March 26

Elbridge Gerry

• 1344 – Reconquista: The Muslim city of Algeciras surrendered after a 21-month siege and was incorporated into the Kingdom of Castile.
• 1651 – The Spanish ship San José ran aground onto coasts controlled by the indigenous Cunco people, who subsequently killed the crew.
• 1697 – The Safavid Empire began a four-year occupation of the Ottoman city of Basra on the Persian Gulf.
• 1812 – The Boston Gazette printed a cartoon coining the term "gerrymander", named after Governor Elbridge Gerry (pictured), who approved the legislation that created oddly shaped electoral districts.
• 1939 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists began their final offensive of the war, at the end of which they controlled almost the entire country.
• 1999 – A jury began deliberations in the trial of Jack Kevorkian, an American practitioner of physician-assisted suicide who was charged with murder in the death of a terminally ill patient.

January 1: Public Domain Day; Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Roman Rite Catholicism)

"Am I not a man and a brother", emblem used by abolitionists

• 417 – Galla Placidia was forced by her brother Honorius into marriage with his magister militum, Constantius III.
• 1808 – As a result of the lobbying efforts by the abolitionist movement (emblem pictured), the importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned, although slavery itself remained permitted.
• 1914 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the U.S. state of Florida became the first scheduled airline using a winged aircraft.
• 1957 – The revised Thai criminal code came into force, strengthening the law on lèse-majesté in Thailand to include insult and treating it as a crime against national security.
• 2019 – The NASA space probe New Horizons flew by the trans-Neptunian object Arrokoth, making it the farthest object visited by a spacecraft.

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January 2: Feast day of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint Basil of Caesarea (Roman Rite Catholicism, Anglicanism)

Ronald Reagan

• 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces under the command of George Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.
• 1959 – The Soviet Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon, was launched by a Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
• 1967 – Ronald Reagan (pictured) began his career in government when he was sworn in as the 33rd governor of California.
• 1976 – An extratropical cyclone began affecting parts of western Europe, resulting in coastal flooding around the southern portions of the North Sea and leading to at least 82 deaths.
• 2009 – Sri Lankan Civil War: The Sri Lankan army captured the town of Kilinochchi from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, concluding the Battle of Kilinochchi.

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January 3

First issue of Berlingske

• 1749 – The first issue of Berlingske (front page pictured), Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, was published.
• 1911 – An earthquake registering 7.7 M_w destroyed Almaty in Russian Turkestan.
• 1938 – The American health charity March of Dimes was founded as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to help raise money for polio research.
• 1961 – All 25 people on board Aero Flight 311 died in Finland's worst civilian air accident when the aircraft crashed near Kvevlax.
• 2009 – The cryptocurrency network of bitcoin was created when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block of the chain.

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January 4: Colonial Repression Martyrs' Day in Angola (1961)

Artist's depiction of a Mars Exploration Rover

• 1698 – Most of London's Palace of Whitehall, the main residence of English monarchs since 1530, was destroyed by fire.
• 1798 – After his appointment as Prince of Wallachia, Constantine Hangerli arrived in Bucharest to assume the throne.
• 1936 – Billboard published its first music hit parade.
• 1989 – Two American F-14 Tomcats shot down two Libyan MiG-23 Floggers that appeared to be attempting to engage them over the Gulf of Sidra.
• 2004 – Spirit (artist's impression depicted), the first of two rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, successfully landed on Mars.

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January 5: Twelfth Night (Western Christianity)

Harry S. Truman

• 1757 – King Louis XV survived an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, who later became the last person in France to be executed by drawing and quartering.
• 1869 – Te Kooti's War: After surviving a five-day siege in the pā at Ngātapa, Māori leader Te Kooti escaped from New Zealand's Armed Constabulary.
• 1919 – The German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party, was founded by Anton Drexler.
• 1949 – In his State of the Union speech, U.S. president Harry S. Truman (pictured) announced: "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal."
• 2003 – The Metropolitan Police arrested six people in conjunction with an alleged terrorist plot to release ricin on the London Underground, although no toxin was found.

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January 6: Little Christmas

Constantine XI Palaiologos

• 1449 – Four years before the fall of Constantinople, Constantine XI Palaiologos (pictured) assumed the throne as the last Byzantine emperor.
• 1724 – Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, a Bach cantata for Epiphany, was first performed in Leipzig.
• 1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener presented his theory of continental drift, the precursor of plate tectonics.
• 1953 – The inaugural Asian Socialist Conference, an organisation of socialist political parties, opened in Rangoon with 177 delegates, observers and fraternal guests.
• 2014 – The first episode of the documentary series Benefits Street aired on Channel 4, prompting discussion in the United Kingdom about welfare dependency.

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January 7: Christmas (Eastern Christianity); Victory over Genocide Day in Cambodia (1979)

• 1797 – The Italian tricolour was first adopted as an official flag by the government of the Cispadane Republic.
• 1904 – The Marconi International Marine Communication Company specified CQD (audio featured) as the distress signal to be used by its operators.
• 1939 – French physicist Marguerite Perey identified francium, the last element to be discovered in nature rather than by synthesis.
• 1979 – The People's Army of Vietnam captured Phnom Penh, marking the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.
• 2020 – After 253 days without an operational government, a second round of investiture votes produced Spain's first coalition government since the Second Republic.

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January 8: Eugenio María de Hostos's birthday in Puerto Rico (2024)

Blackstone Library

• 1697 – Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead became the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy.
• 1904 – Blackstone Library (pictured), the first branch of the Chicago Public Library system, was dedicated.
• 1977 – Three bombs attributed to Armenian nationalists exploded across Moscow, killing seven people and injuring 37 people.
• 1981 – In Trans-en-Provence, France, a local farmer reported a UFO sighting claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".
• 2011 – Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a public meeting held by U.S. representative Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people and injuring twelve others.

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January 9

The plane involved in the Iran Air Flight 277 crash

• 1797 – War of the First Coalition: The siege of Kehl by Habsburg and Württembergian forces ended when French troops withdrew from their fortifications.
• 1917 – First World War: Troops of the British Empire defeated Ottoman forces at the Battle of Rafa on the Sinai–Palestine border in present-day Rafah.
• 1972 – The Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, ending a 33-game winning streak, the longest in major American professional team sports.
• 1975 – In Central and Southeastern United States, a Great Storm formed the first of forty-five tornadoes over a three-day period.
• 2011 – In poor weather conditions, Iran Air Flight 277 (plane pictured) crashed near Urmia Airport, Iran, killing 78 of the 105 people on board.

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January 10

New Orleans

• 236 – Pope Fabian, said to have been chosen by the Holy Spirit when a dove landed on his head, began his papacy.
• 1812 – New Orleans (pictured), the first steamship on the Mississippi River, arrived at New Orleans to complete its maiden voyage.
• 1929 – Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, the first volume of The Adventures of Tintin by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, began serialisation.
• 1993 – The Braer Storm, the strongest extratropical cyclone ever recorded in the North Atlantic, reached peak intensity.

