399 BC – Philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death by the city of Athens for corrupting the minds of the youth of the city and for impiety
0438 – The Theodosian Code of Roman laws proclaimed in the Eastern Empire (first law reforms since 295)
1220 – Khwarezmian city of Bukhara taken by Genghis Khan’s Mongol army after a 12-day siege, with the death of about 30,000 of its citizens
1637 – Ferdinand III succeeds Ferdinand II as Holy Roman Emperor
1758 – Mustard was advertised for the first time in America.
1763 – Austria, Prussia & Saxony sign the Treaty of Hubertusburg, marking the end of the French and Indian War and of the Seven Years’ War
1798 – Rep. Roger Griswold of Connecticut took up a wooden cane to attack Rep. Matthew Lyon of Vermont on the House floor, then located in Philadelphia’s Congress Hall. https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/griswold-lyon-fight-erupts-on-house-floor-feb-15-1798-049518
1799 – Printed ballots were authorized for use in elections in the state of Pennsylvania.
1804 – New Jersey becomes last northern state to abolish slavery
1848 – Sarah Roberts barred from white school in Boston
1851 – Black abolitionists invade Boston courtroom rescuing a fugitive slave
1869 – Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped.
1879 – U.S. President Hayes signed a bill that allowed female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
1898 – The U.S. battleship Maine blows up in Havana Harbor, killing 268 sailors and bringing hordes of Western cowboys and gunfighters rushing to enlist in the Spanish-American War.
1900 – The British threaten to use natives in their war with the Boers.
1903 – Morris and Rose Michtom, Russian immigrants, introduced the first teddy bear in America.
1925 – The London Zoo announces it will install lights to cheer up fogged-in animals.
1933 – U.S. President-elect Franklin Roosevelt escaped an assination attempt in Miami. Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak was killed in the attack.
1934 – U.S. Congress passes the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, allotting new funds for Federal Emergency Relief Administration.
1939 – German battleship Bismarck was launched
1942 – During World War II, Singapore surrendered to the Japanese.
1943 – Wartime propaganda poster “We Can Do It!” produced by J. Howard Miller and posted on the walls of Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company’s plants in the Midwest
1946 – Edith Houghton, at age 33, was signed as a baseball scout by the Philadelphia Phillies becoming the first female scout in the major leagues.
1946 – Royal Canadian mounted police arrest 22 as Soviet spies.
1961 – Eighteen members of the U.S. figure skating team are lost in an airplane crash in Belgium.
1965 – Canada displayed its new red and white maple leaf flag. The flag was to replace the old Red Ensign standard.
1967 – Thirteen U.S. helicopters are shot down in one day in Vietnam
1972 – President Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador deposed for 4th time
1974 – U.S. gas stations threaten to close because of federal fuel policies.
1982 – During a storm, the Ocean Ranger, a drilling rig, sank off the coast of Newfoundland. 84 men were killed.
1985 – The Center for Disease Control reported that more than half of all nine-year-olds in the U.S. showed no sign of tooth decay.
1989 – After nine years of intervention, the Soviet Union announced that the remainder of its troops had left Afghanistan.
1991 – The leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland signed the Visegard agreement, in which they pledged to cooperate in transforming thier countties to free-market economies.
1993 – Bombings by mafia drug lords kill 14 in Bogota, Colombia
1995 – The FBI arrested Kevin Mitnick and charged him with cracking security in some of the nation’s most protected computers. He served five years in jail.
1996 – Mortar attack on the US Embassy in Athens, Greece
1998 – The Angel of the North, a large-scale steel sculpture 20 m (66 ft) tall by Antony Gormley is installed at Gateshead, northern England
2001 – The first draft of the human genome is published, The human genome contains the complete human genetic information.
2002 – U.S. President George W. Bush approved Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a site for long-term disposal of radioactive nuclear waste.
2003 – The largest peace demonstration in history takes place, Up to 30 million people in 600 cities around the world protested against the Iraq War.
2012 – Fire at Comayagua prison, Honduras, kills 358
2013 – Chelyabinsk meteor breaks up over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring over 1,200 people, with 26 to 33 times energy of Hiroshima bomb
2019 – A fired employee opens fire at Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, Illinois, killing five and injuring six
2019 – US President Donald Trump declares a national emergency to divert funds to build a border wall, after signing bipartisan spending agreement to avoid another government shutdown
2020 – Beijing orders people returning to the city after Lunar New Year holiday to self-quarantine for 14 days to prevent spread of Covid-19
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
