0772 Adrian I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1539 Emperor Karel & King François I sign anti-English treaty
1587 English queen Elizabeth I signs Mary Stuart’s death sentence
1662 Dutch garrison on Formosa surrenders for Chinese pirates
1669 French King Louis XIV limits freedom of religion
1709 British sailor Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being marooned on a desert island (Fernandez Island) for 5 years, his story is the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”
1717 Henri d'Aguesseau’s 1st appointment as chancellor of France
1720 Sweden & Prussia sign peace treaty
1732 Parliament of Ratisborn accept Pragmatic Sanctions
1742 Sardinia & Austria sign alliance
1783 William Herschel announces star Lambda Herculis as apex
1788 1st US steamboat patent issued, by Georgia to Briggs & Longstreet
1789 Chinese troops driven out of Vietnam capital Thang Long
1790 Supreme Court convenes for the 1st time (New York NY)
1793 Patent granted Ralph Hodgson, New York, for oiled silk & linen
1793 France declares war on England & Netherlands
1809 Dutch King Louis Napoleon accepts metric system
1810 1st insurance company managed by blacks (American Insurance Company of Philadelphia)
1810 Seville, Spain surrenders to the French
1810 US Population - 7,239,881; Black population - 1,377,808 (19%)
1814 Lord Byron’s “The Corsair” sells 10,000 copies on the day of publication
1814 Volcano Mayon on Luzon Philippines erupts killing 1,200
1840 Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, 1st in US, incorporated
1860 1st rabbi to open House of Representatives, Morris Raphall of New York NY
1861 Dike breaks in Gelderland Netherlands
1861 Texas becomes 7th state to secede
1862 Julia Howe publishes “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
1864 2nd German-Danish war begins
1864 Austrian/Prussian troops occupy Sleeswijk/Holstein
1864 Battle of Yazoo River, Mississippi
1865 13th amendment approved (National Freedom Day)
1865 General Sherman’s march through South Carolina begins
1865 JS Rock, 1st black lawyer to practice in Supreme Court, admitted to bar
1867 Bricklayers start working 8-hour days
1871 Jefferson Long of Georgia is 1st black to make an official speech in House of Representatives (opposing leniency to former Confederates)
1881 US Assay Office in St Louis MO authorized
1883 French Lieutenant-Colonel Gustave Borgnis-Desbordes reaches Bamako on the Niger
1884 1st volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, A-Ant, published
1887 Harvey Wilcox of Kansas subdivides 120 acres he owned in Southern California & starts selling it off as a real estate development (Hollywood)
1892 Mrs William Astor invites 400 guests to a grand ball at her mansion thus beginning the use of the “400” to describe the socially elite
1893 Thomas Edison completes worlds 1st movie studio (West Orange NJ)
1893 Giacomo Puccini’s Opera “Manon Lescaut” premieres in Turin
1896 Giacomo Puccini’s Opera “La Boheme” premieres in Turin
1898 1st auto insurance policy in US issued, by Travelers Insurance Company
1902 China’s empress Tzu-hsi forbids binding woman’s feet
1902 Hermann Sudermanns “Es lebe das Leben” premieres in Berlin
1905 Hague soccer team ADO forms
1905 Hungarian premier Tisza resigns
1906 1st federal penitentiary building completed, Leavenworth KS
1906 English Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Grey’s wife Dorothy fatally injured
1909 US Assay Office in Salt Lake City, Utah opens
1910 1st British labour exchange opens
1910 Dragoumis government forms in Greece
1914 New York Giants & Chicago White Sox play an exhibition baseball game in Egypt
