser, Austrian-Swiss author (d. 1938)
1896 – Friedrich Hund, German physicist and academic (d. 1997)
1897 – Ludwig Erhard, German soldier and politician, 2nd Chancellor of West Germany (d. 1977)
1899 – Virginia M. Alexander, American physician and founder of the Aspiranto Health Home (d. 1949)
1900 – Jacques Prévert, French poet and screenwriter (d. 1977)
1902 – Charles Lindbergh, American pilot and explorer (d. 1974)
1902 – Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, German-English lawyer and politician, Attorney General for England and Wales (d. 2003)
1903 – Alexander Imich, Polish-American chemist, parapsychologist, and academic (d. 2014)
1904 – MacKinlay Kantor, American author and screenwriter (d. 1977)
1905 – Hylda Baker, English comedian, actress and music hall performer (d. 1986)
1906 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian (d. 1945)
1906 – Letitia Dunbar-Harrison, Irish librarian (d. 1994)
1906 – Clyde Tombaugh, American astronomer and academic, discovered Pluto (d. 1997)
1908 – Julian Bell, English poet and academic (d. 1937)
1912 – Ola Skjåk Bræk, Norwegian banker and politician, Norwegian Minister of Industry (d. 1999)
1912 – Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian-American conductor (d. 1993)
1912 – Byron Nelson, American golfer and sportscaster (d. 2006)
1913 – Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (d. 2005)
1914 – Alfred Andersch, German-Swiss author and publisher (d. 1980)
1915 – William Talman, American actor and screenwriter (d. 1968)
1915 – Norman Wisdom, English singer-songwriter and actor (d. 2010)
1917 – Yahya Khan, Pakistan general and politician, 3rd President of Pakistan (d. 1980)
1918 – Ida Lupino, English-American actress and director (d. 1995)
1918 – Luigi Pareyson, Italian philosopher and author (d. 1991)
1920 – Janet Waldo, American actress and voice artist (d. 2016)
1921 – Betty Friedan, American author and feminist (d. 2006)
1921 – Lotfi Zadeh, Iranian-American mathematician and computer scientist and founder of fuzzy logic (d. 2017)
1923 – Conrad Bain, Canadian-American actor (d. 2013)
1925 – Russell Hoban, American author and illustrator (d. 2011)
1925 – Stanley Karnow, American journalist and historian (d. 2013)
1925 – Christopher Zeeman, English mathematician and academic (d. 2016)
1926 – Gyula Grosics, Hungarian footballer and manager (d. 2014)
1926 – Dave Sands, Australian boxer (d. 1952)
1927 – Rolf Landauer, German-American physicist and academic (d. 1999)
1928 – Oscar Cabalén, Argentinian race car driver (d. 1967)
1928 – Osmo Antero Wiio, Finnish journalist, academic, and politician (d. 2013)
1929 – Paul Burlison, American rockabilly guitarist (d. 2003)
1929 – Neil Johnston, American basketball player (d. 1978)
1930 – Tibor Antalpéter, Hungarian volleyball player and diplomat, Hungarian Ambassador to the United Kingdom (d. 2012)
1930 – Arthur E. Chase, American businessman and politician (d. 2015)
1930 – Jim Loscutoff, American basketball player (d. 2015)
1931 – Isabel Martínez de Perón, Argentinian dancer and politician, 41st President of Argentina
1935 – Wallis Mathias, Pakistani cricketer (d. 1994)
1935 – Martti Talvela, Finnish opera singer (d. 1989)
1935 – Collin Wilcox, American actress (d. 2009)
1936 – David Brenner, American comedian, actor, and author (d. 2014)
1936 – Claude Nobs, Swiss businessman, founded the Montreux Jazz Festival (d. 2013)
1937 – David Newman, American director and screenwriter (d. 2003)
1938 – Frank J. Dodd, American businessman and politician, president of the New Jersey Senate (d. 2010)
1939 – Stan Lundine, American lawyer and politician, Lieutenant Governor of New York
1940 – George A. Romero, American director and producer (d. 2017)