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January 11: Prithvi Jayanti in Nepal

Cover of Smoking and Health

• 1654 – Arauco War: The Mapuche-Huilliche of southern Chile defeated a slave-hunting Spanish army at the Battle of Río Bueno.
• 1693 – The most powerful earthquake recorded in Italy, registering 7.4 M_w, struck the island of Sicily.
• 1914 – The Karluk, the flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, sank after being crushed by ice.
• 1964 – In a landmark report (cover pictured), U.S. surgeon general Luther Terry issued a warning that tobacco smoking may be hazardous to health, concluding that it has a causative role in lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, and other illnesses.
• 2003 – After Chicago police detective Jon Burge was discovered to have forced confessions from more than 200 suspects, the governor of Illinois commuted the death sentences of 167 prisoners and pardoned four others.

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January 12: Zanzibar Revolution Day in Tanzania (1964)

Comet McNaught

• 1659 – The fort at Allahabad was surrendered to the forces of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.
• 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: Natal Native Contingent and British troops defeated Zulu forces in the Action at Sihayo's Kraal.
• 1899 – During a storm, the crew of Lynmouth Lifeboat Station transported their 10-ton lifeboat 15 mi (24 km) overland in order to rescue a damaged schooner.
• 1969 – British rock band Led Zeppelin released their first album, Led Zeppelin, in the United States.
• 2007 – Comet McNaught (pictured) reached perihelion, becoming the brightest comet in over 40 years, with an apparent magnitude of −5.5.

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January 13: Saint Knut's Day in Finland and Sweden

William Price

• 1884 – Welsh physician William Price (pictured) was arrested for attempting to cremate his deceased infant son; this eventually led to the United Kingdom cremation act becoming law.
• 1953 – Nine Moscow doctors were accused of a plot to poison members of the Soviet political and military leadership.
• 1968 – American singer Johnny Cash recorded his landmark album At Folsom Prison live at Folsom Prison in California.
• 1972 – Ghanaian military officer Ignatius Kutu Acheampong led a coup to overthrow Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia and President Edward Akufo-Addo.
• 2000 – Steve Ballmer replaced Bill Gates as the chief executive officer of Microsoft.

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January 14: Ratification Day in the United States (1784)

Philip V of Spain

• 1724 – Philip V (pictured), the first Bourbon king of Spain, abdicated in favour of his seventeen-year-old eldest son, who became Louis I.
• 1814 – Sweden and Denmark–Norway signed the Treaty of Kiel, whereby Frederick VI of Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden in return for the Swedish holdings in Pomerania.
• 1969 – A major fire and series of explosions aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise killed 28 sailors, injured 314 others, and destroyed 15 aircraft.
• 1970 – The self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra in southeastern Nigeria surrendered to the federal government less than three years after declaring independence, ending the Nigerian Civil War.
• 2018 – In the "Minneapolis Miracle", American football player Stefon Diggs caught a 61-yard touchdown pass that secured the Minnesota Vikings' victory in the National Football Conference divisional playoff game.

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January 15: John Chilembwe Day in Malawi

• 1857 – In British Hong Kong, hundreds of Europeans were non-lethally poisoned by arsenic in bread from a locally owned bakery, leading to geopolitical tension.
• 1934 – At least 10,700 people died when an earthquake registering 8.0 M_w struck Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar.
• 1974 – American serial killer Dennis Rader, also known as the "BTK killer", murdered his first four victims.
• 1991 – The Victoria Cross for Australia was instituted by letters patent; the first Commonwealth realm with a separate Victoria Cross award in its honours system.
• 2009 – US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese during its climb out from New York City and made an emergency landing in the Hudson River (featured).

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January 16

Jose Calugas

• 1275 – 750 years ago, Edward I permits his mother Eleanor of Provence to expel the Jews from the towns Worcester, Marlborough, Cambridge and Gloucester.
• 1809 – Peninsular War: French forces under Jean-de-Dieu Soult attacked the British's amphibious evacuation under Sir John Moore at Corunna in Galicia, Spain.
• 1862 – A pumping engine at a colliery in New Hartley, England, broke and fell down the shaft, trapping miners below and resulting in 204 deaths.
• 1942 – World War II: During the Battle of Bataan, U.S. Army sergeant Jose Calugas (pictured) organized a squad of volunteers to man an artillery position under heavy fire, which later earned him the Medal of Honor.
• 1964 – The musical Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway, and went on to win ten Tony Awards, a record that stood for 37 years.
• 2018 – In Mrauk U, Myanmar, police fired into a crowd protesting the ban of an event to mark the anniversary of the end of the Kingdom of Mrauk U, resulting in seven deaths and twelve injuries.

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January 17

Queen Liliʻuokalani of Hawaii

• 1377 – Gregory XI, the last Avignon pope, entered Rome after a four-month journey from Avignon, returning the papacy to its original city.
• 1893 – Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety led the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani (pictured).
• 1945 – World War II: Australian troops advanced along the northern part of Bougainville Island (in present-day Papua New Guinea) and began fighting Japanese forces in the Battle of Tsimba Ridge.
• 1948 – Indonesian National Revolution: The Renville Agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesian republicans was ratified, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to resolve disputes arising from the Linggadjati Agreement of 1946.
• 1999 – In Little Saigon, California, a series of protests began when the owner of a video rental store displayed an image of Ho Chi Minh.

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January 18: Laba Festival in China (2024)

United Nations Memorial Cemetery

• 1871 – A number of previously independent states united to form the German Empire, with Wilhelm I as emperor.
• 1951 – Construction began on the United Nations Military Cemetery (pictured), the only United Nations cemetery in the world, in Busan, South Korea.
• 1956 – Navvab Safavi, an Iranian Shia cleric and the founder of the fundamentalist group Fada'iyan-e Islam, was executed with three of his followers for attempting to assassinate Prime Minister Hossein Ala'.
• 1969 – Thousands of Japanese police stormed the University of Tokyo after six months of nationwide leftist university student protests and occupation.
• 1983 – Thirty years after his death, the International Olympic Committee presented commemorative medals to the family of American athlete Jim Thorpe, who had been stripped of his gold medals for playing semi-professional baseball before the 1912 Summer Olympics.

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January 19

Iva Toguri

• 1419 – Hundred Years' War: The siege of Rouen ended with English troops capturing the city from Norman French forces.
• 1909 – A deed was recorded for David Hanbury to sell Island No. 2 in northern California to his brother John for $10 ($326.00 in 2022).
• 1977 – Iva Toguri (pictured), convicted of treason for broadcasting Japanese propaganda, was granted a full pardon by U.S. president Gerald Ford.
• 1996 – A tank barge and a tug grounded on a beach in Rhode Island, causing a spill of an estimated 828,000 U.S. gallons (3,130,000 L) of home heating oil.
• 2006 – In the deadliest aviation accident in Slovak history, an Antonov An-24 operated by the Slovak Air Force crashed in northern Hungary, killing 42 of the 43 people on board.

