0374 - 9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
0600 - Pope Gregory the Great decrees saying "God bless You" is the correct response to a sneeze
1349 - Jews are expelled from Burgsdorf, Switzerland
1512 - Battle at Valeggio - French troops beat Venetianen
1559 - Pope Paul IV calls for deposition of sovereigns supporting heresy
1641 - English king Charles I accept Triennial Act
1659 - 1st known check (£400) (on display at Westminster Abbey)
1666 - Netherlands & Brandenburg sign treaty
1677 - Earl of Shaftesbury arrested/confined in London Tower
1741 - Benjamin Franklin's "General Magazine" (2nd US Magazine) begins publishing
1742 - Earl of Wilmington becomes British premier
1760 - Native American hostages killed in Ft. Prince George, SC
1771 - Messier presents his original list of 45 M-objects to French Academy
1777 - Messier adds M53 to his catalog (globular cluster in Coma Berenice)
1804 - Lieutenant Stephen Decatur raids Tripoli Harbor & burns Navy frigate Philadelphia after pirates seized it
1832 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reaches St-Pauls (1ºN, 29ºW)
1838 - Kentucky passes law permitting women to attend school under conditions
1840 - American Charles Wilkes discovers Shackleton Ice Shelf, Antarctica
1846 - Battle of Sobraon ends 1st Sikh War in India
1860 - Dutch Rochussen/Van Bosse government resigns
1862 - Ft. Donelson captured by General Grant (1,400 Confederates surrender)
1864 - Battle of Mobile, AL - operations by Union Army
1868 - Benevolent & Protective Order of the Elks founded in New York
1878 - Silver dollar becomes US legal tender
1883 - "Ladies Home Journal" begins publication
1887 - 1st newspaper convention (Rochester NY)
1894 - British troops occupy Ilorin, Gold Coast
1900 - 1st Chinese daily newspaper in US publishes 1st issue (Chung Sai Yat Po-San Francisco)
1909 - 1st subway car with side doors goes into service (New York, NY); Serbia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary
1913 - President Taft agrees not to intervene in Mexico
1914 - 1st airplane flight from to Los Angeles from San Francisco
1916 - Russian troops conquer Erzurum, Armenia
1917 - 1st synagogue in 425 years opens in Madrid
1918 - Lithuania declares independence from Russia & Germany (National Day)
1923 - Howard Carter finds Pharoah Tutankhamen; Allies accept Latvia's occupation of Memel territory
1927 - US restores diplomatic relations with Turkey
1931 - Extreme right wing Svinhufvud becomes President of Finland
1932 - 1st patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree
1933 - Catholic newspaper Germania warns against Nazis/communists
1936 - 4th Winter Olympics games close at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
1936 - Spanish Frente Popular (People's Front) wins elections
1937 - DuPont Corp patents nylon, developed by employee Wallace H. Carothers
1938 - US Federal Crop Insurance program authorized
1940 - British search plane finds German Altmark off Norway
1942 - German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery
1943 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gets pneumonia; Red Army conquers Kharkov; Sign on Munich facade "Out with Hitler! Long live freedom!" done by "White Rose" student group, caught on 2/18, beheaded on 2/22; Withdrawing Africa Corps reaches Mareth-line in North-Africa
1945 - US forces land on Corregidor, complete conquest on March 3; Venezuela declares war on Nazi-Germany
1946 - 1st commercially designed helicopter tested, Bridgeport, CT
1948 - Miranda, famous moon of Uranus, photographed for 1st time; 1st newsreel telecast, "20th Century Fox-Movietone News" shown on NBC
1950 - Longest-running prime-time game show, "What's My Line" begins on CBS
1951 - NYC passes bill prohibiting racism in city-assisted housing; San Francisco City Hall dome fire
1956 - Britain abolishes the death penalty
1959 - Fidel Castro names himself Cuba's premier after overthrowing Batista
1960 - US nuclear submarine USS Triton sets off on underwater round-world trip
1961 - 1st all-solid-propellant rocket put in orbit, Wallops Island, VA; China uses it's 1st nuclear reactor; US satellite Explorer 9 is launched
1963 - 1st round-trip swim of Strait of Messina, Italy (Mary Revell of US); C & A Building in Amsterdam burns down
1965 - Pegasus 1 launched to detect micro-meteors
1968 - Country's 1st 911 phone system goes into service in Haleyville, AL
1972 - German mass murderers "Three of Breda" freed
1978 - 1st Computer Bulletin Board System (Ward & Randy's CBBS, Chicago)
1980 - Continuous traffic jam extends 176 km north of Lyons, France; Eric Heiden skates 5k in 7 02.29 (Olympics Record)
1982 - Agatha Barbara elected as 1st female President of Malta
1984 - Bill Johnson becomes 1st American to win Olympics downhill skiing gold
1986 - Mário Soares (Socialist) elected Portugal's 1st civilian president
1986 - French air force bombs Ouadi Doum airport in Chad
1988 - 1st documented combat action by US military advisors in El Salvador
1989 - Egypt, Iraq, Jordan & North Yemen form common market
1989 - William Hayden becomes governor-General of Australia
1991 - Dutch PPR, Political Party Radicals, disbands
1994 - 6.5 earthquake strikes SE Sumatra, kills 200; Premier Alfonso Bustamente ends government in Peru