1941 – Russell Cooper, Australian politician, 33rd Premier of Queensland
1941 – Ron Rangi, New Zealand rugby player (d. 1988)
1941 – Jiří Raška, Czech skier and coach (d. 2012)
1943 – Alberto João Jardim, Portuguese journalist and politician, 2nd President of the Regional Government of Madeira
1943 – Wanda Rutkiewicz, Lithuanian-Polish mountaineer (d. 1992)
1943 – Ken Thompson, American computer scientist and programmer, co-developed the B programming language
1944 – Florence LaRue, American singer and actress
1947 – Dennis C. Blair, American admiral and politician, 3rd Director of National Intelligence
1947 – Dan Quayle, American sergeant, lawyer, and politician, 44th Vice President of the United States
1948 – Alice Cooper, American singer-songwriter
1948 – Rod Grams, American journalist and politician (d. 2013)
1948 – Mienoumi Tsuyoshi, Japanese sumo wrestler
1949 – Michael Beck, American actor
1949 – Rasim Delić, Bosnian general (d. 2010)
1951 – Patrick Bergin, Irish actor
1951 – Phil Ehart, American rock drummer and songwriter
1952 – Jenny Shipley, New Zealand educator and politician, 36th Prime Minister of New Zealand
1952 – Thomas Silverstein, American prisoner, founder and former leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang (d. 2019)
1955 – Mikuláš Dzurinda, Slovak politician, Prime Minister of Slovakia
1957 – Don Davis, American composer and conductor
1958 – Tomasz Pacyński, Polish journalist and author (d. 2005)
1959 – Christian Schreier, German footballer and manager
1959 – Lawrence Taylor, American football player and sportscaster
1960 – Siobhan Dowd, English author and activist (d. 2007)
1960 – Adrienne King, American actress, dancer, and painter
1960 – Jonathan Larson, American composer and playwright (d. 1996)
1961 – Stewart O’Nan, American novelist
1961 – Denis Savard, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1962 – Clint Black, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1962 – Stephen Hammond, English banker and politician
1963 – Pirmin Zurbriggen, Swiss skier
1964 – Elke Philipp, German Paralympic equestrian
1965 – Jerome Brown, American football player (d. 1992)
1966 – Tony Butterfield, Australian rugby league player
1966 – Viatcheslav Ekimov, Russian cyclist
1967 – Sergei Grinkov, Russian figure skater (d. 1995)
1970 – Gabrielle Anwar, English actress
1971 – Rob Corddry, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1971 – Eric Garcetti, American lieutenant and politician, 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles
1972 – Dara Ó Briain, Irish comedian and television host
1972 – Giovanni Silva de Oliveira, Brazilian footballer and manager
1973 – Oscar De La Hoya, American boxer
1973 – James Hird, Australian footballer and coach
1973 – Manny Legace, Canadian ice hockey player and sportscaster
1975 – Natalie Imbruglia, Australian singer-songwriter and actress
1977 – Gavin DeGraw, American singer-songwriter
1979 – Giorgio Pantano, Italian race car driver
1980 – Raimonds Vaikulis, Latvian basketball player
1981 – Jason Kapono, American basketball player
1981 – Johan Vansummeren, Belgian cyclist
1982 – Chris Sabin, American wrestler
1982 – Ivars Timermanis, Latvian basketball player
1982 – Tomas Vaitkus, Lithuanian cyclist
1983 – Lee Stempniak, American ice hockey player
1983 – Rebecca White, Australian politician
1984 – Sandeep Acharya, Indian singer (d. 2013)
1984 – Mauricio Pinilla, Chilean footballer
1986 – Maximilian Götz, German race car driver
1986 – Mahmudullah Riyad, Bangladeshi cricketer
1987 – Darren O’Dea, Irish footballer
1987 – Lucie Šafářová, Czech tennis player
1988 – Carly Patterson, American gymnast and singer
1993 – Bae Noo-ri, South Korean actress
1998 – Maximilian Wöber, Austrian footballer

