This Day In History （请勿跟贴，谢谢！）

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February 16


1959:
Power in Cuba seized by Fidel Castro.

After defeating the forces of dictator General Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba this day in 1959 and transformed the island country into the Western Hemisphere's first communist state.

1959:
American tennis player John McEnroe was born in West Germany.

1949:
The first Knesset (Hebrew: “Assembly”), the unicameral parliament of Israel and supreme authority of that state, opened in Jerusalem.

1945:
American paratroopers landed on Corregidor Island in the Philippines during World War II, and within two weeks they recaptured it from the Japanese.

1938:
Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg admitted an Austrian Nazi to his cabinet, believed to be the first step in the German overthrow of his government.

1937:
DuPont chemist Wallace Hume Carothers patented nylon.

1918:
The 20-member Taryba (council) of Lithuanian delegates proclaimed their country an independent state.

1903:
American ventriloquist and radio comedian Edgar Bergen was born in Chicago.

1620:
Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg in 1640–88, who restored the Hohenzollern dominions after the devastations of the Thirty Years' War, was born.

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February 15


898:
USS Maine destroyed, leading to Spanish-American War.

On this day in 1898, an explosion in Havana harbour sank the battleship USS Maine, killing 260 American seamen and precipitating the Spanish-American War, which originated in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain.

1989:
Under President Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan after occupying the country since 1979.

1978:
Leon Spinks defeated Muhammad Ali to become the heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

1933:
An assassin's bullet meant for the U.S. president-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt, wounded Mayor Anton J. Cermak of Chicago, who died three weeks later.

1764:
Auguste Chouteau settled St. Louis at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.

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February 14


1989:
Fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie.

On this day in 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa and offered a bounty for the assassination of author Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses (1988) Khomeini denounced as blasphemous.

Today:
Today is Valentine's Day, the feast day of St. Valentine, a priest and physician who was martyred about AD 270 in Rome, and the tradition of exchanging greetings of love on Valentine's Day is based on the legend that Valentine had signed a letter to his jailer's daughter, with whom he had fallen in love, “from your Valentine.”

1946:
The first general-purpose high-speed electronic digital computer, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), was demonstrated to the public by its creators, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., and John W. Mauchly.

1929:
Members of Al Capone's gang of bootleggers massacred a rival gang run by George Moran in Chicago during the Prohibition era.

1920:
With the establishment of woman suffrage in the United States, Carrie Chapman Catt formed the League of Women Voters in Chicago.

1876:
Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone.

1779:
Captain James Cook was killed by Hawaiians in a dispute over the theft of a cutter.

1766:
Thomas Malthus, the English economist and demographer best known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply and should be checked by stern limits on reproduction, is believed to have been born this day.

1760:
Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in Philadelphia.

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February 13


1689:
William and Mary crowned.

Following the Glorious Revolution, William and Mary were proclaimed king and queen of England this day in 1689, after which they ruled jointly as King William III and Queen Mary II until her death in 1694.

2002:
The Scottish Parliament passed the Protection of Wild Mammals Bill, which made it illegal to hunt wild mammals with dogs, effectively outlawing foxhunting in Scotland.
1997: The Dow Jones Industrial Average first eclipsed the 7,000 mark, then closed at 7,022.44.

1960:
France detonated its first atomic bomb in the Sahara desert.

1883:
German composer Richard Wagner died in Venice at age 69.

1692:
Scottish soldiers under Archibald Campbell, 10th earl of Argyll, slaughtered the MacDonalds of Glencoe for their refusal to submit to King William III.

1649:
English author John Milton published his first political tract, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in response to the execution of King Charles I.

1542:
King Henry VIII of England had Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, beheaded on charges of adultery.

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February 12


1818:
Chile's independence from Spain declared.

Although the decisive victory over the Spanish did not come until April at the Battle of Maipú, Chile formally declared independence from Spain on this day in 1818, the first anniversary of Chile's victory at Chacabuco.

