February 13:

• 1689 – Glorious Revolution: Instead of James Francis Edward Stuart, the Prince of Wales, acceding to the throne, his half-sister Mary (pictured) and her husband William were proclaimed co-rulers of England.

• 1815 – The Cambridge Union Society, one of the oldest debating societies in the world, was founded at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.

• 1867 – Work began on the covering of the Senne, burying Brussels' polluted main waterway to allow urban renewal in the centre of the city.

• 1880 – American inventor Thomas Edison observed the Edison Effect, which later formed the basis of vacuum tube diodes designed by English electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming.

• 1945 – World War II: The Allies began the strategic bombing of Dresden in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed tens of thousands of civilians.