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January 20: Day of Nationwide Sorrow in Azerbaijan (1990)

Icelandic financial crisis protesters

• 1156 – According to legend, Lalli slew Bishop Henry of Finland with an axe on the ice of Lake Köyliönjärvi in Köyliö.
• 1843 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná, became the de facto first prime minister of the Empire of Brazil.
• 1968 – The Houston Cougars upset the UCLA Bruins in what became known as the "Game of the Century", ending the Bruins' 47-game winning streak, and establishing college basketball as a sports commodity on American television.
• 1969 – Bengali student activist Amanullah Asaduzzaman was shot and killed by East Pakistani police, an event that led to the Bangladesh Liberation War.
• 2009 – During a national financial crisis, thousands of people protested (pictured) at the Icelandic parliament in Reykjavík.

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January 21: World Religion Day (2024)

Newt Gingrich

• 1757 – French and Indian War: French regulars, Canadien militia and Indigenous forces ambushed Rogers' Rangers forces in the Battle on Snowshoes.
• 1919 – The First Dáil convened at the Mansion House in Dublin and adopted a declaration of independence calling for the establishment of the Irish Republic.
• 1968 – A B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons crashed onto sea ice near Thule Air Base, Greenland, causing localized radioactive contamination.
• 1997 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted 395–28 to reprimand Newt Gingrich (pictured) for ethics violations, making him the first Speaker of the House to be so disciplined.
• 2011 – Demonstrations in Tirana against alleged corruption in the Albanian government led to the killings of four protesters by the Republican Guard.

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January 22: Day of Unity of Ukraine (1919)

Apollo 5

• 1273 – Muhammad II became Sultan of Granada after his father's death in a riding accident.
• 1924 – Ramsay MacDonald took office as the first prime minister of the United Kingdom from the Labour Party.
• 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Buna–Gona on New Guinea ended with an Allied victory after two months of difficult fighting against well-prepared Japanese defence.
• 1968 – Apollo 5 (pictured), the first flight of NASA's Lunar Module, lifted off from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station.
• 1979 – Uganda–Tanzania War: After surrounding Mutukula the previous day, Tanzanian forces attacked the town in the Battle of Mutukula and caused Ugandan forces to flee.

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January 23

A Frisbee brand flying disc

• 1264 – King Louis IX of France issued the Mise of Amiens, a settlement between King Henry III of England and barons led by Simon de Montfort heavily favouring the former, which later led to the Second Barons' War.
• 1789 – Bishop John Carroll purchased a plot of land that would become the home of the future Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States.
• 1902 – In the most fatal recorded mountaineering accident, 199 of the 210 members of an Imperial Japanese Army unit perished in a blizzard on the Hakkōda Mountains.
• 1957 – American inventor Fred Morrison sold the rights to his "flying disc" to the Wham-O toy company, who later renamed it the "Frisbee" (example pictured).
• 2001 – Five people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, an act that many later claimed to have been staged by the Chinese Communist Party to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.

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January 24: Day of the Unification of the Romanian Principalities (1859)

Henry VIII

• 914 – The Fatimid Caliphate began their first invasion of Egypt, against the Abbasids, which eventually ended in failure.
• 1536 – King Henry VIII of England (pictured) suffered a serious accident while jousting, receiving injuries which may have caused his later obesity and erratic personality.
• 1848 – James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California, leading to the California gold rush.
• 1972 – Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi was found in the jungles of Guam, where he had been hiding since the end of World War II.
• 1977 – During the Spanish transition to democracy, neo-fascists attacked an office in Madrid, killing five people and injuring four others.

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January 25: Feast day of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (Eastern Christianity) and Dwynwen

Protester during the 2011 Egyptian revolution

• 1792 – Thomas Hardy founded the London Corresponding Society to seek a "radical reform of parliament", later influencing the reform movements of early-19th-century England.
• 1944 – Representatives of the Chetnik movement began a four-day congress to organise political opposition to the Allied support of the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans in Yugoslavia.
• 1971 – Idi Amin seized power from Ugandan president Milton Obote in a coup d'état, beginning eight years of military rule.
• 1993 – Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kansi shot five people outside the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, killing two.
• 2011 – The Egyptian revolution began with protests (protester pictured) on the "Day of Anger", eventually leading to the removal of President Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years of rule.

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January 26: Australia Day (1788); Republic Day in India (1950)

The dome over the Hale Telescope

• 1564 – Livonian War: A Lithuanian surprise attack resulted in a decisive defeat of numerically superior Russian forces.
• 1808 – William Bligh, the governor of New South Wales, was deposed in the only military coup in Australian history.
• 1949 – The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory (pictured) in California, the largest aperture optical telescope in the world for 28 years, saw first light.
• 1974 – Turkish Airlines Flight 301 crashed while taking off from İzmir Adnan Menderes Airport, killing 67 people.
• 2009 – Rioting broke out in Antananarivo, Madagascar, sparking a political crisis that led to the deposal of President Marc Ravalomanana.

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January 27

Mahamane Ousmane

• 1799 – French Revolutionary Wars: In the Macau Incident, French and Spanish warships encountered a British Royal Navy escort squadron in the Wanshan Archipelago; subsequent events, including which side retreated, were disputed by the commanders present.
• 1996 – Mahamane Ousmane (pictured), the first democratically elected president of Niger, was deposed by Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara in a military coup d'état.
• 2003 – The first selections for the United States National Recording Registry were announced by the Library of Congress.
• 2011 – Astronomers documented H1504+65, a white dwarf in Ursa Minor with the hottest surface temperature known at the time, at 200,000 kelvins (360,000 °F).

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January 28

Horace Walpole

• 1069 – Robert de Comines, Earl of Northumbria, was killed in Durham, causing William the Conqueror to embark on a campaign to subjugate northern England.
• 1754 – The word serendipity, derived from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, was coined by Horace Walpole (pictured) in a letter to a friend.
• 1933 – Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet in which he called for the creation of a Muslim state in north-western India that he termed "Pakstan".
• 1964 – Three U.S. Air Force pilots aboard an unarmed T-39 Sabreliner were killed when the aircraft was shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19.

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January 29

Mantra-Rock Dance poster

• 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: At the Battle of Brienne, both sides' commanders, Napoleon and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, were nearly captured.
• 1967 – The Mantra-Rock Dance (poster pictured), called the "ultimate high" of the hippie era, took place in San Francisco, featuring Swami Bhaktivedanta, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg.
• 1991 – The first major ground engagement of the Gulf War began with the Iraqi invasion of Khafji, Saudi Arabia, recaptured three days later by Coalition forces.
• 2013 – Twenty-one people died when SCAT Airlines Flight 760 crashed near Almaty, Kazakhstan.

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January 30: Martyrs' Day in India (1948)

Former Cabanatuan POWs in celebration

• 1287 – Wareru created the Hanthawaddy Kingdom in today's Lower Burma and declared himself king following the collapse of the Pagan Empire.
• 1661 – Two years after his death, Oliver Cromwell's remains were exhumed for a posthumous execution and his head was placed on a spike above Westminster Hall in London, where it remained until 1685.
• 1945 – World War II: Allied forces liberated more than 500 prisoners of war (pictured) from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan in the Philippines.
• 2020 – The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic to be a public health emergency of international concern.

