- 747 BC Epoch (origin) of Ptolemy's Nabonassar Era
- 364 Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor
- 1266 Battle of Benevento fought in Southern Italy between Manfred of Sicily and army of Charles of Anjou
- 1401 English Catholic priest William Sawtrey convicted of heresy and later becomes 1st Lollard martyr to be publicly burnt at the stake
- 1534 Pope Paul II affirms George van Egmond as Bishop of Utrecht
- 1548 Ottoman fleet under Piri Reis retakes the port of Aden (modern Yemen) from the Portuguese
- 1590 Mauritius of Nassaus sails to Breda
First Dutch Expedition to East Indies
1597 Cornelis de Houtman's Dutch fleet departs Bali and sets sail for the Netherlands
- 1606 First known European landing in Australia by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon at the Pennefather River, Cape York, northern Australia
Roman Inquisition
1616 The Roman Inquisition delivers injunction to Galileo demanding he abandon his belief in heliocentrism, which states the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun
- 1732 First Mass celebrated in the first American Catholic church, St. Joseph's, Philadelphia
- 1773 State of Pennsylvania approves construction of Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia; it will become the first experiment with the practice of solitary confinement in the United States
- 1794 Christiansborg Castle, Copenhagen burns down
- 1797 Bank of England issues first £1 note
Siege of Fort Amsterdam
1804 Vice-admiral William Bligh (of Bounty fame) ends siege of Fort Amsterdam, Willemstad
Napoleon Leaves Elba
1815 Napoléon Bonaparte and his supporters leave Elba to start a 100-day reconquest of France
- 1834 1st US interstate crime compact (NY-NJ) ratified
- 1839 First Grand National steeplechase at Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool: Jem Mason wins aboard 5/1 favorite Lottery
- 1848 2nd French Republic proclaimed
- 1852 British troopship Birkenhead sinks off South Africa, 458 die, 193 survive
Chess History
1859 Paul Morphy's chess match vs Augustus Mongredien begins; Morphy wins
- 1862 Battle of Woodburn, Kentucky
National Currency Act
1863 Abraham Lincoln signs National Currency Act, establishes single national US currency
- 1866 New York Legislature forms NYC Metropolitan Board of Health
- 1869 US 15th Amendment guaranteeing right to vote sent to states to ratify
- 1870 Beach Pneumatic Transit - 1st attempt to demonstrate a subway in New York opens (pneumatic powered)
- 1881 -27] Natal: British troops under Major General Colley occupy Majuba Hill
- 1881 P&O's SS Ceylon begins the world's first round-the-world pleasure cruise from Liverpool
Treaty of Interest
1884 British & Portuguese treaty signed in Congo by Leopold II
- 1885 Berlin Conference gives Congo to Belgium and Nigeria to the United Kingdom
- 1891 1st buffalo purchased for Golden Gate Park
- 1893 2 Clydesdale horses set record by pulling 48 tons on a sledge, in Michigan
- 1893 Norwegian Einar Halvorsen skates world record 500m (48 sec)
- 1895 Michael Owens of Toledo, Ohio, patents a glass-blowing machine to make glass bottles
Boer War Peace Talks
1901 British general Kitchener confers with Boer General Louis Botha about peace conditions, which break down over the question of amnesty for some Boers
Election of Interest
1907 Louis Botha Het Volk Party wins a majority in the election in Transvaal, South Africa
- 1907 Royal Oil & Shell merge to form British Petroleum (BP)
- 1907 US Congress raise their own salaries to $7,500
- 1909 Austria and Turkey conclude an agreement in which Turkey recognizes Austria's 1908 annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is to receive compensation
South Africa Act
1910 Indian attorney M.K. Gandhi supports the African People's Organisations resolution to declare the Prince of Wales day of arrival in South Africa a day of mourning, in protest against the South Africa Acts disenfranchisement of Indians, Coloureds and Africans
- 1912 Coal miners strike in Britain (settle on 1st March)
- 1914 HMHS Britannic, sister to the Titanic, is launched at Harland & Wolff, Belfast
- 1914 New York Museum of Science & Industry incorporated
- 1915 Malancourt, Argonne 1st (German) flamethrower
- 1916 Germans sink French transport ship Provence II, killing 930
- 1916 Russian troops conquer Kermansjah, Persia
- 1917 1st Annual fair at Utrecht Harbor (Netherlands)
- 1917 First jazz records are recorded: "Dixie Jazz Band One Step" and "Livery Stable Blues" by the Original Dixieland Jass Band for the Victor Talking Machine Company in NYC
Unrest in Petrograd
1917 Russian February Revolution: Tsar Nicolas II orders army to quell civil unrest in Petrograd - army mutinies [NS Mar 11]
- 1918 Stands at Hong Kong Jockey Club collapse & burn, killing 604
- 1919 Acadia National Park forms (as Lafayette N P), Maine
- 1919 US Congress establishes Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona
- 1920 German silent horror film classic "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" starring Werner Krauss is released
- 1921 The USSR signs treaties respecting the integrity of Persia and of Afghanistan
- 1923 Italian nationalist & fascists merge (blue-shirts & black-shirts)
- 1925 Jihad against Turkish government
- 1926 Dark Street in the Bronx renamed Lustre Street
Grand Teton National Park
1929 US President Calvin Coolidge establishes Grand Teton National Park
- 1930 1st red & green traffic lights installed in Manhattan, NYC
- 1930 West Indies make 1st Test Cricket win, by 289 runs over England
- 1933 Golden Gate Bridge groundbreaking ceremony held at Crissy Field
Luftwaffe Re-forms
1935 Existence of re-formed German Luftwaffe revealed (banned in 1920 by Treaty of Versailles) with Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring as commander-in-chief
Baseball History
1935 NY Yankees release Babe Ruth, he signs with Boston Braves
RADAR Demonstrated
1935 RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) is first demonstrated by Robert Watson-Watt and Arnold Wilkins in Daventry, England
- 1936 Military coup in Japan
- 1937 Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden's "Ascent of F6" premieres in London
- 1938 1st passenger ship equipped with radar
- 1938 Rie Van Veen swims world record 200m free style (2:24.6)
- 1940 US Air Defense Command forms at Mitchel Field, LI, NY
- 1941 2 fighters unable to continued slugfest, referee declares double KO
- 1941 Cowboys' Amateur Association of America organized (California)
- 1941 Utrecht & Zaandam strike against raid on Jews
- 1941 Vichy-France makes religious education in school mandatory
- 1942 German battle cruiser Gneisenau deactivated by bomb
- 1942 Radio Orange calls for March 1 day of prayer in Dutch Indies
Event of Interest
1942 Werner Heisenberg, a principal scientist in the German nuclear weapons program, delivers a lecture to Nazi officials about extracting energy from nuclear fission
- 1943 German assault moves to Beja, North Tunisia
- 1944 First female US Navy captain, Sue Dauser of the Nurse Corps, appointed
- 1945 Very heavy bombing on Berlin by 8th US Air Force
- 1946 2 killed & 10 wounded in race riot in Columbia, Tennessee
- 1949 USAF plane began 1st nonstop around-the-world flight
Music History
1950 Jerome Robbin's ballet choreographed to Leonard Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" premieres at the New York City Center Theater
- 1951 Bread rationing in Czechoslovakia begins
- 1952 Netherlands-Indonesian Unity conference
Event of Interest
1953 Allen Dulles officially promoted from deputy director to become the 5th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
- 1954 First typesetting machine (photo engraving) used in Quincy, Massachusetts
- 1954 Michigan Representative Ruth Thompson (R) introduces legislation to ban mailing "obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy" phonograph (rock & roll) records
- 1955 1st aviator to bail out at supersonic speed-GF Smith
- 1955 Jean Shepherd, American humorist and storyteller, begins long-running radio program on WOR-AM in NYC
- 1960 David Jenkins wins the men's figure skating gold medal at the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics; US takes the singles double after Carol Heiss wins women's event
- 1960 USA's David Jenkins wins Olympic Gold for men's figure skating
Film & TV History
1960 Vera Miles stars in the "Mirror Image" episode of the CBS anthology series "The Twilight Zone"
- 1960 Verne Gagne beats Doctor X in Omaha, to become NWA wrestling champ
- 1961 3rd Daytona 500: Marvin Panch wins in a 1960 Pontiac owned by Smokey Yunick when race leader Fireball Roberts' car suffered a blown engine with 13 laps remaining
Oh Dad, Poor Dad
1962 Arthur Kopit's play "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad" premieres in NYC
- 1962 US Supreme court disallows race separation on public transportation
- 1965 Dutch government of Marijnen falls
- 1965 West Germany ceases military aid to Tanzania
- 1966 KBIM TV channel 10 in Roswell, NM (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1967 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1967 Verne Gagne beats Mad Dog Vachon in St Paul, to become NWA champion
- 1968 Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) final transmission
- 1970 The Beatles release "Hey Jude" compilation album in US (originally to be titled "Beatles Again")
Event of Interest
1971 Secretary-General U Thant signs United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day
- 1971 Two Royal Ulster Constabulary officers shot and killed by the Irish Republican Army while on mobile patrol in the Ardoyne area of Belfast, North Ireland
- 1972 Ireland-Wales Five Nations Rugby match scheduled for Lansdowne Road, Dublin is cancelled because of escalating political situation; Championship not completed for first time since World War II
- 1972 Slag heap dam collapses above Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, kills 125