Birthdays
1519 - Gaspard de Coligny, Huguenot leader/French Admiral
1620 - Frederick William, Great Elector, founder of Brandenburg-Prussia
1807 - Lysander Cutler, Union Brevet Major General
1812 - Henry Wilson, 18th Vice-President (1873-75)
1813 - Joseph Reid Anderson, Confederate Brigadier General
1822 - James Patton Anderson, Confederate Major General
1823 - Brigadier General John D. Imboden, organized 1st Virginia Partisan Rangers
1832 - Camille Armand Jules Marie de Polignac, Confederate Major General
1834 - Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, biologist (Causes of Evolution)
1848 - Hugo de Vries, Dutch botanist (How species emerge)
1852 - Charles Taze Russell, founded Jehovah's Witnesses
1866 - Johann Strauss, composer (Waltz King)
1904 - George F. Kennan, US ambassador (to Moscow)
1905 - Lord Franks British ambassador (to US)
1909 - Hugh Beaumont, actor (Ward Cleaver - "Leave it to Beaver")
1912 - Machito "Frank Grillo", bandleader (created salsa music); Maitland Mackie, Lord Lieutenant (Aberdeenshire)
1918 - Károly earl Khuen-Héderváry, Hungarian Governor/premier (1910-12)
1924 - Peter Webster, British High Court Judge
1931 - George E. Sangmeister (Representative-IL)
1937 - Valentin Vasilyevich Bondarenko, cosmonaut
1942 - Kim Jong-Il (Yura), President of North-Korea (1994- )
1943 - James Beaton British GC
1950 - Peter Hain, British MP
1998 - Mr. Jefferson, 1st cloned calf

Passings
0309 - Pamphilus van Caesarea, Palestinian scholar/martyr, beheaded
0923 - Abu Dja'far Mohammed Djarir al-Tabari, Islamic historian, dies at 83
1247 - Hendrik Raspe (Papenking), count of Thüringen
1279 - Afonso III, King of Portugal (1248-79)
1391 - Johannes V. Palaeologus, Emperor of Byzantium (1341-91)
1538 - Everhard/Erardus van de Mark, prince-bishop of Liege, dies at 65
1600 - Giordano Bruno, burned at stake
1791 - Richard earl d'Alton, General of S. Netherlands, commits suicide at 58
1834 - Lionel Lukin, life boat pioneer
1899 - François Félix Faure, President of France (1895-99), dies at 57
1900 - George Labram, US mine engineer in South Africa, dies in battle
1912 - Edgar Evans, British explorer (Antarctica)
1951 - Henri Velge, 1st chairman (Belgian Council of State), dies at 65
1957 - Leslie Hore-Belisha (Lord Halifax), British Minister of Transport, dies at 63
1966 - Hendrik W. Tilanus, artillery officer/leader (CHU 1939-63), dies at 81
1979 - Nematullah Nassiri, Iranian General/head of Savak, executed
1986 - Howard Da Silva Cleveland OH, actor (Ben Franklin-"1776"), dies at 76
1991 - Enrique B. Varela, commandant, Nicaragua Contras
1992 - Abbas Musawi, leader of Hezbollah, assassinated; Janio Quadros, President of Brazil (1961)
1993 - Richard Salant, news president (CBS-60 Minutes), dies at 78
1996 - Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, politician, dies at 90; MacLean Stevenson actor (MASH), dies of heart attack at 66; Roger Bowen, actor (MASH, Main Event, What about Bob), dies at 62
1998 - Martha Gellhorn, war reporter (Reuters), dies at 89

Reported Missing in Action
1968
Vollmer, Valentine Bernard, US Army (WI); KIA, remains recovered August, 1974

1969
Moore, Jerry L., US Army (NC); disappeared during mortar attack on observation post

Wogan, William M., US Army (NY); disappeared after evacuating wounded at a landing strip, when a bomb exploded at his location

1971
Hoskins, Charles L., USAF (KS); F4D shot down (weapons/systems officer, w/Pattilo)

Pattillo, Ralph N., USAF (AL); F4D shot down (pilot, w/Hoskins)

1972
Galati, Ralph W., USAF (PA); F4D shot down (w/Schwertfeger) - released by DRV March, 1973 - alive as of 1998

Lee, Albert Eugene, USN (OH)

Schwertfeger, William R., USAF (OK); F4D shot down (pilot, w/Galati)released by DRV March, 1973 - alive and well as of 1998