2002:
Slobodan Milošević, president of Yugoslavia in 1997–2000, went on trial for war crimes in The Hague, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

1994:
Thieves broke into the National Gallery in Oslo and stole The Scream (later recovered), one of several versions Norwegian artist Edvard Munch made of his most famous painting.

1953:
The Egyptian government signed an agreement with Britain granting self-government for the Sudan and self-determination within three years for the Sudanese.

1912:
Puyi, the last emperor of China, abdicated at the end of the Chinese Revolution.

1804:
German philosopher Immanuel Kant died in K鰊igsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia).

1554:
At age 16, Lady Jane Grey, titular queen of England, was executed in London by order of Mary I.

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February 11


1858:
St. Bernadette's first visions of Mary at Lourdes.

On this day in 1858 in Lourdes, France, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, a miller's daughter, first had visions of the Virgin Mary that were authenticated by Pope Pius IX in 1862, initiating the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes.

1989:
Reverend Barbara Harris of the Protestant Episcopal Church became the first female bishop of an apostolic succession church.

1945:
The Yalta Conference between the Allied leaders of World War II came to a close.

1929:
A committee met in Paris to devise the Young Plan, a revision of the Dawes Plan of 1924, that renegotiated Germany's reparations for World War I.

1929:
Benito Mussolini of Italy and Pietro Gasparri of the Vatican signed the Lateran Treaty, recognizing papal sovereignty over Vatican City, an enclave in Rome.

1847:
American inventor Thomas Edison, who, singly or jointly, held a world record of 1,093 patents and who played a critical role in introducing the modern age of electricity, was born.

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February 10


1996:
Kasparov-versus-computer chess match.

On this day in 1996, world chess champion Garry Kasparov began a six-round match against Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer built by IBM, in which Kasparov claimed a 4–2 victory (though Deep Blue won a rematch the following year).

1990:
The spacecraft Galileo flew past Venus on its way to Jupiter.

1962:
U.S. airman Francis Gary Powers, captured pilot of the U-2 plane downed by the Soviet Union in 1960, was exchanged for jailed Soviet informant Rudolf Abel.

1898:
German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg.

1846:
The British conquered the Sikhs in northwestern India in the Battle of Sobraon, the most decisive engagement of the First Sikh War.

1837:
Russian author Aleksandr Pushkin was killed in a duel defending his wife's honour.

1763:
The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending territorial conflicts between France and Britain in the Seven Years' War, the North American phase of which was called the French and Indian War.

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February 9


1757:
Calcutta restored to British rule.

Concluded this day in 1757 by Robert Clive, the Treaty of Alinagar restored Calcutta (Kolkata)—which Clive had recovered in January from Siraj-ud-Dawlah—to British rule and served as a prelude to the seizure of Bengal.

1996:
German physicist Peter Armbruster synthesized the chemical element 112, a heavy, transuranium element.

1984:
Soviet Premier Yury Andropov died 15 months after succeeding Leonid Brezhnev and was replaced by Konstantin Chernenko.

1796:
The Qianlong emperor of China abdicated and was succeeded by the Jiaqing emperor.

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February 8


1587:
Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded.

Mary, Queen of Scots, rival of Queen Elizabeth I of England, was beheaded this day in 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle, her execution a chilling scene redeemed by the great personal dignity with which she met her fate.

2002:
The XIX Winter Olympic Games opened in Salt Lake City, Utah.

1974:
The use of Skylab, a U.S. space station, came to an end after 171 days.

1920/21:
American actress Lana Turner, a sultry Hollywood glamour queen with a tumultuous private life, was born.

1915:
The landmark film The Birth of a Nation, by D.W. Griffith, made its premiere at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles.

1887:
The United States passed the Dawes General Allotment Act, providing for the distribution of American Indian reservation land among individual tribesmen.

1867:
The Ausgleich (“Compromise”) established the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.

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February 7


1964:
British Invasion launched with Beatles' arrival in U.S..