1914 Pennsylvania State Board of [motion picture] Censors appointed
1914 Tanganyika Railway opens
1917 Admiral Tirpitz announces unlimited submarine war
1918 Franz Lehárs opera “Wo die Lerche singt” premieres in Budapest
1918 Kern, Bolton & Wodehouse’s musical premieres in New York NY
1918 Russia adopts Gregorian calendar (becomes Feb 14)
1919 Dodgers trade Jake Daubert to Reds for Tommy Griffith Daubert
1920 1st commercial armored car introduced (St Paul MN)
1920 Royal Canadian Mounted Police forms as Royal Northwest Mounted Police merge with Dominion Police
1920 Soccer team Quick Boys forms
1923 Allied ultimatum on Lithuanian occupation of Memel
1923 Fascists Voluntary Militia forms in Italy under Mussolini
1923 Noël Coward’s “Young Idea” premieres in London
1924 Amsterdam’s Netherlands Press Museum opens
1924 New British MacDonald government recognizes USSR
1924 Soccer team VSV Tonido forms in Voorburg
1925 1st national conference of KPD’s Rotfrontkämpferbund in Berlin
1926 Kirghiz Autonomous Region in RSFSR becomes Kirghiz ASSR
1926 Land at Broadway & Wall Street sold at a record $7 per square inch
1929 1st clean & jerk of 400 lbs (182 kg), Charles Rigoulet, 402½ lbs
1930 Arnold Schönbergs opera premieres in Frankfurt
1932 Bradman makes 299 vs South Africa, runs out partner going for 300th
1933 Colonial government arrests Anton de Kom in Paramaribo Suriname
1933 Dutch bishops forbid membership in non-catholic unions
1933 German Parliament dissolves, General Ludendorf predicts catastrophe
1934 Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss dissolves all political parties but his own
1935 James T Farrell finishes his “Studs Lonigan” trilogy
1935 1st “March of Time” newsreel premieres at the Capitol
1937 Stapleton, Staten Island becomes a customs-free port
1940 Russia begins new offensive against Finland
1941 US female Figure Skating championship won by Jane Vaughn
1941 US male Figure Skating championship won by Eugene Turner
1942 2nd Norwegian government of Quisling forms
1943 German occupiers make Vidkun Quisling Norwegian premier
1943 Mussert forms pro Nazi shadow cabinet (Netherlands)
1944 Supreme Soviet enlarges soviet republics’ autonomy
1944 US 7th Infantry/25th Marine Division lands on Kwajalein/Roi/Namur
1945 US Army arrives at Siegfriedlinie
1946 Trygve Lie, a Norwegian socialist, becomes 1st Secretary-General of UN
1946 Republic of Hungary proclaimed, Zolt n Tildy as communist president
1947 Aleide de Gasperi forms Italian government of Christian-democrats & communists
1947 Dmitri Shostakovich named professor at conservatory of Leningrad
1947 NV United Dutch Fokker’s Aircraft established
1948 Palestine Post building in Jerusalem bombed
1948 Federation Malaysia forms from 9 sultanates
1949 200" (5.08-meter) Hale telescope 1st used
1949 RCA releases 1st single record ever (45 rpm)
1950 Urko Kekkonen elected president of Finland
1950 USSR demands condemnation of Emperor Hirohito for war crimes
1951 1st telecast of atomic explosion - US nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1951 1st X-ray moving picture process demonstrated
1951 -50ºF (-46ºC), Gavilan NM (state record)
1951 Alfred Krupp & 28 other German war criminals freed
1951 UN condemns People’s Republic of China as aggressor in Korea
1952 General strike against French colonial management in Tunisia
1952 S[amuel] N[athaniel] Behrman’s “Jane” premieres in New York NY
1953 “General Electric Theater” premieres on CBS TV; Reagan later hosts
1953 “You Are There” with Walter Cronkite premieres on CBS television
1953 Dr A de Waal appointed as Netherlands 1st female assistant Secretary of state
1953 Flooding in Netherlands, kills 1,835
1953 WEEK TV channel 25 in Peoria IL (NBC) begins broadcasting
