0374 9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet
0600 Pope Gregory the Great decrees saying “God bless You” is the correct response to a sneeze
1349 Jews are expelled from Burgsdorf Switzerland
1486 Diet of Frankfort
1512 Battle at Valeggio French troops beat Venetianen
1559 Pope Paul IV calls for deposition of sovereigns supporting heresy
1641 English king Charles I accept Triennial Act
1655 Dutch Grand Pensionary advisor Johan de Witt marries Wendela Bicker
1659 1st known check (£400) (on display at Westminster Abbey)
1666 Netherlands & Brandenburg sign treaty
1677 Earl of Shaftesbury arrested/confined in London Tower
1741 Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine (2nd US Magazine) begins publishing
1742 Earl of Wilmington becomes British premier
1751 1st publication of Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard”
1760 Native American hostages killed in Ft Prince George SC
1771 Messier presents his original list of 45 M-objects to French Academy
1777 Messier adds M53 to his catalog (globular cluster in Coma Berenice)
1804 Lieutenant Stephen Decatur raids Tripoli Harbor & burns Navy frigate “Philadelphia” after pirates seized it
1824 Athenaeum founded
1832 HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reaches St-Pauls (1ºN, 29ºW)
1838 Kentucky passes law permitting women to attend school under conditions
1840 American Charles Wilkes discovers Shackleton Ice Shelf, Antarctica
1846 Battle of Sobraon ends 1st Sikh War in India
1854 Franz Liszts symphony “Orpheus” premieres
1857 Gallaudet College (National Deaf Mute college) forms (Washington DC)
1860 Dutch Rochussen/Van Bosse government resigns
1862 Ft Donelson captured by General Grant (1,400 confederates surrender)
1864 Battle of Mobile, AL - operations by Union Army
1868 Benevolent & Protective Order of the Elks founded in New York
1878 Silver dollar became US legal tender
1880 American Society of Mechanical Engineers founded, New York NY
1883 "Ladies Home Journal" begins publication
1887 1st newspaper convention (Rochester NY)
1887 Eduard Douwes Dekker writes his last text (Lf8-c5)
1892 The opera “Werther” is produced (Vienna)
1894 British troops occupy Ilorin, Gold Coast
1899 Pelham Warner scores 132 on Test Cricket debut (England vs South Africa Johannesburg)
1900 1st Chinese daily newspaper in US publishes 1st issue (Chung Sai Yat Po-San Francisco)
1900 Stanley Cup Montréal Shamrocks beat Winnipeg Victorias, 3 games to 1
1903 -59º F (-51º C), Pokegama Dam MN (state record)
1905 1st US Esperanto club organizes in Boston
1909 1st subway car with side doors goes into service (New York NY)
1909 Serbia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary
1912 VSV soccer team forms in Ijmuiden
1913 President Taft agrees not to intervene in Mexico
1914 1st airplane flight from to Los Angeles from San Francisco
1915 Frank Home Run Baker, 28, announces retirement following a contract dispute with Connie Mack; He sits out 1915 season
1916 Russian troops conquer Erzurum Armenia
1917 1st synagogue in 425 years opens in Madrid
1918 Lithuania declares independence from Russia & Germany (National Day)
1923 Howard Carter finds Pharoah Tutankhamen
1923 Allies accept Latvia’s occupation of Memel territory
1923 US female Figure Skating championship won by Theresa Weld Blanchard
1923 US male Figure Skating championship won by Sherwin Badger
1926 Suzanne Lenglen defeats Helen Wills in Tennis at Cannes France
1927 Noël Coward’s “Marquise” premieres in London
1927 US restores diplomatic relations with Turkey
1929 KID-AM in Idaho Falls ID begins radio transmissions
1931 Extreme right wing Svinhufvud becomes President of Finland
1932 1st patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree
1933 Catholic newspaper Germania warns against Nazis/communists
1933 England regains the Ashes, thanks to bodyline tactics
1936 4th Winter Olympics games close at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
1936 Spanish Frente Popular (People’s Front) wins elections
1937 DuPont Corp patents nylon, developed by employee Wallace H Carothers
1937 Jean Anouilh’s “Le Voyageur Sans Baggage” premieres in Paris
1938 US Federal Crop Insurance program authorized
1940 British search plane finds German Altmark off Norway
1942 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery
1943 -32º F (-36º C), Falls Village CT (state record)
1943 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gets pneumonia
1943 Red army conquers Kharkov
1943 Sign on Munich facade “Out with Hitler! Long live freedom!” done by “White Rose” student group, caught on 2/18, beheaded on 2/22
1943 Withdrawing Africa Corps reaches Mareth-line in North-Africa
1945 US forces land on Corregidor, complete conquest on March 3
1945 Venezuela declares war on Nazi-Germany
1946 1st commercially designed helicopter tested, Bridgeport CT
1946 "Duchess Misbehaves" closes at Adelphi Theater NYC after 5 performances
1947 Morton Gould’s 3rd Symphony, premieres
1948 Miranda, famous moon of Uranus, photographed for 1st time
1948 1st newsreel telecast, “20th Century Fox-Movietone News” shown on NBC