Deaths on February 4

211 – Septimius Severus, Roman emperor (b. 145)
708 – Pope Sisinnius (b. 650)
856 – Rabanus Maurus, Frankish archbishop and theologian (b. 780)
870 – Ceolnoth, archbishop of Canterbury
1169 – John of Ajello, Bishop of Catania
1498 – Antonio del Pollaiolo, Italian artist (b. 1429/1433)
1505 – Jeanne de Valois, daughter of Louis XI of France (b. 1464)
1508 – Conrad Celtes, German poet and scholar (b. 1459)
1555 – John Rogers, English clergyman and translator (b. 1505)
1590 – Gioseffo Zarlino, Italian composer and theorist (b. 1517)
1615 – Giambattista della Porta, Italian playwright and scholar (b. 1535)
1617 – Lodewijk Elzevir, Dutch publisher, co-founded the House of Elzevir (b. 1546)
1713 – Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, English philosopher and politician (b. 1671)
1774 – Charles Marie de La Condamine, French mathematician and geographer (b. 1701)
1781 – Josef Mysliveček, Czech composer (b. 1737)
1799 – Étienne-Louis Boullée, French architect and educator (b. 1728)
1843 – Theodoros Kolokotronis, Greek general (b. 1770)
1891 – Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos, Roman Catholic archbishop and Mexican politician who served as regent during the Second Mexican Empire (1863-1864) (b. 1816)
1905 – Louis-Ernest Barrias, French sculptor and academic (b. 1841)
1926 – İskilipli Âtıf Hodja, Turkish author and scholar (b. 1875)
1928 – Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1853)
1933 – Archibald Sayce, English linguist and educator (b. 1846)
1940 – Nikolai Yezhov, Russian police officer and politician (b. 1895)
1943 – Frank Calder, English-Canadian ice hockey player and journalist (b. 1877)
1944 – Arsen Kotsoyev, Russian author and translator (b. 1872)
1956 – Savielly Tartakower, Russian-French chess player, journalist, and author (b. 1887)
1958 – Henry Kuttner, American author and screenwriter (b. 1915)
1959 – Una O’Connor, Irish-American actress (b. 1880)
1968 – Neal Cassady, American novelist and poet (b. 1926)
1970 – Louise Bogan, American poet and critic (b. 1897)
1974 – Satyendra Nath Bose, Indian physicist, mathematician, and academic (b. 1894)
1975 – Louis Jordan, American singer-songwriter and saxophonist (b. 1908)
1982 – Alex Harvey, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1935)
1982 – Georg Konrad Morgen, German lawyer and judge (b. 1909)
1983 – Karen Carpenter, American singer (b. 1950)
1987 – Liberace, American singer-songwriter and pianist, (b. 1919)
1987 – Meena Keshwar Kamal, Afghan activist, founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (b. 1956)
1987 – Carl Rogers, American psychologist and academic (b. 1902)
1990 – Whipper Billy Watson, Canadian-American wrestler and trainer (b. 1915)
1992 – John Dehner, American actor (b. 1915)
1995 – Patricia Highsmith, American novelist and short story writer (b. 1921)
2000 – Carl Albert, American lawyer and politician, 54th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (b. 1908)
2002 – Count Sigvard Bernadotte of Wisborg (b. 1907)
2003 – Benyoucef Benkhedda, Algerian pharmacist and politician (b. 1920)
2005 – Ossie Davis, American actor, director, and playwright (b. 1917)
2006 – Betty Friedan, American author and activist (b. 1921)
2007 – José Carlos Bauer, Brazilian footballer and manager (b. 1925)
2007 – Ilya Kormiltsev, Russian-English poet and translator (b. 1959)
2007 – Barbara McNair, American singer and actress (b. 1934)
2007 – Jules Olitski, Ukrainian-American painter and sculptor (b. 1922)
2008 – Augusta Dabney, American actress (b. 1918)
2008 – Stefan Meller, Polish academic and politician, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland (b. 1942)
2010 – Kostas Axelos, Greek-French philosopher and author (b. 1924)
2010 – Helen Tobias-Duesberg, Estonian-American composer (b. 1919)
2011 – Martial Célestin, Haitian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Haiti (b. 1913)
2012 – István Csurka, Hungarian journalist and politician (b. 1934)
2012 – Florence Green, English soldier (b. 1901)
2012 – Robert Daniel, American farmer, soldier, and politician (b. 1936)
2012 – Mike deGruy, American director, producer, and cinematographer (b. 1951)
2013 – Donald Byrd, American trumpet player (b. 1932)
2013 – Reg Presley, English singer-songwriter (b. 1941)
2014 – Keith Allen, Canadian-American ice hockey player, coach, and manager (b. 1923)
2014 – Eugenio Corti, Italian soldier, author, and playwright (b. 1921)
2014 – Dennis Lota, Zambian footballer (b. 1973)
2015 – Wes Cooley, American soldier and politician (b. 1932)
2015 – Fitzhugh L. Fulton, American colonel and pilot (b. 1925)
2016 – Edgar Mitchell, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1930)
2017 – Steve Lang, Canadian bass player (b. 1949)
2017 – Bano Qudsia, Pakistani writer (b. 1928)
2018 – John Mahoney, English-American actor, voice artist, and comedian (b. 1940)
2019 – Matti Nykänen, Finnish Olympic-winning ski jumper and singer (b. 1963)