Event of Interest
1973 Triple Crown horse Secretariat bought for a record $5.7m
- 1974 Price of gold hits record $188 an ounce in Paris
- 1975 1st televised kidney transplant (Today Show)
- 1976 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1977 1st flight of Space Shuttle (atop a Boeing 747)
- 1979 CBS' premiere of NYC sitcom "Flatbush", which received many derision phone calls about it from Brooklynites to CBS
- 1979 Last total eclipse of Sun in 20th century for continental US
- 1980 Egypt & Israel exchange ambassadors for 1st time
- 1980 Military coup under Desi Bouterse in Suriname overthrows the Henck Arron government
- 1981 3 Anglican missionaries detained in Iran since Aug 1980 are released
- 1981 84 penalties (406 mins) assessed for a brawl between NHL Minn & Bost
- 1981 French Train Grande Vitesse averages 380 kph on trial run
Cricket Debut
1982 Test Cricket debut of batsman Martin Crowe, playing for New Zealand v Australia in Wellington, run out for 9
- 1983 Shortwave pirate Radio USA (Wellsville, NY) begins transmission
- 1984 Last US marines in multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon left Beirut
- 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Penn Warren is named the 1st US poet laureate
- 1986 Evert van Benthem wins 14th Frisian 11-Cities skating race (6:55:16)
- 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
- 1987 1st release of Beatles on compact disc: "Please Please Me"; "With The Beatles"; "A Hard Day's Night"; and "Beatles For Sale" [1]
- 1987 NASA launches GEOS-H
Sports History
1987 NBA's Michael Jordan's 58 points in one game is a Chicago Bulls franchise record
- 1987 Tower Commission probes Iran-Contra affair
- 1987 USSR resumes nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1987 Wash blocks 20 Indiana shots tying NBA regulation game record
- 1988 Christa Rotherburger (GDR) skates ladies world record 1000m (1:17.65)
Contract of Interest
1989 California court throws out most of Margo Adams's $12 million breach-of-contract suit against Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs
- 1989 Lowest barometric pressure in Netherlands (95.5 hPa)
Sports History
1989 NFL Dallas Cowboys fire coach Tom Landry after a 29-year career
Sports History
1989 NY Yankees announce that Tom Seaver is their new TV sportscaster
Election of Interest
1990 President Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front is defeated in the Nicaraguan general election by the National Opposition Union
- 1990 South African President F.W. Willem de Klerk orders the destruction of the six completed nuclear weapons and a seventh device under construction
- 1990 USSR agrees to withdraw all 73,500 troops from Czechoslovak Socialist Republic by July, 1991
- 1991 Asanka Gurusinha scores twin Test Cricket tons v NZ (119 & 102)
1991 Coalition planes bomb Iraqi forces retreating from Kuwait, killing hundreds and creating the so-called 'Highway of Death' during the Gulf War
- 1991 Gulf War: Battle of 73 Easting - Coalition forces win decisive victory over Iraq in tank battle involving 500-700 combined vehicles
- 1991 Gulf War: Kuwaiti resistance leaders declare they have control of their capital
- 1991 NY-NJ Knights (WLAF) players 1st come together
- 1991 Signs of Iran crude now an option for US refiners, but no imports from Iran likely in near future
- 1992 200+ Azerbaijanis, mostly civilians are killed by local Armenian forces and the 366th CIS regiment in the Khojaly massacre in Nagorno-Karabakh
- 1992 Irish Supreme Court rules 14-year-old rape victim may get an abortion
- 1993 "World Trade Center bombing of 1993": truck bomb explodes in parking garage of NYC World Trade Center at 12:18pm, killing 6 and injuring over 1,000 in what was the deadliest act of terrorism perpetrated on US soil at the time
Cricket Record
1993 Allan Border beats Gavaskar's record for most Test Cricket runs 10,123
- 1994 St Louis Blues beat Ottawa Senators 11-1
- 1995 London finance house Barings collapses after huge losses in Singapore by rogue trader Nick Leeson
1997 39th Grammy Awards: "Change the World", Babyface, Beck, and LeAnn Rimes win
Film & TV History
1998 Oprah Winfrey found not guilty in beef defamation trial brought by Texas cattlemen
- 1998 Steven Gluckstern completes the sale of the NY Islanders
- 1998 Total solar eclipse in Venezuela-Pacific Ocean, lasts for 4 minutes and 9 seconds
- 2001 Taliban destroy two giant, 1500-year-old Buddha statues in Bamyan, Afghanistan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a holy site for Buddhists on the Silk Road
- 2004 Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash during thick fog and heavy rain near Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina
- 2004 US lifts a ban on travel to Libya, ending restrictions that had lasted for 23 years
Event of Interest
2005 President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak orders the constitution changed to allow multi-candidate presidential elections, asking the Egyptian parliament to amend Article 76