1954 1st TV soap opera “Secret Storm” premieres
1954 Scapino Ballet Studio in Amsterdam destroyed by fire
1954 Soccer team The County forms in Doetinchem
1955 H C Hansen appointed premier of Denmark
1956 Hague Daily Newspaper reveals war crimes of Hague mayor Schokking
1956 WSAV TV channel 3 in Savannah GA (NBC) begins broadcasting
1957 1st black pilot (PH Young) on a US scheduled passenger airline
1957 Gijsbert of Hall appointed mayor of Amsterdam
1958 1st US satellite (Explorer I) launched
1958 Egypt & Syria announce plans to merge into United Arab Republic
1958 WFTV TV channel 9 in Orlando FL (ABC) begins broadcasting
1959 Swiss males vote against voting rights for women
1959 Texas Instruments requests patent of IC (Integrated Circuit)
1959 US female Figure Skating championship won by Carol Heiss
1959 US male Figure Skating championship won by David Jenkins
1959 Wiffi Smith win LPGA Havana Golf Tournament
1959 WVUE TV channel 8 in New Orleans LA (ABC) begins broadcasting
1959 Zack Wheat unanimously elected to baseball Hall of Fame
1960 4 students stage 1st civil rights sit-in, at Greensboro NC Woolworth
1960 34th Australian Women’s Tennis Margaret Smith beats J Lehane (7-5 6-2)
1960 48th Australian Men’s Tennis Rod Laver beats N Fraser (5-7 3-6 6-3 8-6 8-6)
1960 Extreme right-wing rebels in Algiers surrender
1961 1st full-scale test of US Minuteman ICBM is successful
1961 British minister Enoch Powell makes medical insurance more expensive
1961 Mackay & Kline hang on for 100 minutes for cricket draw vs West Indies
1962 “New Faces of ‘62” opens at Alvin Theater NYC for 28 performances
1962 NL releases its 1st 162-game schedule
1963 Nyasaland (now Malawi) becomes self-governing under Hastings Banda
1964 Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” 1st #1 hit & stays #1 for 7 weeks
1964 “Stop the World, I Want to…” closes at Shubert NYC after 556 performances
1964 Indiana Governor Mathew Walsh tries to ban “Louie Louie” for obscenity
1964 Suriname River dammed
1965 Martin Luther King Jr & 700 demonstrators arrested in Selma AL
1965 Dutch Queen Juliana opens Brienenoord Bridge in Rotterdam
1965 NL adopts emergency team replacement plan to restock any club struck by disaster
1965 Peter Jennings, 26, becomes anchor of ABC’s nightly news
1967 Severe brush fires in Tasmania destroy $11 million & 60 lives
1967 WCLP TV channel 18 in Chatsworth GA (PBS) begins broadcasting
1968 Famous photo Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head
1968 Vince Lombardi resigns as coach of the Green Bay Packers
1968 Former Vice-President Richard Nixon announces candidacy for President
1968 World trade conference Unctad 2 opens in New Delhi
1969 Jim Morrison arrested for exposing himself in concert
1969 US female Figure Skating championship won by Janet Lynn
1969 US male Figure Skating championship won by Tim Wood
1969 WPGH TV channel 53 in Pittsburgh PA (IND) begins broadcasting
1970 Stalled commuter train rammed by express in Argentina, 139 die
1970 Ford Frick, Earle Combs & Jesse Haines elected to Hall of Fame
1970 West-Germany & USSR sign gas contract
1970 WMAA TV channel 29 in Jackson MS (PBS) begins broadcasting
1972 1st scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) introduced ($395)
1972 Wings release “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” in UK
1973 Monte Irvin elected to baseball Hall of Fame
1974 “Good Times” (spinoff from “Maude”) premieres on CBS TV
1975 1st successful Washington Capitals penalty shot, Ken Lockett vs Vancouver Canucks
1975 Lorne Henning scores on 3rd Islander penalty shot
1975 “Hoppy, Gene & Me” by Roy Rogers peaks at #65