Holidays and observances on February 4

Christian feast day:
- Andrew Corsini
- Gilbert of Sempringham
- John de Brito
- Blessed Rabanus Maurus
- Rimbert
- Veronica
- February 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of the Armed Struggle (Angola)
Earliest day on which Ash Wednesday can fall, while March 10 is the latest; celebrated on the first day of Lent (Christianity)
Independence Day (Sri Lanka)
Rosa Parks Day (California and Missouri, United States)
World Cancer Day

February 4 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day

February 3 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day

On This Day / admin

1112 – Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.
1451 – Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire.
1488 – Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.
1509 – The Portuguese navy defeats a joint fleet of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Republic of Ragusa at the Battle of Diu in Diu, India.
1661 – Maratha forces under Chattrapati Shivaji defeat the Mughals in the Battle of Umberkhind.
1690 – The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas.
1706 – During the Battle of Fraustadt Swedish forces defeat a superior Saxon-Polish-Russian force by deploying a double envelopment.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: British forces seize the Dutch-owned Caribbean island Sint Eustatius.
1783 – Spain–United States relations are first established.
1787 – Militia led by General Benjamin Lincoln crush the remnants of Shays’ Rebellion in Petersham, Massachusetts.
1807 – A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captures the Spanish Empire city of Montevideo, now the capital of Uruguay.
1809 – The Territory of Illinois is created by the 10th United States Congress.
1813 – José de San Martín defeats a Spanish royalist army at the Battle of San Lorenzo, part of the Argentine War of Independence.
1830 – The London Protocol of 1830 establishes the full independence and sovereignty of Greece from the Ottoman Empire as the final result of the Greek War of Independence.
1834 – Wake Forest University is established (as Wake Forest Institute) in North Carolina, United States.
1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.
1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
1916 – The Centre Block of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada burns down with the loss of 7 lives.
1917 – First World War: The American entry into World War I begins when diplomatic relations with Germany are severed due to its unrestricted submarine warfare.
1918 – The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,633 meters) long.
1930 – Communist Party of Vietnam is founded at a “Unification Conference” held in Kowloon, British Hong Kong.
1931 – The Hawke’s Bay earthquake, New Zealand’s worst natural disaster, kills 258.
1933 – Adolf Hitler announces that the expansion of Lebensraum into Eastern Europe, and its ruthless Germanisation, are the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Third Reich foreign policy.
1943 – The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive.
1944 – World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison.
1945 – World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 and 3,000 and dehouses another 120,000.
1945 – World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan.
1953 – The Batepá massacre occurred in São Tomé when the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners unleashed a wave of violence against the native creoles known as forros.
1958 – Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community.
1959 – Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
1960 – British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of “a wind of change”, signalling that his Government was likely to support decolonisation.
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.
1966 – The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon, and the first spacecraft to take pictures from the surface of the Moon.
1971 – New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption.
1972 – The first day of the seven-day 1972 Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, making it the deadliest snowstorm in history.
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.
1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger.
1989 – After a stroke two weeks previously, South African President P. W. Botha resigns as leader of the National Party, but stays on as president for six more months.
1989 – A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954.
1994 – Space Shuttle program: STS-60 is launched, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Shuttle.
1995 – Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
1998 – Cavalese cable car disaster: a United States military pilot causes the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy.
2007 – A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339.
2014 – Two people are shot and killed and 29 students are taken hostage at a high school in Moscow, Russia.