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January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968)

Bust of Sylvester I

• 314 – Sylvester I (bust depicted), during whose pontificate many churches in Rome were constructed by Constantine the Great, began his reign as pope.
• 1919 – Intense rioting over labour conditions broke out in Glasgow, Scotland.
• 1997 – Final Fantasy VII, the first video game in the Final Fantasy franchise to use 3-D computer graphics, was released.
• 2007 – Emergency officials in Boston mistakenly identified LED placards depicting characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force as IEDs, causing a panic.

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February 1: Imbolc / Saint Brigid's Day in Ireland; the Fajr decade begins in Iran; Black History Month begins in Canada and the United States

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

• 1329 – The Teutonic Knights successfully besieged the hillfort of Medvėgalis in Samogitia, Lithuania, and baptised the defenders in the Catholic rite.
• 1814 – More than 1,200 people died in the most destructive recorded eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
• 1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile and soon led the Iranian Revolution to overthrow the Pahlavi dynasty.
• 2009 – Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (pictured) became the first female prime minister of Iceland.

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February 2: Candlemas (Western Christianity); Groundhog Day in Canada and the United States

F-16 Fighting Falcon

• 1709 – Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was rescued by English captain Woodes Rogers and his crew after spending four years as a castaway on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, providing the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe.
• 1934 – The Export–Import Bank of the United States, the country's official export credit agency, was established.
• 1974 – The F-16 Fighting Falcon (pictured), the most numerous fixed-wing aircraft currently in military service, made its first flight.
• 2004 – Swiss tennis player Roger Federer became the top-ranked men's singles player, a position he held for a record 237 consecutive weeks.

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February 3: Feast day of Saint Laurence of Canterbury (Western Christianity); Four Chaplains' Day in the United States (1943)

British bomber flying to join the Battle of Keren

• 1813 – Argentine War of Independence: José de San Martín and the Mounted Grenadiers Regiment defeated Spanish royalist forces in the Battle of San Lorenzo.
• 1941 – Second World War: Free French and British forces (aircraft pictured) began the Battle of Keren to capture the strategic town of Keren in Italian East Africa.
• 1953 – Hundreds of native creoles known as Forros were massacred on São Tomé Island by the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners.
• 2023 – A freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, releasing hazardous materials into the surrounding area.

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February 4: Lichun begins in East Asia (2024)

Yasser Arafat

• 1169 – A strong earthquake struck the eastern coast of Sicily, causing at least 15,000 deaths.
• 1969 – Yasser Arafat (pictured) was elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
• 1974 – American newspaper heiress and socialite Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, which she later joined, in one of the most well-known cases of Stockholm syndrome.
• 1999 – Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers, prompting outrage both within and outside the city.

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February 5: Constitution Day in Mexico (1917)

A device for producing Bakelite

• 1909 – Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announced his invention of Bakelite (production device pictured), the world's first synthetic plastic.
• 1913 – Claudio Monteverdi's last opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea, was performed theatrically for the first time in more than 250 years.
• 1958 – After a mid-air collision with a fighter plane during a practice exercise off Tybee Island, Georgia, a U.S. Air Force bomber jettisoned a Mark 15 nuclear bomb, which was presumed lost.
• 1985 – The mayors of Carthage and Rome signed a symbolic peace treaty to officially end the Third Punic War, 2,134 years after it began.
• 2019 – Pope Francis became the first pope to celebrate a papal Mass in the Arabian Peninsula.

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February 6: Sámi National Day (1917); Waitangi Day in New Zealand (1840)

• 1788 – Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the constitution of the United States.
• 1819 – British official Stamford Raffles signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, establishing Singapore as a trading post for the East India Company.
• 1919 – More than 65,000 workers in Seattle began a five-day general strike to gain higher wages after two years of U.S. World War I wage controls.
• 1958 – The aircraft carrying the Manchester United football team crashed while attempting to take off from Munich-Riem Airport in West Germany, killing 8 players and 23 people in total (news reel featured).

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February 7

Bruce McCandless II untethered in space

• 1497 – Supporters of the Dominican preacher Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of vanity items such as cosmetics, art and books in Florence, Italy.
• 1914 – Kid Auto Races at Venice, featuring the first appearance of comedy actor Charlie Chaplin's character the Tramp, was released.
• 1984 – During the Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41-B, astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart performed the first untethered spacewalk (pictured).
• 2005 – President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree on the redenomination of Azerbaijan's currency, with 1 new manat equal to 5000 old manats.
• 2014 – An inquiry report of the United Nations Human Rights Council found systematic and wide-ranging violations of human rights in North Korea.

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February 8

Mary, Queen of Scots

• 1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots (pictured), was executed at Fotheringhay Castle for her involvement in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Elizabeth I of England.
• 1879 – Angered by a controversial umpiring decision, cricket spectators rioted and attacked the England team during a match in Sydney, Australia.
• 1924 – Gee Jon became the first person in the United States to be executed by lethal gas.
• 1948 – The closing ceremony of the first Olympics held after World War II was held in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
• 1968 – Local police in Orangeburg, South Carolina, fired into a crowd of people who were protesting segregation, killing three and injuring twenty-seven others.
• 1983 – The Irish-bred race horse Shergar was stolen by gunmen, who demanded a £2 million ransom.

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February 9: Chinese New Year's Eve (2024)

Participants in the Mud March

• 1799 – Quasi-War: USS Constellation captured the French frigate Insurgente in a single-ship action in the Caribbean Sea.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis was named the provisional president of the Confederate States of America.
• 1907 – More than 3,000 women in London participated in the Mud March (pictured), the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.
• 1976 – The Australian Defence Force was formed by the integration of the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy, and the Royal Australian Air Force.
• 2016 – Two commuter trains collided head-on at Bad Aibling in southeastern Germany, killing 12 people and injuring 85.

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February 10: Feast day of Saint Scholastica (Christianity); Chinese New Year (2024); National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe in Italy

Delegates at the Inter-Allied Women's Conference

• 1355 – A tavern dispute between University of Oxford students and townspeople became a riot that left about 90 people dead.
• 1919 – The Inter-Allied Women's Conference opened as a counterpart to the Paris Peace Conference, marking the first time that women were allowed formal participation in an international treaty negotiation.
• 1939 – Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists concluded their conquest of Catalonia and sealed the border with France.
• 2009 – The first accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact satellites in low Earth orbit took place when Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 destroyed each other.

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February 11: National Foundation Day (Japan) (660 BC)

UCL Main Building

• 1826 – London University, later University College London (pictured), was founded as the first secular university in England.
• 1851 – As part of celebrations marking the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, the inaugural first-class cricket match in Australia began at the Launceston Racecourse in Tasmania.
• 1976 – The Frente de Liberación Homosexual made their final public appearance, shortly before the group's dissolution due to political repression after the 1976 Argentine coup d'état.
• 2001 – The computer worm Anna Kournikova, which would affect millions of users worldwide, was released by a 20-year-old Dutch student.

