1980 – Details of ABSCAM, an FBI operation to uncover political corruption in the government, are released to the public. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/abscam-operation-revealed
0962 – Pope John XII crowns Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor in nearly 40 years
1032 – Burgundy’s Rudolph III dies childless February 2 The Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II claims Rudolph’s realm under terms of a 1027 treaty of succession and unites it with the empire
1141 – Battle of Lincoln: King Stephen captured by forces loyal to Empress Matilda and commanded by Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester
1349 – By this date at least 200 people a day were being buried in London as a result of the Black Death
1461 – Battle of Mortimer’s Cross: in a major battle of the War of the Roses Yorkist army of Edward, Earl of March, defeats Lancaster force led by Jasper Tudor
1536 – The Argentine city of Buenos Aires was founded by Pedro de Mendoza of Spain.
1542 – Portuguese under Christovo da Gama capture a Moslem-occupied hillfort in northern Ethiopia in the Battle of Baente.
1645 – Royalist army led by James graham, 5th Earl and 1st Marquis of Montrose routed the Earl of Argyll’s Covenating forces in the Battle of Inverlochy
1653 – New Amsterdam, now known as New York City, was incorporated.
1709 – Alexander Selkirk is rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
1787 – Arthur St. Clair is elected the 9th President of the United States in Congress Assembled in the midst of Shays’ Rebellion.
1802 – The first leopard to be exhibited in the United States was shown by Othello Pollard in Boston, MA.
1829 – Madman Jonathan Martin sets York Cathedral afire, does £60,000 damage
1848 – The Mexican War was ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty turned over portions of land to the U.S., including Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, California and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. The U.S. gave Mexico $15,000,000 and assumed responsibility of all claims against Mexico by American citizens. Texas had already entered the U.S. on December 29, 1845.
1863 – Samuel Langhorne Clemens used a pseudonym for the first time. He is better remembered by the pseudonym which is Mark Twain.
1870 – The “Cardiff Giant” was revealed to be nothing more than carved gypsum. The discovery in Cardiff, NY, was alleged to be the petrified remains of a human.
1878 – Greece declared war on Turkey.
1880 – The S.S. Strathleven arrived in London with the first successful shipment of frozen mutton from Australia.
1887 – The beginning of Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, PA.
1897 – The Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg was destroyed by fire. The new statehouse was dedicated nine years later on the same site.
1901 – The US Congress passes the Army Reorganization Act, placing the minimum number of men under arms at 58,000
1913 – Grand Central Terminal officially opened at 12:01 a.m. Even though construction was not entirely complete more than 150,000 people visited the new terminal on its opening day.
1919 – Monarchist riot in Portugal
1920 – Estonia declares its Independence from Russia
1922 – James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses” first published by Sylvia Beach in Paris (1,000 copies)
1925 – 20 mushers embark on a journey to transport medicine to Nome, Alaska, inspiring the Iditarod Race
1932 – Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) organized in the US to provide financial support to state and local governments and to make loans to banks, railroads, mortgage associations and other businesses
1934 – Dutch Roman Catholic Bishops warn against fascism/Nazism
1935 – Leonard Keeler conducted the first test of the polygraph machine, in Portage, WI.
1942 – Los Angeles Times urges security measures against Japanese-Americans
1943 – During World War II, the remainder of Nazi forces from the Battle of Stalingrad surrendered to the Soviets. Stalingrad has since been renamed Volgograd.
1945 – U.S. President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill left for a summit in Yalta with Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
1946 – The first Buck Rogers automatic pistol was made.
1948 – President Truman urges congress to adopt a civil rights program
1950 – British security agents arrested Nuclear physicist Klaus Fuchs on spy charges after an investigation based on an FBI tip derived from Soviet telegrams decrypted and decoded by the Army Signals Agency with FBI investigative assistance; these decrypted, decoded cables are known collectively under the codename Venona
1954 – President Eisenhower reports detonation of first H-bomb (done in 1952)
1962 – The 8th and 9th planets aligned for the first time in 400 years.
1964 – GI Joe, debuts as a popular American boy’s toy
1971 – Idi Amin assumed power in Uganda after a coup that ousted President Milton Obote.
1972 – The British embassy in Dublin is destroyed in protest over Bloody Sunday.
1974 – The F-16 Fighting Falcon flies for the first time.
1975 – Army offensive against rebels in Eritrea Ethiopia
1980 – The situation known as “Abscam” began when reports surfaced that the FBI had conducted a sting operation that targeted members of the U.S. Congress. A phony Arab businessmen were used in the operation.
1982 – Hama Massacre: The government of Syria attacks the town of Hama and kills thousands of people.
1987 – Terry Waite kidnapped in Beirut (released 17 Nov 1991)
1989 – The final Russian armored column left Kabul, Afghanistan, after nine years of military occupation.
1990 – South African President F.W. de Klerk lifted a ban on the African National Congress and promised to free Nelson Mandela.
1992 – IRS & Willie Nelson settle on $9 million tax bill (of $16.7 million)
1995 – Egyptian, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian leaders meet in Cairo to restore peace in the Middle East
1998 – U.S. President Clinton introduced the first balanced budget in 30 years.
1999 – A Portland, Oregon jury decrees that a person who created an Internet site listing the names and addresses of abortionists pay $107 million in damages
2004 – It was reported that a white powder had been found in an office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) later confirmed that the powder was the poison ricin.
2013 – 23 people are killed and 8 are injured after militants attacked an army base in the Lakki Marwat District, Pakistan
2014 – Protests in Ukraine turn violent after parliament passes legislation that outlaws protest
2016 – First case of Zika contracted on US mainland (Texas) and second known sexually transmitted case confirmed in Texas
2018 – All 955 miners rescued from the Beatrix gold mine in Welkom town, South Africa, after 2 days underground
2019 – Virginia Governor Ralph Northam admits to wearing blackface in 1984 but says he’s not in a photo of men wearing blackface and a Ku Klux Klan robe on a yearbook page
2021 – US President Joe Biden signs executive orders to reunite immigrant families, setting up a new taskforce to address around 1000 remaining separated families
2022 – More than one million Afghans have fled the country for Iran since October due to the country’s economic crisis, according to immigration authorities threatening a new migrant crisis
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