Births on February 3

1338 – Joanna of Bourbon (d. 1378)
1392 – Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, English nobleman and military commander (d. 1455)
1428 – Helena Palaiologina, Queen of Cyprus (d. 1458)
1478 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (d. 1521)
1504 – Scipione Rebiba, Italian cardinal (d. 1577)
1677 – Jan Santini Aichel, Czech architect, designed the Karlova Koruna Chateau (d. 1723)
1689 – Blas de Lezo, Spanish admiral (d. 1741)
1690 – Richard Rawlinson, English minister and historian (d. 1755)
1721 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, Prussian general (d. 1773)
1736 – Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Austrian composer and theorist (d. 1809)
1747 – Samuel Osgood, American soldier and politician, 1st United States Postmaster General (d. 1813)
1757 – Joseph Forlenze, Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon (d. 1833)
1763 – Caroline von Wolzogen, German author (d. 1847)
1777 – John Cheyne, Scottish physician and author (d. 1836)
1790 – Gideon Mantell, English scientist (d. 1852)
1795 – Antonio José de Sucre, Venezuelan general and politician, 2nd President of Bolivia (d. 1830)
1807 – Joseph E. Johnston, American general and politician (d. 1891)
1809 – Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1847)
1811 – Horace Greeley, American journalist and politician (d. 1872)
1816 – Ram Singh Kuka, Indian credited with starting the Non-cooperation movement
1817 – Achille Ernest Oscar Joseph Delesse, French geologist and mineralogist (d. 1881)
1817 – Émile Prudent, French pianist and composer (d. 1863)
1821 – Elizabeth Blackwell, American physician and educator (d. 1910)
1824 – Ranald MacDonald, American explorer and educator (d. 1894)
1826 – Walter Bagehot, English journalist and businessman (d. 1877)
1830 – Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1903)
1842 – Sidney Lanier, American composer and poet (d. 1881)
1843 – William Cornelius Van Horne, American-Canadian businessman (d. 1915)
1857 – Giuseppe Moretti, Italian sculptor, designed the Vulcan statue (d. 1935)
1859 – Hugo Junkers, German engineer, designed the Junkers J 1 (d. 1935)
1862 – James Clark McReynolds, American lawyer and judge (d. 1946)
1867 – Charles Henry Turner, American biologist, educator and zoologist (d. 1923)
1872 – Lou Criger, American baseball player and manager (d. 1934)
1874 – Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright, (d. 1946)
1878 – Gordon Coates, New Zealand soldier and politician, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1943)
1887 – Georg Trakl, Austrian pharmacist and poet (d. 1914)
1889 – Artur Adson, Estonian poet, playwright, and critic (d. 1977)
1889 – Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish director and screenwriter (d. 1968)
1892 – Juan Negrín, Spanish physician and politician, 67th Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1956)
1893 – Gaston Julia, Algerian-French mathematician and academic (d. 1978)
1894 – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (d. 1978)
1898 – Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect, designed the Finlandia Hall and Aalto Theatre (d. 1976)
1899 – Café Filho, Brazilian journalist, lawyer, and politician, 18th President of Brazil (d. 1970)
1900 – Mabel Mercer, English-American singer (d. 1984)
1903 – Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish soldier, pilot, and politician (d. 1973)
1904 – Pretty Boy Floyd, American gangster (d. 1934)
1905 – Paul Ariste, Estonian linguist and academic (d. 1990)
1905 – Arne Beurling, Swedish-American mathematician and academic (d. 1986)
1906 – George Adamson, Indian-English author and activist (d. 1989)
1907 – James A. Michener, American author and philanthropist (d. 1997)
1909 – André Cayatte, French lawyer and director (d. 1989)
1909 – Simone Weil, French mystic and philosopher (d. 1943)
1911 – Jehan Alain, French organist and composer (d. 1940)
1912 – Jacques Soustelle, French anthropologist and politician (d. 1990)
1914 – Mary Carlisle, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2018)
1915 – Johannes Kotkas, Estonian wrestler and hammer thrower (d. 1998)
1917 – Shlomo Goren, Polish-Israeli rabbi and general (d. 1994)
1918 – Joey Bishop, American actor and producer (d. 2007)
1918 – Helen Stephens, American runner, baseball player, and manager (d. 1994)
1920 – Russell Arms, American actor and singer (d. 2012)
1920 – Tony Gaze, Australian race car driver and pilot (d. 2013)
1920 – Henry Heimlich, American physician and author (d. 2016)
1924 – E. P. Thompson, English historian and author (d. 1993)
1924 – Martial Asselin, Canadian lawyer and politician, 25th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (d. 2013)