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February 12: Red Hand Day; Shrove Monday (Western Christianity, 2024)

Edvard Munch's The Scream

• 1691 – A papal conclave convened to select a new pope after the death of Pope Alexander VIII.
• 1924 – George Gershwin's composition Rhapsody in Blue premiered at Aeolian Hall in New York.
• 1994 – Edvard Munch's painting The Scream (pictured) was stolen from the National Gallery of Norway.
• 2003 – Protesters in La Paz and the Bolivian government brokered a deal to end two days of rioting against a proposed salary tax.

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February 13: Shrove Tuesday (Western Christianity, 2024)

Coso artifact

• 1891 – Frances Coles was killed in the last of eleven unsolved murders of women that took place in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London.
• 1961 – Geode prospectors near Olancha, California, discovered what they claimed to be a 500,000-year-old rock with a 1920s-era spark plug encased within (pictured).
• 2017 – Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was assassinated using VX nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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February 14: Valentine's Day; Ash Wednesday (Western Christianity, 2024)

Part of the Pale Blue Dot photograph

• 1655 – Arauco War: A series of coordinated Mapuche attacks took place against Spanish settlements and forts in colonial Chile, beginning a ten-year period of warfare.
• 1779 – Native Hawaiians killed the English explorer Captain James Cook after he attempted to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the ruling chief of the island of Hawaii.
• 1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was renamed as International Business Machines (IBM), later growing into one of the world's largest companies by market capitalization.
• 1990 – NASA's Voyager 1 space probe took the Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth (cropped version pictured) from a record distance of 40.5 au (6.06 billion km; 3.76 billion mi).
• 2007 – The first of several bombings in Zahedan, Iran, killed 18 members of the Revolutionary Guards.

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February 15: National Flag of Canada Day (1965); Statehood Day in Serbia (1804)

Don Dunstan in 1968

• 438 – The Codex Theodosianus, a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire, was published.
• 1763 – Prussia, Saxony and the Habsburg monarchy signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg, ending the Third Silesian War.
• 1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux began excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves in the West Bank, the location of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
• 1979 – Don Dunstan (pictured) resigned as Premier of South Australia, ending a decade of sweeping social liberalisation.
• 1999 – Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the militant organization the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was arrested by Turkish security forces in Nairobi, Kenya.

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February 16: Day of the Shining Star in North Korea; Elizabeth Peratrovich Day in Alaska

Act of Independence of Lithuania

• 1249 – King Louis IX dispatched André de Longjumeau as the French ambassador to the Mongol Empire.
• 1918 – The Council of Lithuania signed the Act of Independence (pictured), proclaiming the restoration of an independent Lithuania.
• 1922 – A landslide in Byblos revealed a sarcophagus in an underground tomb, later discovered to be part of a large Bronze Age necropolis.
• 1996 – Eleven people died in a train collision in Silver Spring, Maryland, leading to the creation of comprehensive U.S. federal rules for the design of passenger cars.

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February 17

Helicopter stolen in the 1974 White House incident

• 1859 – Cochinchina campaign: French Navy forces captured the Citadel of Saigon, defended by 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers of the Nguyễn dynasty.
• 1904 – Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in Milan to poor reviews, forcing him to revise the opera.
• 1964 – Gabonese military officers overthrew President Léon M'ba, but French forces, honouring a 1960 treaty, forcibly reinstated him two days later.
• 1974 – A U.S. Army soldier stole a Bell UH-1 helicopter (pictured) and landed it on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C.
• 2011 – Arab Spring: Bahraini security forces killed four protesters in a pre-dawn raid at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, while the "Day of Rage" took place in Libya with nationwide protests against Muammar Gaddafi's government.

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February 18

Protesters during the Revolution of Dignity

• 3102 BCE – According to Hindu scriptures, Kali Yuga, the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas, began.
• 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: French troops led by Napoleon forced the Army of Bohemia to retreat after it advanced dangerously close to Paris.
• 1977 – The Xinjiang 61st Regiment Farm fire started during Chinese New Year when a firecracker ignited the wreaths of late Mao Zedong, killing 694 personnel.
• 2014 – A series of violent events (pictured) involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters began in Kyiv that culminated in the ousting of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych five days later.

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February 19: Family Day in Canada (2024)

A depiction of the Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903

• 1811 – Peninsular War: Outnumbered French forces under Édouard Mortier routed and nearly destroyed Spanish troops at the Battle of the Gebora near Badajoz, Spain.
• 1903 – A blockade against Venezuela (depicted), caused by President Cipriano Castro's refusal to pay foreign debts, was lifted.
• 1942 – World War II: U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forcible relocation of over 112,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps.
• 1948 – The Southeast Asian Youth Conference, which is believed to have inspired armed communist rebellions in different Asian countries, opened in Calcutta, India.

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February 20: Day of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes in Ukraine (2014)

Avro CF-105 Arrow

• 1685 – The French colonization of Texas began with the landing of colonists led by Robert de La Salle near Matagorda Bay.
• 1959 – Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the Avro CF-105 Arrow (pictured) interceptor-aircraft program amid much political debate.
• 1970 – The Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Pathum Thani province, one of the largest Buddhist temples in Thailand, was founded.
• 1998 – At the age of 15, American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest gold-medal winner in the history of the Winter Olympic Games at the time.

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February 21

Malcolm X

• 1746 – Jacobite rising of 1745: The siege of Inverness ended with British forces surrendering to the Jacobite army.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army began an attempt to gain control of the Southwest with a major victory in the Battle of Valverde.
• 1952 – A number of student protesters demanding the establishment of Bengali as an official language were killed by police in Dhaka, East Pakistan.
• 1965 – American Black nationalist Malcolm X (pictured) was assassinated while giving a speech in New York City's Audubon Ballroom.
• 1973 – After accidentally straying into Israeli-occupied airspace, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two fighter aircraft, killing 108 of the 113 people on board.

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February 22

Daytona International Speedway

• 1371 – Robert II became King of Scots as the first monarch of the House of Stewart.
• 1959 – Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500 NASCAR auto race at the Daytona International Speedway (pictured) in Daytona Beach, Florida.
• 1974 – Samuel Byck attempted to hijack an aircraft at Baltimore/Washington International Airport with the intention of crashing it into the White House to assassinate Richard Nixon, but he was stopped by police.
• 2019 – A group broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid and stole several mobile telephones and digital storage devices.

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February 23: The Emperor's Birthday in Japan (1960)

Aluminium

• 1854 – The Orange River Convention was signed in Bloemfontein, with the United Kingdom agreeing to recognise the independence of the Orange Free State in present-day South Africa.
• 1886 – American inventor Charles Martin Hall discovered an inexpensive method of producing aluminium (sample pictured).
• 1944 – In response to an insurgency in Chechnya, the Soviet Union began the forced deportation of the native Chechen and Ingush of North Caucasus.
• 1987 – SN 1987A, a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, was observed from Earth.
• 2021 – Caused by gang rivalries, riots in four Ecuadorian prisons resulted in the deaths of 79 inmates.