The musical British Invasion began when the Beatles landed in New York City this day in 1964, and two nights later, as Beatlemania stormed America, their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show was watched by 73 million viewers.

1986:
In the wake of political unrest, Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier fled his country, with U.S. assistance, for France.

1974:
Grenada gained independence from the United Kingdom.

1885:
Sinclair Lewis, an American novelist and social critic who punctured national complacency with his broadly drawn, widely popular satiric novels and who in 1930 became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born.

1812:
One of the largest earthquakes in U.S. history occurred along the New Madrid Fault.

1613:
Michael Romanov, founder of the Romanov dynasty, became tsar of Russia.

1477:
English humanist and statesman Sir Thomas More was born in London.

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February 6


1952:
Ascension of Elizabeth II.

Elizabeth II, who celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 2002, ascended the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland this day in 1952, following the death of her father, King George VI.

1919:
A German constitutional assembly met to form the Weimar Republic.

1862:
Union naval commodore Andrew Foote, leading a flotilla of ironclads, captured Fort Henry, Tennessee, a strategic Confederate position during the American Civil War.

1840:
Maori tribes of New Zealand signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Great Britain, a historic agreement purported to protect Maori rights that was the immediate basis of the British annexation of New Zealand.

46:
Julius Caesar's forces delivered the final blow against supporters of Pompey the Great at the Battle of Thapsus.

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February 5


146 :
Punic Wars ended.

The Third Punic War, the last of three between Rome and Carthage, came to an end this day in 146 BC, culminating in the final destruction of Carthage, the enslavement of its people, and Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean.

2003:
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the United Nations Security Council to present evidence that Iraq possessed proscribed weapons of mass destruction and posed an immediate danger.

1943:
American middleweight boxer Jake La Motta, the “Bronx Bull,” handed Sugar Ray Robinson his first defeat.

1917:
Mexico adopted its present constitution.

1900:
The first of two Hay-Pauncefote treaties was signed between the United States and Great Britain over control of the proposed Panama Canal.

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February 4


1945:
Yalta Conference opened.

On this day in 1945, during the final stages of World War II, the Yalta Conference opened with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin meeting to plan the final defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany.

2003:
Yugoslavia officially changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro.

1974:
Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

1948:
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) gained independence from Great Britain.

1932:
The United States hosted its first Winter Olympic Games, in Lake Placid, New York.

1906:
German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland).

1902:
American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan.

1789:
George Washington was elected to serve as the first U.S. president by a unanimous vote in the first electoral college.

1787:
Shays's Rebellion, an uprising in western Massachusetts in opposition to high taxes and stringent economic conditions, was defeated by the Springfield militia.

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February 3


1870:
Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified.

On this day in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race and intending to ensure, with the Fourteenth Amendment, the civil rights of former slaves.

1959:
American rock 'n' roll singer Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash at age 22.

1924:
Former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson died in Washington, D.C.

1917:
Not yet involved in World War I, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany after the Germans announced their intention to practice unrestricted submarine warfare.

1913:
The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, granting Congress the authority to levy income taxes, was ratified.

1894:
The first American steel ship, the Dirigo, was launched from Bath, Maine.

1865:
In a personal meeting with Confederate representatives, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln offered liberal pardons in exchange for the South quitting the Civil War, with reunion as a precondition of peace—an offer that was rejected.

1690:
Massachusetts issued the first paper money in the American colonies.

1468:
German craftsman, inventor, and printer Johannes Gutenberg died in Mainz.

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February 2


1990:
Ban on African National Congress lifted.

On this day in 1990, South African President F.W. de Klerk lifted the 30-year ban on the African National Congress, resulting in the release from prison of Nelson Mandela and marking the beginning of the end of apartheid.

1979:
Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, early proponents of British punk rock, died of a drug overdose in New York City.

1943:
The Battle of Stalingrad in World War II ended with the surrender of German troops to the Soviets.

1927:
American jazz saxophonist Stan Getz was born in Philadelphia.

