2001 – NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr., was killed in a crash during the Daytona 500 race.
1219 – Jerusalem re-taken by the Christian Crusader kingdom in a peace treaty between Holy Roman Emperor Frederik II and Egyptian ruler Al-Kamil
1332 – Amda Seyon I, Emperor of Ethiopia begins his campaigns in the southern Muslim provinces.
1478 – George, the Duke of Clarence, who had opposed his brother Edward IV, is murdered in the Tower of London.
1503 – Henry Tudor (later Henry VIII) appointed Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the English throne
1519 – Hernán Cortés leaves Cuba for the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico with 11 ships and 500 men
1634 – Ferdinand II orders commander Albrecht von Wallenstein’s execution
1685 – Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, and thus formed the basis for France’s claim to Texas.
1688 – Quakers in Germantown, Pa. adopt the first formal antislavery resolution in America.
1735 – The first opera performed in America. The work was “Flora” (or “Hob in the Well”) and was presented in Charleston, SC.
1787 – Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II bans children under 8 from labor
1814 – The Battle of Montereau; victory of French under Napoleon Bonaparte against Austrians and Württembergers under the King of Württemberg.
1841 – The first continuous filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It lasted until March 11th.
1856 – The American Party (Know-Nothings) convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate its first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
1861 – Victor Emmanuel II becomes the first King of Italy.
1861 – In Montgomery, AL, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the President of the Confederate States.
1878 – The bitter and bloody Lincoln County War begins with the murder of Billy the Kid‘s mentor, Englishman rancher John Tunstall.
1884 – Russian police seize all copies of Leo Tolstoy’s book “What I Believe In”
1885 – Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was published in the U.S. for the first time.
1896 – Cave of Winds at Niagara Falls goes almost dry for first time in 50 yrs
1901 – Winston Churchill makes his maiden speech in the British House of Commons.
1907 – 600,000 tons of grain are sent to Russia to relieve the famine there.
1908 – The American ambassador to Japan is given a note by the Japanese in which they agree to restrict Japanese emigration to the US; this becomes known as the ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’
1917 – 1st major strike of the Russian “February Revolution” starts at the giant Putilov factory in Petrograd
1922 – The Capper-Volstead Act allows farmers to buy and sell cooperatively without the risk of prosecution under antitrust laws
1924 – US Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby resigns due to Teapot Dome scandal
1930 – Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane.
1930 – The planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh. The discovery was made as a result of photographs taken in January 1930.
1943 – German Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbells demands “total war” from German citizens in speech at Berlin Sportpalast
1943 – The Gestapo arrests German resistance fighter Sophie Scholl and other White Rose activists, 21-year-old student Scholl and her fellow campaigners were executed for having distributed flyers criticizing the Nazi regime.
1952 – Greece and Turkey became members of NATO.
1953 – “Bwana Devil” opened. It was the first three-dimensional feature.
1953 – Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz signed a contract worth $8,000,000 to continue the “I Love Lucy” TV show through 1955.
1954 – The first Church of Scientology is established, Despite many controversies, Scientology has gained thousands of members since its inception.
1954 – East and West Berlin drop thousands of propaganda leaflets on each other after the end of a month long truce.
1962 – Robert F. Kennedy says that U.S. troops will stay in Vietnam until Communism is defeated.
1964 – The United States cuts military aid to five nations in reprisal for having trade relations with Cuba.
1965 – Church deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson is beaten and shot during a peaceful march in Marion, Alabama. His death 8 days later inspires the Selma to Montgomery marches.
1970 – The Chicago Seven defendants were found innocent of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention.
1970 – US President Richard Nixon launches the “Nixon doctrine”
1972 – The California Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty.
1974 – Randolph Hearst is to give $2 million in free food for the poor in order to open talks for his daughter Patty.
1977 – The space shuttle Enterprise went on its maiden “flight” sitting on top of a Boeing 747.
1978 – Hawaii hosts the first Ironman Triathlon, Contestants have to swim 2.4 miles (3.86 km), bike 112 miles (180.25 km) and complete a marathon run measuring 26.2 miles (42.2 km).
1982 – Mexico devalues the peso by 30 percent to fight an economic slide.
1986 – Anti-smoking ad airs for 1st time on TV, featuring Yul Brynner: he died of smoking-induced lung cancer on 10th October 1985
1987 – The executives of the Girl Scout movement decided to change the color of the scout uniform from the traditional Girl Scout green to the newer Girl Scout blue.
1998 – In Russia, money shortages resulted in the shutting down of three plants that produced nuclear weapons.
1998 – In Nevada, two white separatists were arrested and accused of plotting a bacterial attack on subways in New York City.
2000 – The U.S. Commerce Department reported a deficit in trade goods and services of $271.3 billion for 1999. It was the largest calender-year trade gap in U.S. history.
2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison
2001 – NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr., was killed in a crash during the Daytona 500 race.
2001 – FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested and accused of spying for Russia for more than 15 years. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
2003 – In South Korea, at least 120 people were killed when a man lit a fire on a subway train
2010 – Bibliothèque nationale de France purchases the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova a for €7 million
2014 – Ukrainian Revolution of 2014 begins as protesters, riot police and unknown shooters take part in violent events in the capital, Kiev, culminating after five days in the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych
2016 – Pope Francis questions US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s Christianity over his call to build a wall on the Mexican border
2019 – 16 US states, including California and New York, band together to sue President Donald Trump over his use of emergency powers to build a border wall.
2019 – Australian political parties hacked by a “sophisticated state actor” Prime Minister Scott Morrison says, just months ahead of general election
2019 – Gun battle in Pulwama, Indian-controlled Kashmir, kills nine with Pakistan-based group Jaish-e-Mohammad held responsible
2020 – Ashraf Ghani declared the winner of Afghanistan’s presidential elections five months after the vote, fraud allegations meant recounting
2020 – Boy Scouts of America files for bankruptcy amid hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits, suspending those claims
2021 – Facebook blocks users in Australia from accessing news sites in response to proposed new laws for tech companies to pay to show news content
2021 – Nearly seven million people required to boil their water in Texas as unusually harsh winter storm in the state continues
2021 – Texan senator Ted Cruz flies to Cancun, Mexico with his family amid a winter disaster in his state, igniting widespread condemnation
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