1975 “Men on the Moon” closes at Little Theater NYC after 5 performances
1975 Otis Francis Tabler is 1st open homosexual to get security clearance to work for the Defense Department
1976 “Rich Man, Poor Man” mini-series premieres on ABC TV
1976 Sonny & Cher resume TV show, despite real-life divorce
1976 East Lansing police arrest Dodgers reliever Mike Marshall for taking batting practice at Michigan State University after he is warned not to
1976 Judy Rankin win LPGA Burdine’s Golf Invitational
1977 Heavy blizzard in New England claims 100 lives
1977 Hillsdale High School defeats Person High School 2-0 in basketball
1978 Director Roman Polanski skips bail & fled to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl
1978 Harriet Tubman is 1st black woman honored on a US postage stamp
1979 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after 15 years in exile
1979 Patricia Hearst is released from a San Francisco prison for bank robbery
1979 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR
1980 Soap opera “Love of Life” ends a 28 year run
1980 Sears Radio Theater moves from CBS to Mutual Broadcasting System
1981 11th NFL Pro Bowl NFC beats AFC 21-7
1981 31st NBA All-Star Game East beats West 123-120 at Cleveland
1981 Duke Ellington-musical “Sophisticated Ladies” premieres in New York NY
1981 Dutch Antilles census is 231,932
1981 French government accord sends 60 Mirage fighter jets to Iraq
1981 Sandra Palmer win LPGA Whirlpool Golf Championship of Deer Creek
1981 Trevor Chappell bowls underarm to Brian McKechnie, WSC Final MCG
1982 Senegal & Gambia form loose confederation (Senegambia)
1982 “Late Night With David Letterman” debuts on NBC-TV
1983 USSR performs underground nuclear test
1984 Daniel Stern becomes NBA commissioner
1984 Ravindara Mhatrem, Indian diplomat, kidnapped in England (killed 0203)
1984 China & Netherlands regain diplomatic relations
1985 -69ºF (-56ºC), Peter’s Sink UT (state record)
1985 -61ºF (-52ºC), Maybell CO (state record)
1985 Azharuddin scores 3rd Test century in 3rd Test Cricket (122 vs England)
1985 Cards trade D Green, Jose Uribe, Dave LaPoint to Giants for Jack Clark
1985 US female Figure Skating championship won by Tiffany Chin
1986 KHJ-AM in Los Angeles CA changes call letters to KRTH
1986 Singer Diana Ross marries Norwegian businessman Arne Naess in Switzerland
1987 163 day strike against Deere & Company ends, workers accept wage freeze
1987 38,873 NBA crowd watch Chicago at Detroit
1987 Kathy Postlewait win LPGA Mazda Golf Classic
1987 NFL Pro Bowl AFC beats NFC 10-6
1989 Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 at perihelion
1989 Princess Diana of England visits New York NY
1991 President F W de Klerk, says he would repeal all apartheid laws
1991 Afghanistan/Pakistan hit by earthquake, 1,200 die
1991 Craig McDermott takes 8-97 vs England at the WACA
1991 US Air & Skywest Fairchild commuter jet collide at Los Angeles Airport killing 32
1992 Barry Bonds signs baseball’s highest single year contract ($4.7 million)
1992 Denis Potvin’s #5 becomes the 1st number retired by the New York Islanders
1992 “Crazy He Calls Me” closes at Walter Kerr Theater NYC after 7 performances
1993 New York Judge Sol Wachtler indicted for harassing Joy Silverman
1993 Soyuz TM-16 lands
1994 Irina Privalova runs world record 50 meter indoor (6.03 seconds)
1994 Large meteorite falls near Kusaie, Pacific Ocean
1995 Amtrak New York-Tampa run ends
1995 Amy van Dikes swims woman’s world record 50 meter butterfly (26.73)
1995 Andy & Grant Flower make 269 stand vs Pakistan, brotherly record
1995 Belgium’s TV channel VT4 goes on the air
1998 “Street Corner Symphony” closes at Brooks Atkinson NYC after 79 performances