1912:
Frederick Rodman Law performed what was considered the first motion-picture stunt, parachuting from the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

1876:
The National League, the oldest existing major-league professional baseball organization in the United States, began play as the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.

1848:
The United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

1653:
New Amsterdam (New York City) was incorporated as a city.

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February 1


2003:
Space shuttle Columbia destroyed.

On this day in 2003, while returning to Earth from an orbital mission, the U.S. space shuttle Columbia broke up catastrophically at an altitude of about 60 km (40 miles) over Texas, killing all seven crew members.

1979:
The spacecraft Voyager 1 photographed Jupiter from a distance of 32.7 million km (20.3 million miles).

1923:
The private army of Blackshirts that had helped Benito Mussolini come to power in Italy was officially transformed into a national militia, the Voluntary Fascist Militia for National Security.

1901:
American motion-picture star Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio.

1896:
Giacomo Puccini premiered his opera La Bohème at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy.

1884:
The first of 10 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary was published in London, the final volume being published April 19, 1928.

1820:
In a battle fought at Cepeda, Argentina, federalist forces defeated unitarios, who were advocates of strong central government.

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January 31


1606:
Guy Fawkes executed in London.

On this day in 1606, British provocateur Guy Fawkes—one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, who sought to blow up Parliament and to assassinate King James I for his repression of Roman Catholics—was executed in London.

1977:
The Pompidou Centre, a French national cultural centre named for former president Georges Pompidou, opened in Paris.

1966:
The Soviets launched Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.

1958:
Explorer 1 was the first artificial space satellite orbited by the United States, marking the country's entry into the space race.

1943:
German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), his troops surrendering two days later.

1797:
Austrian composer Franz Schubert was born near Vienna.

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January 30


1649:
King Charles I of England executed.

Charles I, king of Great Britain and Ireland (1625–49), was viewed as an authoritarian ruler by members of Parliament—whose quarrels with him led to the English Civil Wars—and was executed in London this day in 1649.

1995:
Flooding forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from low-lying areas of The Netherlands.

1948:
Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by an orthodox Hindu Brahman.

1933:
President Paul von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany.

1933:
The fictional character the Lone Ranger was introduced on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan.

1912:
Barbara Tuchman, one of the foremost popular historians in the United States in the second half of the 20th century and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was born.

1667:
The Truce of Andrusovo ended the Thirteen Years' War between Russia and Poland.

9:
The Roman emperor Augustus dedicated the shrine Ara Pacis (“Altar of Peace”).

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January 29


2002:
Iraq, Iran, and North Korea called an “axis of evil”.
On this day in 2002, U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, delivering a State of the Union address, described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “axis of evil” for their attempts to develop nuclear, chemical, or biological weaponry.

1924:
The first machine for rolling ice cream cones was patented by Carl Rutherford Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio.

1919:
The Prohibition (Eighteenth) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and went into effect the following year.

1900:
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs was organized in Philadelphia.

1886:
German mechanical engineer Karl Benz patented the first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine.

1880:
American actor and comedian W.C. Fields was born in Philadelphia.

1819:
British East India Company administrator Sir Stamford Raffles established the port of Singapore.

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January 28


1986:
Explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

On this day in 1986, the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after its liftoff from Florida, killing all seven aboard, including a schoolteacher who was the first private citizen to fly on a shuttle.

1915:
Congress created the U.S. Coast Guard by combining the Revenue Cutter Service with the U.S. Lifesaving Service.

1912:
American painter Jackson Pollock, a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism who received widespread publicity and serious recognition for the radical poured, or “drip,” technique he used to create his major works, was born.

1881:
Russian novelist and short-story writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky died in St. Petersburg.

1873:
French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye.

1871:
The French capital, Paris, fell following a four-month siege during the Franco-German War.

1457:
King Henry VII of England, who succeeded in ending the Wars of the Roses, was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

814:
Charlemagne, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, died at Aachen (Germany).