- 2006 XX Winter Olympic Games close in Turin, Italy
- 2008 Global Seed Vault officially opens in Svalbard, Norway, to help preserve diversity and loss from other genebanks
- 2009 Yugoslav Army General Nebojsa Pavkovic is convicted of committing crimes against humanity during the Kosovo War and sentenced to 22 years in prison [1]
- 2010 Opera "Madame White Snake", by Boston Opera composed by Zhou Long, premieres at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston (Pulitzer Prize for Music 2011)
- 2012 17-year old black teenager Trayvon Martin shot and killed by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, highlighted issue of racial profiling in the US
2012 84th Academy Awards: "The Artist" wins five Oscars and becomes the first silent film to win since 1927, Jean Dujardin and Meryl Streep also win
- 2012 Bus plunges off a cliff in Shanxi, China causing 15 deaths
- 2012 Train derailment kills 3 and injures 45 in Burlington, Ontario
- 2013 A flexible battery capable of being charged wirelessly and folded and stretched is developed
- 2013 A hot air balloon crashes in Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 tourists
- 2013 A rocket launched from the Gaza strip into Israel ends the ceasefire since November 2012
Film & TV History
2014 Seth Rogen testifies about Alzheimer's disease before the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services
- 2016 Iranian elections: reformers and moderates win control of parliament
- 2017 59th Daytona 500: Kurt Busch wins after Kyle Larson runs out of gas on last lap; Jeffrey Earnhardt makes NASCAR history, 1st ever 4th generation driver to compete in Daytona 500
2017 89th Academy Awards: Best Picture "Moonlight" (after mix-up), Best Director Damien Chazelle, Best Actor Casey Affleck, Best Actress Emma Stone
Sports History
2017 Margo Hayes becomes the first woman to climb a 9a+ (5.15a) graded route by ascending La Rambla in Siurana, Spain
- 2018 7.5 magnitude earthquake in central Papa New Guinea kills at least 100
- 2018 Cold weather nicknamed "the Beast from the East" hits Europe, killing 7 and covering Pompeii in snow
- 2018 Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway, receives its 1 millionth seed on its 10 year anniversary
- 2019 Catholic Cardinal George Pell convicted of child sexual abuse in Melbourne, Australia. As treasurer at the Vatican, the highest-ranking church official to be convicted; overturned in 2020
- 2019 City of Venice in Italy introduces a day visitors tax
- 2019 India launches air strikes on alleged terrorist camps within Pakistan
- 2019 More than 4,500 complaints of child sexual abuse against migrant children received by US Health Department, Department of Justice received 1,300 more
- 2019 UK reaches its highest-ever winter temperature with 21.2°C (70.2F) in Kew Gardens, London
- 2020 Saudi Arabia bars overseas pilgrims from accessing religious sites of Mecca and Medina because of COVID-19 fears for 1st time in living memory
- 2021 Amnesty International Report says that Eritrean troops might have committed crimes against humanity, killing hundreds of civilians, in attack on Ethiopian city of Aksum 28-29 November [1]
- 2021 Toymaker Hasbro announces that the Mr Potato Head brand name will be changed to be gender-neutral [1]
- 2022 'Rain bomb' due to a slow-moving low pressure trough begins major flooding in south-east Queensland, Australia, leaving at least seven people dead [1]
- 2022 Scientists publish findings into "lost" continent Balkanatolia, that linked southern Europe with Asia, providing passageway for animal migrations 35 to 38 million years ago [1]
- 2023 At least 59 migrants are killed after a boat breaks up in rough seas off the eastern coast of Calabria, Italy, with 80 survivors [1]
- 2023 Dilbert comic strip creator Scott Adams faces widespread condemnation for his comments about African Americans in a YouTube show, prompting his strip and up-coming book to be cancelled [1]
- 2023 ICC Women's Cricket T20 World Cup, Cape Town: Defending champions Australia score a 19-run victory over South Africa to win their sixth title; Player of the series: Australian all-rounder Ash Gardner
- 2023 Large rallies in Mexico cities (organizers estimate 500,000) protest cuts to the National Electoral Institute (INE), seen as undermining electoral neutrality [1]
- 2023 One of the most violent incidents of revenge by mobs of Israeli settlers, who burn 200 buildings in Palestinian villages and kill at least one person after a Palestinian gunman kills two Israeli in the northern West Bank [1]
- 2023 Winter storm deposits snow in parts of southern California for the first time in decades, down to 1,000 feet elevation, with snow accumulations up to 7 feet deep in San Bernardino Mountains [1]
- 2025 First death from measles in the US occurs in Texas in a decade, and the first child to die in 22 years amid an outbreak affecting 124 people [1]