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February 24: Lantern Festival in China (2024); Independence Day in Estonia

George Frideric Handel

• 1711 – Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel (pictured), the first Italian-language opera written specifically for the London stage, premiered.
• 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: French admiral Villaret de Joyeuse unconditionally surrendered to the British, which ended the British invasion of Martinique and began a five-year occupation of the island.
• 1979 – Uganda–Tanzania War: Ugandan government forces fled Masaka, Uganda, as the Tanzania People's Defence Force bombarded and captured the town.
• 1989 – United Airlines Flight 811 experienced uncontrolled decompression after leaving Honolulu International Airport, Hawaii, blowing seats out of the aircraft and killing nine passengers.

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February 25: Soviet Occupation Day in Georgia (1921); National Day in Kuwait (1961)

USS Ranger

• 1843 – Royal Navy captain Lord George Paulet began a five-month occupation of the Hawaiian Islands.
• 1933 – USS Ranger (pictured), the United States Navy's first purpose-built aircraft carrier, was launched.
• 1951 – After being postponed due to World War II, the inaugural Pan American Games opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1994 – Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Palestinian Muslims praying at the mosque in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, killing 29 people and wounding 125 others.
• 2009 – At their headquarters in Pilkhana, members of the Bangladesh Rifles began a mutiny that resulted in 82 deaths.

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February 26

Nabonassar's name in Akkadian

• 747 BC – According to Ptolemy, the reign of the Babylonian king Nabonassar (name in Akkadian pictured) began, marking a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records.
• 1914 – RMS Britannic, the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line after RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, was launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
• 1979 – The Superliner railcar entered revenue service with Amtrak.
• 2014 – Former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao Kevin Lau was stabbed, prompting concerns and protests about media freedom.

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February 27: Feast day of Saint Gregory of Narek (Catholicism)

Memorial to the victims of the Sumgait pogrom

• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: A Patriot victory at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge resulted in the arrests of 850 Loyalists over the following days.
• 1814 – Peninsular War: In the south of France, Spanish, British and Portuguese soldiers under the command of Arthur Wellesley defeated French soldiers in the Battle of Orthez, causing the French to retreat east.
• 1988 – The Armenian community of Sumgait in Azerbaijan was the target of a violent pogrom (memorial pictured).
• 1996 – The multimedia franchise Pokémon was launched with the release of the video games Pocket Monsters Red and Green.

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February 28: Kalevala Day / Finnish Culture Day

The first team of S.L. Benfica

• 1874 – In one of the longest cases ever heard in an English court, the claimant in the Tichborne case was convicted of perjury for attempting to assume the identity of the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy.
• 1904 – The most successful football club in Portugal, S.L. Benfica (first team pictured), was founded in Lisbon as Sport Lisboa.
• 1914 – In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Greeks living in southern Albania proclaimed the short-lived Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus.
• 1939 – In one of the most famous errors in lexicography, the erroneous word "dord" was discovered in Webster's New International Dictionary by an editor.
• 1974 – The British election ended in a hung parliament after the Liberal Party, under Jeremy Thorpe, achieved their highest ever number of votes.

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February 29: Beginning of the Nineteen-Day Fast (Baháʼí Faith, 2024)

A damaged building from the 1960 Agadir earthquake

• 1704 – Queen Anne's War: French and Native American forces raided the English settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing more than 50 colonists.
• 1944 – World War II: The Admiralty Islands campaign began when American forces assaulted Los Negros Island, the third largest of the Admiralty Islands.
• 1960 – The deadliest earthquake in Moroccan history (damaged building pictured) struck the city of Agadir, killing at least 12,000 people.
• 2004 – Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown following popular rebel uprising.
• 2012 – Construction of Tokyo Skytree, the world's tallest tower and third-tallest structure, was completed.

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March 1: Disability Day of Mourning; Saint David's Day; Independence Day in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992); Yap Day in Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia

Dmitri Mendeleev

• 1562 – An attempt by Francis, Duke of Guise, to disperse a church service by Huguenots in Wassy, France, turned into a massacre, resulting in 50 dead, and starting the French Wars of Religion.
• 1869 – The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (pictured) finished his design of the first periodic table.
• 1921 – The Australian cricket team, led by Warwick Armstrong, became the first team to complete a whitewash in the Ashes, an achievement that would not be repeated for 86 years.
• 1936 – Hoover Dam, straddling the Arizona–Nevada border on the Colorado River, was completed.
• 1992 – A Bosnian-Serb wedding procession was attacked in Sarajevo, resulting in what is widely considered the first casualty of the Bosnian War.

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March 2

Wilt Chamberlain

• 1484 – The College of Arms, one of the few remaining official heraldic authorities in Europe, was incorporated by royal charter in the City of London.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot militiamen from Georgia and South Carolina attempted to resist the British action to seize and remove supply ships anchored at Savannah, Georgia.
• 1949 – The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II landed in Fort Worth, Texas, to complete the first non-stop circumnavigation of the world by airplane.
• 1962 – Playing for the Philadelphia Warriors, American basketball player Wilt Chamberlain (pictured) scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks, which remains an NBA record.
• 2022 – Russian forces captured the city of Kherson, the only regional capital to be taken during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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March 3: Liberation Day in Bulgaria (1878); Hinamatsuri in Japan

Program for the woman suffrage parade

• 1284 – The Statute of Rhuddlan was enacted, introducing English common law to the Principality of Wales.
• 1891 – Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming was established as the first national forest in the United States.
• 1913 – Thousands of women marched in Washington, D.C. (program cover pictured) "in a spirit of protest" against the exclusion of women from American society.
• 1924 – The Ottoman Caliphate, the world's last widely recognized caliphate, was abolished.
• 1991 – Motorist Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers during an arrest, causing public outrage that increased tensions between the African-American community and the police department over police brutality and social inequality.

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March 4: Feast day of Saint Casimir (Catholicism)

Władysław II Jagiełło

• 1386 – Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, was crowned King of Poland as Władysław II Jagiełło (pictured), beginning the Jagiellonian dynasty.
• 1773 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart departed Italy after the last of his three journeys there.
• 1899 – Cyclone Mahina struck Bathurst Bay, Queensland, killing over 300 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in Australian history.
• 1918 – A case of influenza was recorded at Camp Funston, Kansas, conventionally marking the beginning of the Spanish flu pandemic.
• 2017 – Construction began on a 69-metre (226 ft) statue of the Buddha at Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen in Bangkok.

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March 5: Learn from Lei Feng Day in China; St Piran's Day in Cornwall, England

Prototype Spitfire K5054

• 1811 – Peninsular War: At the Battle of Barrosa, Anglo-Iberian forces trying to lift the Siege of Cádiz defeated a French attack but could not break the siege itself.
• 1825 – Roberto Cofresí, one of the last Caribbean pirates, was apprehended after his flagship sloop Anne was captured by authorities.
• 1936 – The prototype (pictured) of the Supermarine Spitfire flew for the first time.
• 1960 – Cuban photographer Alberto Korda took his iconic photograph Guerrillero Heroico of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.
• 1981 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, was launched by Sinclair Research, and went on to sell more than 1.5 million units around the world.

