Events

• 842 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in the French and German languages.
• 1014 - Pope Benedict VIII recognizes Henry of Bavaria as King of Germany.
• 1076 - Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1349 - Approximately 2,000 Jews are burned to death by mobs or forcibly removed from the city of Strasbourg.
• 1556 - Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.
• 1743 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister.
• 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 rendered a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
• 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, 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.
• 1803 - Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void.
• 1804 - Karadjordje 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, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 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.
• 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 Chilean armed forces occupy the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.
• 1899 - Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.
• 1900 - Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country.
• 1900 - Second Boer War: In South Africa, 20,000 British troops invade the Orange Free State.
• 1903 - The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into Department of Commerce and Department of Labor).
• 1912 - Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.
• 1912 - In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned.
• 1918 - The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (on 1 February according to the Julian calendar).
• 1919 - The Polish-Soviet War begins.
• 1920 - The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago, Illinois.
• 1924 - The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is founded.
• 1929 - St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone's gang, are murdered in Chicago, Illinois.
• 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: Battle of the Kasserine Pass - German General Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia.
• 1944 - World War II: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.
• 1945 - World War II: On the second day of the bombing of Dresden , the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony.
• 1945 - World War II: Prague is bombed probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.
• 1945 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially starting the U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relationship.
• 1945 - World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans.
• 1946 - The Bank of England is nationalized.
• 1949 - The Knesset (Israeli parliament) convenes for the first time.
• 1949 - The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada. The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
• 1956 - The XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union begins in Moscow. On the last night of the meeting, Premier Nikita Khrushchev condemns Joseph Stalin's crimes in a secret speech.
• 1961 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California.
• 1962 - First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.
• 1966 - Australian currency is decimalised.
• 1979 - In Kabul, Muslims kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
• 1981 - Stardust Disaster: A fire in a Dublin nightclub kills 48 people
• 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 the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.
• 1989 - The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System are placed into orbit.
• 1990 - 92 people are killed aboard Indian Airlines Flight 605 at Bangalore, India.
• 1994 - Andrei Chikatilo, a Russian serial killer is executed by shooting.
• 1996 - China launches a Long March 3 rocket, carrying the Intelsat 708 satellite. The rocket flies off course 3 seconds after liftoff and crashes into a rural village.
• 1998 - Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Robert Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
• 2000 - The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
• 2002 - The Tullaghmurray Lass sinks off the coast of Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland killing three members of the same family on board.
• 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 - Lebanon's former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, is assassinated, prompting the country to fall into chaos.
• 2005 - Seven people are killed and 151 wounded in a series of bombings by suspected Al-Qaeda-linked militants that hit the Philippines' Makati financial district in Metro Manila, Davao City, and General Santos City.
• 2005 - YouTube founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.
• 2008 - Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 24 casualties; 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 18 injured.

Births