1925 – Shelley Berman, American actor and comedian (d. 2017)
1925 – John Fiedler, American actor (d. 2005)
1926 – Hans-Jochen Vogel, German soldier and politician, 8th Mayor of Berlin
1927 – Kenneth Anger, American actor, director, and screenwriter
1927 – Blas Ople, Filipino journalist and politician, 21st President of the Senate of the Philippines (d. 2003)
1933 – Paul Sarbanes, American lawyer and politician
1934 – Juan Carlos Calabró, Argentinian actor and screenwriter (d. 2013)
1935 – Johnny “Guitar” Watson, American blues, soul, and funk singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1996)
1936 – Elizabeth Peer, American journalist (d. 1984)
1936 – Bob Simpson, Australian cricketer and coach
1937 – Billy Meier, Swiss author and photographer
1938 – Victor Buono, American actor (d. 1982)
1938 – Emile Griffith, American boxer and trainer (d. 2013)
1939 – Michael Cimino, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2016)
1940 – Fran Tarkenton, American football player and sportscaster
1941 – Dory Funk, Jr., American wrestler and trainer
1941 – Howard Phillips, American lawyer and politician (d. 2013)
1943 – Blythe Danner, American actress
1943 – Dennis Edwards, American soul/R&B singer (d. 2018)
1943 – Eric Haydock, English bass player (d. 2019)
1943 – Shawn Phillips, American-South African singer-songwriter and guitarist
1945 – Johnny Cymbal, Scottish-American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 1993)
1945 – Bob Griese, American football player and sportscaster
1947 – Paul Auster, American novelist, essayist, and poet
1947 – Stephen McHattie, Canadian actor and director
1948 – Henning Mankell, Swedish author and playwright (d. 2015)
1949 – Jim Thorpe, American golfer
1950 – Morgan Fairchild, American actress
1950 – Grant Goldman, Australian radio and television host (d. 2020)
1951 – Eugenijus Riabovas, Lithuanian footballer and manager
1951 – Michael Ruppert, American journalist and author (d. 2014)
1952 – Fred Lynn, American baseball player and sportscaster
1954 – Tiger Williams, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
1956 – John Jefferson, American football player and coach
1956 – Nathan Lane, American actor and comedian
1957 – Eric Lander, American mathematician, geneticist, and academic
1958 – Joe F. Edwards, Jr., American commander, pilot, and astronaut
1958 – Douglas Holtz-Eakin, American economist
1958 – Greg Mankiw, American economist and academic
1959 – Óscar Iván Zuluaga, Colombian economist and politician, 67th Colombian Minister of Finance
1960 – Tim Chandler, American bass player (d. 2018)
1960 – Marty Jannetty, American wrestler and trainer
1960 – Joachim Löw, German footballer and manager
1960 – Kerry Von Erich, American wrestler (d. 1993)
1961 – Linda Eder, American singer and actress
1963 – Raghuram Rajan, Indian economist and academic
1964 – Indrek Tarand, Estonian historian, journalist, and politician
1965 – Maura Tierney, American actress and producer
1966 – Frank Coraci, American director and screenwriter
1966 – Danny Morrison, New Zealand cricketer and sportscaster
1967 – Tim Flowers, English footballer and coach
1967 – Mixu Paatelainen, Finnish footballer and coach
1968 – Vlade Divac, Serbian-American basketball player and sportscaster
1968 – Marwan Khoury, Lebanese singer, songwriter, and composer
1969 – Beau Biden, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 44th Attorney General of Delaware (d. 2015)
1969 – Retief Goosen, South African golfer
1970 – Óscar Córdoba, Colombian footballer
1970 – Warwick Davis, English actor, producer, and screenwriter
1971 – Hong Seok-cheon, South Korean actor
1972 – Jesper Kyd, Danish pianist and composer
1973 – Ilana Sod, Mexican journalist and producer
1976 – Isla Fisher, Omani-Australian actress
1977 – Daddy Yankee, American-Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and record producer
1977 – Marek Židlický, Czech ice hockey player
1978 – Joan Capdevila, Spanish footballer
1979 – Paul Franks, English cricketer and coach
1982 – Becky Bayless, American wrestler
1982 – Marie-Ève Drolet, Canadian speed skater
1984 – Elizabeth Holmes, American fraudster, founder of Theranos
1985 – Angela Fong, Canadian wrestler and actress
1985 – Andrei Kostitsyn, Belarusian ice hockey player
1986 – Lucas Duda, American baseball player
1986 – Mathieu Giroux, Canadian speed skater
1986 – Kanako Yanagihara, Japanese actress
1988 – Cho Kyuhyun, South Korean singer
1989 – Slobodan Rajković, Serbian footballer
1990 – Sean Kingston, American-Jamaican singer-songwriter
1990 – Martin Taupau, New Zealand rugby league player
1991 – Corey Norman, Australian rugby league player
1992 – Olli Aitola, Finnish ice hockey player