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March 6

William Speirs Bruce

• 845 – The Abbasid Caliphate executed 42 Byzantine officials who had been captured in the sack of Amorium of 838 for refusing to convert to Islam.
• 1447 – Tommaso Parentucelli was elected as Pope Nicholas V in Rome.
• 1904 – Scottish National Antarctic Expedition: Led by William Speirs Bruce (pictured), the Antarctic region of Coats Land was discovered by the Scotia.
• 1988 – The Troubles: In Operation Flavius, the Special Air Service killed three volunteers of the Provisional Irish Republican Army conspiring to bomb a parade of British military bands in Gibraltar.
• 2000 – The Marine Parade Community Building, the mural cladding of which is the largest installation art in Singapore, was opened.

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March 7: Feast day of Saints Perpetua and Felicity (Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism)

Police attacking civil rights activists outside Selma, Alabama

• 1573 – A peace treaty brought the Ottoman–Venetian War to an end, ceding Cyprus from the Republic of Venice to the Ottoman Empire.
• 1871 – José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco, began a four-year premiership as Prime Minister of the Empire of Brazil, the longest in the state's history.
• 1941 – The German submarine U-47, one of the most successful U-boats of World War II, disappeared with 45 men on board.
• 1965 – Unarmed civil rights activists marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, were attacked by police (pictured) on "Bloody Sunday".
• 2021 – A series of four explosions at a military barracks in Bata, Equatorial Guinea caused at least 107 deaths.

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March 8: International Women's Day; Aurat March in Pakistan

Io with two volcanic plumes

• 1576 – A Spanish colonial officer wrote a letter to King Philip II containing the first mention of the Maya ruins of Copán in present-day Honduras.
• 1910 – French aviator Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to receive a pilot's licence.
• 1963 – The Ba'ath Party came to power in a coup d'état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council for the Revolutionary Command.
• 1966 – Nelson's Pillar, a large granite pillar topped by a statue of Lord Nelson in Dublin, Ireland, was severely damaged by a bomb.
• 1979 – Images taken by Voyager 1 proved the existence of volcanoes on Io (pictured), a moon of Jupiter.

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March 9

Princess Kaʻiulani

• 1776 – Scottish political economist Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations, the first modern work in economics, was published.
• 1891 – Kaʻiulani (pictured) was appointed heir apparent to the throne of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
• 1925 – The Royal Air Force began a bombardment and strafing campaign against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan, in what is now Pakistan.
• 1956 – In Tbilisi, Georgia, Soviet troops suppressed mass demonstrations against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy.
• 1957 – The M_w 8.6 Andreanof Islands earthquake struck Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands, causing over $5 million in damage from ground movement and a destructive tsunami.

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March 10: Mothering Sunday (Western Christianity, 2024)

Eliot Spitzer

• 1695 – Nine Years' War: At the Battle of Sant Esteve d'en Bas, Catalan miquelets attacked a column of French regular infantry and caused them to surrender.
• 1959 – An anti-Chinese uprising began as thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Potala Palace in Lhasa to prevent the Dalai Lama from leaving or being removed by the Chinese army.
• 1968 – Vietnam War/Laotian Civil War: North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces overwhelmed the American, Laotian, Thai, and Hmong defenders of Lima Site 85.
• 1977 – Astronomers using NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory discovered a faint ring system around Uranus.
• 2008 – The New York Times revealed that Eliot Spitzer (pictured), Governor of New York, had patronized a prostitution ring.

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March 11: Commonwealth Day in the Commonwealth of Nations (2024); National Heroes and Benefactors Day in Belize (2024); Longtaitou Festival in China (2024)

Dale Dyke Dam in Sheffield, after its rupture

• 1864 – The Great Sheffield Flood killed at least 240 people and damaged more than 600 homes, after a crack in the Dale Dike Reservoir (pictured) caused it to fail.
• 1993 – The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Janet Reno as the country's first female attorney general.
• 2007 – Georgian authorities accused Russia of orchestrating a helicopter attack in the Kodori Valley of the breakaway territory of Abkhazia.
• 2009 – A teenage gunman engaged in a shooting spree at a secondary school in Winnenden, Germany, killing 16, including himself.

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March 12

Andrew Watson

• 1537 – Croatian–Ottoman wars: After the execution of feudal lord Petar Kružić, Croatian forces at Klis surrendered to the Ottoman forces in exchange for their safe passage to northern locations.
• 1881 – Andrew Watson (pictured) captained the Scotland national football team against England, becoming the world's first black international footballer.
• 1947 – Cold War: U.S. president Harry S. Truman proclaimed the Truman Doctrine to help stem the spread of communism.
• 1952 – British diplomat Lord Ismay was appointed the first secretary general of NATO.
• 1971 – The Turkish Armed Forces executed a "coup by memorandum", forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel.
• 2006 – U.S. Army soldiers gang-raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdered her along with her family members.

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March 13

British attack on Cartagena de Indias

• 1567 – A Spanish mercenary army surprised a band of rebels at the Battle of Oosterweel in the Habsburg Netherlands, beginning the Eighty Years' War.
• 1741 – War of Jenkins' Ear: The British began an assault against Spanish forts in the Caribbean in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias (depicted).
• 1964 – Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York City, prompting research into the bystander effect due to the false story that neighbors witnessed the killing and did nothing to help her.
• 1996 – A mass shooting at a school occurred in Dunblane, Scotland, killing 17 people and prompting tighter gun control in the UK.

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March 14: New Year's Day (Sikhism); White Day in parts of East Asia; Pi Day

Gioachino Rossini

• 1309 – On Eid al-Fitr, the citizens of Granada stormed palaces in the city, deposing Sultan Muhammad III and placing his half-brother Nasr on the throne.
• 1864 – The Petite messe solennelle was first performed in Paris, 34 years after Gioachino Rossini (pictured) retired as a composer.
• 1931 – Alam Ara, the first Indian sound film, premiered at the Majestic Cinema in Bombay.
• 1988 – China defeated Vietnam in a naval altercation while attempting to establish oceanographic observation posts on the Spratly Islands.
• 2021 – The Burmese military and police forces killed at least 65 civilians during the Hlaingthaya massacre in Yangon, including those protesting a recent coup d'état.

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March 15: Ides of March

Julius Caesar

• 44 BC – Julius Caesar (bust pictured), the dictator of the Roman Republic, was stabbed to death by a group of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus.
• 1823 – Sailor Benjamin Morrell erroneously reported the existence of the island of New South Greenland near Antarctica.
• 1916 – Six days after Pancho Villa and his cross-border raiders attacked Columbus, New Mexico, U.S. General John J. Pershing led a punitive expedition into Mexico to pursue Villa.
• 1917 – Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in the February Revolution, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.
• 1943 – The deportation of 50,000 Jews from the Greek city of Thessaloniki began.
• 1951 – The Iranian oil industry was nationalized in a movement led by Mohammad Mosaddegh.

