yesterday - On this day - tomorrow
The beginning of Black History Month in the US, begun in 1926 to raise awareness of the hidden history of the African-Americans.
The first
The steamboat is patented by Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet in 1788.
The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary is published in 1884. Scheduled to take 11 years to finish, the project will not be complete before 43 years have passed.
The world's first film studio is opened by Thomas Edison in 1893 in West Orange, New Jersey.
The first automobile insurance policy is issued by The Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut in 1898.
The first armored car is introduced in 1920.
The first single record is released by RCA in 1949.
Events
Settlers led by
James Oglethorpe first land on the site of today's
Savannah in 1733.
Bohemian peasants revolt against servitude in 1775.
The
American Supreme Court convenes for the first time in 1790 in New York City.
France declares war on England and the Netherlands in 1793.
The opera
La Boheme by
Giacomo Puccini opens in Turin in 1896.
Foot binding is prohibited in China by empress
Tz'u-hsi in 1902.
Germany makes a decision to let its submarines attack merchant ships from neutral nations going to Britain in 1917. This will lead to the American entry into the
first world war.
The Norwegian
Trygve Lie becomes the first
secretary-general of the
United Nations.
In
1958, Egypt and Syria proclaim a union between the two countries, in a state to be known as
The United Arab Republic.
Female suffrage in federal elections is rejected by a
Swiss referendum in 1959.
A sit-in protest by four black college students begins at a lunch counter in
Greensboro, North Carolina.
Coca-Cola introduces
Sprite to the market as a lemon-lime competitor to
7Up in 1961.
In 1965,
Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested in Selma, Alabama together with 700 demonstrators.
Nauru becomes independent in 1968.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Iran after nearly 15 years in exile in
1979.
President
F.W. De Klerk opens the South African Parliament promising to end
apartheid completely in 1991.
Presidents
George Bush and
Boris Yeltsin formally end the
cold war in 1992 by signing the
Camp David declaration stating that their countries no longer see each other as adversaries.
Flooding rivers force 250,000 Dutchmen out of their homes in 1995.
Born
Feodor Chaliapin, Russian opera singer, born in 1873 (On the 1st of February according to the old style
Julian calendar used in Russia at the time, on
February 13 otherwise)
Victor Herbert in Dublin, Ireland, 1859. He was a composer of symphonic and chamber music, but is most famous for his comic operettas such as
Babes in Toyland,
The Fortune Teller, and
Naughty Marietta.
Langston Hughes in
Joplin, Missouri, 1902. A member of the
Harlem Renaissance, he described the life of American blacks in poems, stories and true histories.
Clark Gable, king of
Hollywood, was born in 1901. He was famous for his role in
Gone with the Wind and won an Oscar for
It Happened One Night.
President of Russia,
Boris Yeltsin, was born in 1931.
Singer
Don Everly was born in 1937.
Princess Stephanie of Monaco was born in 1965.
Lisa Marie Presely,
famous daughter and
wife, was born in 1968.
Died
1328 -
Charles IV, the Handsome, King of France
1650 -
Rene Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician.
1733 -
August II, the Strong, King of Poland and alleged father of 355 children.
1851 -
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author of Frankenstein.
1908 -
Carlos I, King of Portugal, is assassinated by a mob, 44 years old.
1944 -
Piet Mondrian, abstract painter.
1966 -
Buster Keaton, movie actor.
1976 -
Werner C Heisenberg, Nobel prize winner in physics.
2002 -
Hildegard Knef, actress, singer, writer.
In 1974, a fire in a newly constructed skyscraper kills over 220 people in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
A 1977 blizzard claims 100 lives in New England.
In 1991, an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale kills 1,200 people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At Los Angeles International Airport, 34 people are killed and several injured when two planes clash on the runway.
Saints
St. Brigid of Kildare - Irish 5th century saint known from numerous folk legends for her gentleness and devotion. She became the model for the
knightly ideal of a woman.
St. Cecilius of
Granada, the first bishop and patron saint of Granada. According to legend he was one of the seven disciples of St. James. His second feast is on
May 15.
St. Henry Morse, A convert to Catholicism,
this priest died at
Tyburn, England on this date in 1645, and is one of the
Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
St. Ignatius, bishop of
Antioch, who established choir singing in his church.
St. Severus of
Ravenna, the weaving bishop, saint of glove makers, hatters and weavers.
St. Ursus of
Aosta, 6th century arch-deacon and missionary for the Church of Rome. Invoked at childbirth, for children dead before baptism, and against faintness, kidney disease, and rheumatism. Alternate feast day is
June 17.
St. Viridiana was voluntarily walled up in a cell for 34 years in her native
Castelfiorentino in
Tuscany, Italy. Her alternate feast day is
February 16.