History by month
February
29 days of history. Every date is an entry point to the events, births, and moments that shaped our world.
February 1
1968 A single photograph changed the trajectory of the Vietnam War. Eddie Adams, an A
February 2
1943 The German 6th Army, which had entered Stalingrad with 300,000 men, surrendered
February 3
1959 A four-seat Beechcraft Bonanza crashed into a frozen cornfield outside Clear Lak
February 4
1789 George Washington received every electoral vote cast on February 4, 1789, a unan
February 5
1917 Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson’s veto on February 5, 1917, passing t
February 6
1899 The Spanish Empire, which had once stretched across the Americas and the Pacific
February 7
1990 The Communist Party of the Soviet Union voted itself out of supremacy on Februar
February 8
1587 Three blows of the axe were needed to kill Mary Queen of Scots on February 8, 15
February 9
1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy waved a piece of paper before a Republican women’s club
February 10
1763 Britain, France, and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, redr
February 11
1990 The gates of Victor Verster Prison swung open on February 11, 1990, and a 71-yea
February 12
1818 The illegitimate son of an Irish-born Viceroy of Peru signed his name to a decla
February 13
1633 The most famous scientist in Europe traveled to Rome in February 1633 knowing he
February 14
1929 Seven men stood facing a garage wall on Chicago’s North Clark Street when four g
February 15
1898 The forward magazines of the USS Maine detonated at 9:40 PM on February 15, 1898
February 16
1918 Twenty men in a rented hall in Vilnius signed a document declaring Lithuania an
February 17
1865 The capital of South Carolina — the first state to secede from the Union — burne
February 18
1861 Six weeks before Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office in Washington, another
February 19
1942 With a stroke of a pen on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt aut
February 20
1962 Three times the launch had been scrubbed. Twice for weather, once for mechanical
February 21
1965 Twenty-one gunshots tore through the Audubon Ballroom on a Sunday afternoon, and
February 22
1924 The president's voice crackled through living rooms across the nation for the fi
February 23
1455 Every book you have ever read exists because of a goldsmith in Mainz who figured
February 24
1803 John Marshall handed his political enemies a victory and claimed a power far gre
February 25
1870 Hiram Rhodes Revels took the oath of office as United States Senator from Missis
February 26
1991 Saddam Hussein announced on Baghdad Radio that Iraqi forces would withdraw from
February 27
1922 The Nineteenth Amendment had been ratified for eighteen months, but opponents re
February 28
1953 James Watson and Francis Crick walked into the Eagle pub in Cambridge on Februar
February 29
1504 Christopher Columbus was stranded, starving, and running out of options when he