Deaths on February 3

AD 6 – Ping, emperor of the Han Dynasty (b. 9 BC)
456 – Sihyaj Chan K’awiil II, ruler of Tikal
639 – K’inich Yo’nal Ahk I, ruler of Piedras Negras
699 – Werburgh, English nun and saint
865 – Ansgar, Frankish archbishop (b. 801)
929 – Guy, margrave of Tuscany
938 – Zhou Ben, Chinese general (b. 862)
994 – William IV, duke of Aquitaine (b. 937)
1014 – Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark and England (b. 960)
1116 – Coloman, king of Hungary
1161 – Inge I, king of Norway (b. 1135)
1252 – Sviatoslav III, Russian Grand Prince (b. 1196)
1399 – John of Gaunt, Belgian-English politician, Lord High Steward (b. 1340)
1428 – Ashikaga Yoshimochi, Japanese shōgun (b. 1386)
1451 – Murad II, Ottoman sultan (b. 1404)
1468 – Johannes Gutenberg, German publisher, invented the Printing press (b. 1398)
1537 – Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare (b. 1513)
1566 – George Cassander, Flemish theologian and author (b. 1513)
1618 – Philip II, duke of Pomerania (b. 1573)
1619 – Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham, English politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (b. 1564)
1737 – Tommaso Ceva, Italian mathematician and academic (b. 1648)
1802 – Pedro Rodríguez, Spanish statesman and economist (b. 1723)
1813 – Juan Bautista Cabral, Argentinian sergeant (b. 1789)
1820 – Gia Long, Vietnamese emperor (b. 1762)
1832 – George Crabbe, English surgeon and poet (b. 1754)
1862 – Jean-Baptiste Biot, French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician (b. 1774)
1866 – François-Xavier Garneau, Canadian poet, author, and historian (b. 1809)
1873 – Isaac Baker Brown, English gynecologist and surgeon (b. 1811)
1922 – John Butler Yeats, Irish painter and illustrator (b. 1839)
1924 – Woodrow Wilson, American historian, academic, and politician, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1856)
1929 – Agner Krarup Erlang, Danish mathematician and engineer (b. 1878)
1935 – Hugo Junkers, German engineer, designed the Junkers J 1 (b. 1859)
1944 – Yvette Guilbert, French singer and actress (b. 1865)
1945 – Roland Freisler, German lawyer and judge (b. 1893)
1947 – Marc Mitscher, American admiral and pilot (b. 1887)
1952 – Harold L. Ickes, American journalist and politician, 32nd United States Secretary of the Interior (b. 1874)
1955 – Vasily Blokhin, Russian general (b. 1895)
1956 – Émile Borel, French mathematician and academic (b. 1871)
1956 – Johnny Claes, English-Belgian race car driver and trumpet player (b. 1916)
1959 – The Day the Music Died
- The Big Bopper, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1930)
- Buddy Holly, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1936)
- Ritchie Valens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1941)
1960 – Fred Buscaglione, Italian singer and actor (b. 1921)
1961 – William Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil, Scottish-Australian captain and politician, 14th Governor-General of Australia (b. 1893)
1961 – Anna May Wong, American actress (b. 1905)
1963 – Benjamin R. Jacobs (b. 1879)
1967 – Joe Meek, English songwriter and producer (b. 1929)
1969 – C. N. Annadurai, Indian journalist and politician, 7th Chief Minister of Madras State (b. 1909)
1969 – Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambican activist and academic (b. 1920)
1975 – William D. Coolidge, American physicist and engineer (b. 1873)