1950 Longest-running prime-time game show, “What’s My Line” begins on CBS
1950 Writers fail to elect anyone to Baseball’s Hall of Fame
1951 NYC passes bill prohibiting racism in city-assisted housing
1951 San Francisco City Hall dome fire
1952 Hall of Famer Honus Wagner, 77, retires; Pirates retire his #33
1952 Ian Craig makes New South Wales cricket debut aged 16 years 249 days (New South Wales record)
1954 WNEM TV channel 5 in Bay City MI (NBC) begins broadcasting
1956 Britain abolishes the death penalty
1958 Betsy Rawls wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1959 Fidel Castro named himself Cuba’s premier after overthrowing Batista
1959 Leonard Spigelgass’ “Majority of One” premieres in New York NY
1960 US nuclear submarine USS Triton set off on underwater round-world trip
1961 1st all-solid-propellant rocket put in orbit, Wallops Island VA
1961 China uses it’s 1st nuclear reactor
1961 US satellite Explorer 9 is launched
1962 Darius Milhaud’s 12th Symphony, premieres
1962 US Open Tennis Jimmy Bostwick defeats brother Pete to win
1963 1st round-trip swim of Strait of Messina, Italy (Mary Revell of US)
1963 Beatles top British rock charts with “Please, Please Me”
1963 C & A Building in Amsterdam burns down
1964 Beatles’ 2nd appearance on “Ed Sullivan Show”
1964 "Foxy" opens at Ziegfeld Theater NYC for 72 performances
1965 "Baker Street" opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 313 performances
1965 Pegasus 1 launched to detect micro-meteors
1966 Bob Cowper makes 307 vs England at the MCG, 727 minute s, 20 fours
1966 End of Wally Grout’s Test Cricket career, 187 dismissals as Australia WK
1966 France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria
1967 Red Ruffing selected to Hall of Fame
1968 Beatles George Harrison & John Lennon & wives fly to India for transcendental meditation study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
1968 Country’s 1st 911 phone system went into service in Haleyville AL
1968 Elvis Presley receives gold record for “How Great Thou Art”
1970 Joe Frazier KOs Jimmy Ellis in 5 for undisputed heavyweight boxing crown
1972 1st NBA to score 30,000 points (Wilt Chamberlain in 940 games)
1972 German mass murderers “Three of Breda” freed
1972 Test Cricket debut of Lawrence Rowe West Indies vs New Zealand Kingston, 214 & 100
1972 Wilt Chamberlain hit 30,000 point mark during a game with Phoenix Suns
1973 West Indies vs Australia at Kingston, 1st time since 1955 without Sobers
1975 Washington Capitals 1st NHL shutout, beating Kansas City Scouts 3-0
1977 USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR
1978 1st Computer Bulletin Board System (Ward & Randy’s CBBS, Chicago)
1979 George Harrison releases “Blow Away”
1979 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR
1980 Continuous traffic jam extends 176 km north of Lyons, France
1980 Eric Heiden skates 5k in 7 02.29 (Olympics Record)
1982 Assembled STS-3 vehicle moves from Vandenberg AFB to launch pad
1982 Lee Majors & Farrah Fawcett Majors divorce
1982 Agatha Barbara elected as 1st female President of Malta
1984 Bill Johnson becomes 1st American to win Olympics downhill skiing gold
1984 New Jersey Devils 1st OT goal, Jan Ludvig beats Hartford Whalers 6-5
1985 Largest NBA crowd to date, 43,816, sees Philadelphia at Detroit
1985 New Jersey Devils score their fastest hat trick in 42 seconds
1985 Livingston Bramble defeats Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini to win WBA champion
1986 Mário Soares (Socialist) elected Portugal’s 1st civilian president
1986 "Uptown… It’s Hot!" closes at Lunt-Fontanne NYC after 24 performances
1986 French air force bombs Ouadi Doum airport in Chad
1986 Hein Vergeer becomes world champion skater
1986 Karlstad skates world record 10 km (14:12.14)
1987 John Demjanjuk, accused of being “Ivan the Terrible” trial begins
1988 1st documented combat action by US military advisors in El Salvador
1989 Egypt, Iraq, Jordan & North Yemen form common market
1989 Jane Fonda & Tom Hayden separate after 16 years of marriage
1989 Roger Clemens, Red Sox pitcher signs record $7.5M-3 year contract
1989 Orel Hershiser, Dodger pitcher signs $7.9M-3 year contract
1989 William Hayden becomes governor-General of Australia
1991 Dutch PPR, Political Party Radicals, disbands
1991 US female Figure Skating championship won by Tonya Harding
1992 Former silver Goodyear blimps are now painted yellow & blue
1992 Los Angeles Lakers retire Magic Johnson’s #32 uniform
1993 Sandra Völker swims world record 50 meter backstroke (28.33 seconds)
1994 6.5 earthquake strikes SE Sumatra, kills 200
1994 Johann Olav Koss skates world record 1500 meter (1:51.29)
1994 Premier Alfonso Bustamente ends government in Peru
1996 Gary Kirsten scores 188 for South Africa vs UAE at Rawalpindi
1997 At age 25, Jeff Gordon is youngest winner in Daytona 500 history
1997 GTE Suncoast Senior Golf Classic
1997 Paul Stankowski wins Hawaiian Golf Open
1997 Terry-Jo Myers wins LPGA Los Angeles Women’s Championship
1998 Tellabs Inc acquires Coherent Communications Systems for $670 million