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March 16: Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires

Cap badge of the Royal Welch Fusiliers

• 934 – Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period: Chinese general Meng Zhixiang proclaimed himself emperor and established Later Shu as a new state independent of Later Tang.
• 1689 – The Royal Welch Fusiliers (cap badge pictured), one of the oldest line-infantry regiments of the British Army, was founded.
• 1819 – The Bank for Savings in the City of New-York, the first savings bank in New York City, was incorporated.
• 1984 – William Buckley, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, was kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists.
• 1988 – Michael Stone, an Ulster loyalist, attacked the funeral of three Provisional IRA members, killing three attendees and injuring at least sixty others.

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March 17: Saint Patrick's Day (Christianity); Anniversary of the Unification of Italy (1861)

Dorchester Heights Monument

• 1864 – Second Schleswig War: In an attempt to end a Danish blockade, Eduard von Jachmann led a Prussian squadron in an attack against a Danish fleet led by Edvard van Dockum.
• 1902 – The Dorchester Heights Monument (pictured), memorializing the siege of Boston during the American Revolutionary War, was dedicated.
• 1957 – A plane crash on the slopes of Mount Manunggal killed Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others.
• 1979 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland collapsed during refurbishing construction, killing two workers, and leading to the abandonment of the tunnel.
• 2004 – Unrest in Kosovo broke out, resulting in the deaths of 28, the wounding of more than 600 others, and the destruction of several Serb Orthodox churches and shrines.

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March 18: Feast day of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (Christianity)

Traian Vuia's monoplane

• 363 – A fire began in Rome that resulted in the destruction of the Temple of Apollo Palatinus.
• 1277 – Charles I of Anjou acquired a claim on the Kingdom of Jerusalem in exchange for a significant sum of money.
• 1906 – Romanian inventor Traian Vuia became the first person to fly a heavier-than-air monoplane (pictured) with an unassisted takeoff.
• 1959 – Tibetan uprising: After the 14th Dalai Lama sought refuge at Sera Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet, Chinese forces bombarded the monastery, inflicting severe destruction and killing hundreds of Buddhist monks.
• 1977 – The punk group the Clash released their first single, "White Riot", described as their "most controversial song" due to its lyrics about class economics and race.
• 2019 – Syrian civil war: The U.S. Air Force carried out an airstrike in al-Baghuz Fawqani, killing 64 civilians.

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March 19: Saint Joseph's Day (Western Christianity); Nowruz (2024)

Zhao Bing, Emperor of Song

• 1279 – Mongol conquest of Song China: Zhao Bing (pictured), the last emperor of the Song dynasty, drowned at the end of the Battle of Yamen, bringing the dynasty to an end after three centuries.
• 1824 – American explorer Benjamin Morrell departed Antarctica after a voyage later plagued by claims of fraud.
• 1944 – The secular oratorio A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
• 1998 – An unscheduled Ariana Afghan Airlines flight crashed into a mountain on approach into Kabul, killing all 45 people aboard.
• 2011 – First Libyan Civil War: The French Air Force launched Opération Harmattan, beginning foreign military intervention in Libya.

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March 20

Chemical structure of zidovudine

• 1724 – Following the death of Pope Innocent XIII, a papal conclave convened in Rome to elect a new pope.
• 1861 – An earthquake occurred in the Argentine province of Mendoza, causing at least 6,000 deaths and destroying most of the buildings in the province's capital city.
• 1922 – The United States Navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier, USS Langley.
• 1944 – World War II: U.S. Marines made a landing on Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelago to develop an airbase as part of Operation Cartwheel.
• 1987 – The antiretroviral drug zidovudine (chemical structure pictured) became the first treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for HIV/AIDS.
• 2014 – Taliban militants killed nine civilians in a mass shooting at the Kabul Serena Hotel in Afghanistan.

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March 21: Fast of Esther (Judaism, 2024); Oltenia Day in Romania

Scottish Cup

• 1874 – Queen's Park defeated Clydesdale 2–0 in the final of the inaugural Scottish Cup (trophy pictured).
• 1913 – More than 360 were killed and 20,000 homes were destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Dayton, Ohio, U.S.
• 1968 – War of Attrition: The Battle of Karameh took place between the Israel Defense Forces and allied troops of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Jordanian Armed Forces.
• 1980 – The American soap opera Dallas aired the episode "A House Divided", which led to eight months of international speculation on "Who shot J.R.?"
• 2019 – A major explosion at a chemical plant in Yancheng, China, killed 78 people and injured 640 others.

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March 22: World Water Day

Charilaos Vasilakos (center) training for the marathon

• 106 – The Bostran era, the official era of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, began.
• 1638 – Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for her participation in the Antinomian Controversy.
• 1896 – Charilaos Vasilakos (pictured) won the first modern marathon in preparation for the inaugural Summer Olympics.
• 1913 – Phan Xích Long, the self-proclaimed emperor of Vietnam, was arrested for organising a revolt against the colonial rule of French Indochina, which was nevertheless carried out by his supporters the following day.
• 1984 – Teachers at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren, leading to the longest and costliest criminal trial in United States history.
• 1995 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returned from the space station Mir aboard Soyuz TM-20 after 437 days in space, setting a record for the longest spaceflight.

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March 23: Earth Hour (20:30 local time, 2024)

Bhagat Singh

• 1888 – Chaired by William McGregor, a meeting of ten English football clubs was held in London, which would eventually result in the establishment of the Football League.
• 1931 – Bhagat Singh (pictured), one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement, and two others were executed by the British authorities.
• 1989 – Two researchers announced the discovery of cold fusion, a claim which was later discredited.
• 1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a hillside in Russia's Kemerovo Oblast, killing all 75 people on board, after the pilot's 15-year-old son had unknowingly disabled the autopilot while seated at the controls.
• 2005 – A fire and explosion at the third-largest oil refinery in the United States killed 15 workers and kicked off process safety programs throughout the world.

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March 24: Purim (Judaism 2024), World Tuberculosis Day

Flag of Prince Edward Island

• 1387 – Hundred Years' War: An English fleet led by Richard Fitzalan attacked 250–360 French, Flemish and Castilian vessels in the Battle of Margate.
• 1934 – The Tydings–McDuffie Act came into effect, which provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence from the United States after a period of ten years.
• 1939 – Members of the German National Movement in Liechtenstein attempted to overthrow the government and provoke Liechtenstein's annexation into Nazi Germany.
• 1964 – Royal assent was given to Prince Edward Island's Provincial Flag Act, which outlined the design of its provincial flag (pictured).
• 2006 – Hannah Montana, starring Miley Cyrus as an actress whose alter ego is the titular character, premiered.

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March 25: Bangladesh Genocide Remembrance Day

Enrico Fermi in 1943

• 1458 – Wars of the Roses: A formal reconciliation ceremony between the Lancastrians and Yorkists led to a brief period of peace.
• 1799 – War of the Second Coalition: In their second battle in seven days, the French Army of the Danube and Habsburg forces battled for control of the Hegau region.
• 1934 – Enrico Fermi (pictured) published his discovery of neutron-induced radioactivity, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• 1949 – The Soviet Union began mass deportations of more than 90,000 "undesirable" people from the Baltic states to Siberia.