1975 – Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer-songwriter and actress (b. 1904)
1985 – Frank Oppenheimer, American physicist and academic (b. 1912)
1989 – John Cassavetes, American actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1929)
1989 – Lionel Newman, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1916)
1991 – Nancy Kulp, American actress (b. 1921)
1993 – Françoys Bernier, Canadian pianist and conductor (b. 1927)
1996 – Audrey Meadows, American actress and banker (b. 1922)
1999 – Gwen Guthrie, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1950)
2005 – Zurab Zhvania, Georgian biologist and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Georgia (b. 1963)
2005 – Ernst Mayr, German-American biologist and ornithologist (b. 1904)
2006 – Al Lewis, American actor and activist (b. 1923)
2009 – Sheng-yen, Chinese monk and scholar, founded the Dharma Drum Mountain (b. 1930)
2010 – Dick McGuire, American basketball player and coach (b. 1926)
2010 – Frances Reid, American actress (b. 1914)
2011 – Maria Schneider, French actress (b. 1952)
2012 – Toh Chin Chye, Singaporean academic and politician, 1st Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore (b. 1921)
2012 – Ben Gazzara, American actor and director (b. 1930)
2012 – Terence Hildner, American general (b. 1962)
2012 – Raj Kanwar, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1961)
2012 – Zalman King, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1942)
2012 – Andrzej Szczeklik, Polish physician and academic (b. 1938)
2013 – Cardiss Collins, American politician (b. 1931)
2013 – Oscar Feltsman, Ukrainian-Russian composer and producer (b. 1921)
2013 – James Muri, American soldier and pilot (b. 1918)
2013 – Jam Mohammad Yousaf, Pakistani politician, Chief Minister of Balochistan (b. 1954)
2015 – Martin Gilbert, English historian, author, and academic (b. 1936)
2015 – Mary Healy, American actress and singer (b. 1918)
2015 – Charlie Sifford, American golfer (b. 1922)
2015 – Nasim Hasan Shah, Pakistani lawyer and judge, 12th Chief Justice of Pakistan (b. 1929)
2016 – Balram Jakhar, Indian lawyer and politician, 23rd Governor of Madhya Pradesh (b. 1923)
2016 – József Kasza, Serbian politician and economist (b. 1945)
2016 – Saulius Sondeckis, Lithuanian violinist and conductor (b. 1928)
2017 – Dritëro Agolli, Albanian poet, writer and politician (b. 1931)
2019 – Julie Adams, American actress (b. 1926)
2019 – Kristoff St. John, American actor (b. 1966)
2020 – George Steiner, French-American philosopher, author, and critic (b. 1929)

Holidays and observances on February 3

Christian feast day:
- Aaron the Illustrious (Syriac Orthodox Church)
- Ansgar
- Berlinda of Meerbeke
- Blaise
- Celsa and Nona
- Claudine Thévenet
- Dom Justo Takayama (Philippines and Japan)
- Hadelin
- Margaret of England
- Werburgh
- February 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of the Virgin of Suyapa (Honduras)
Earliest day on which Shrove Tuesday can fall, while March 9 is the latest; celebrated on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday (Christianity)
Four Chaplains Day (United States, also considered a Feast Day by the Episcopal Church)
Communist Party of Vietnam Foundation Anniversary (Vietnam)
Heroes’ Day (Mozambique)
Martyrs’ Day (São Tomé and Príncipe)
Setsubun (Japan)
Veterans’ Day (Thailand)

February 3 – History, Events, Births, Deaths, Holidays and Observances On This Day Read More »

On This Day