Today in History

3rd February 1959

Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper (J P Richardson) boarded a plane heading for their next Winter Dance Party tour destination, Moorhead, Minnesota.
Their plane took off a little after 1 am from Clear Lake, Iowa, when a cold North-East wind gave way to a blinding snow storm which drastically reduced visibility.
Encased in a sea of snow with only white below, pilot Roger Peterson seemed to become disoriented and flew the plane into the ground. One wing hit the frozen earth and the small plane tumbled over and over, killing the three musicians and the plane's pilot.
 

On This Day In History, February 4th

2004 Facebook is founded
The social networking service currently has over 1 billion active users.

1948 Ceylon (Sri Lanka) proclaims independence within the British Commonwealth
Since the 16th century, the island had been colonized by Portugal, the Netherlands, and Great Britain.

1861 The Confederate States of America are established
6 slave states met in Montgomery, Alabama to form the Confederacy, which lasted only until 1865.

1859 German archaeologist Constantin von Tischendorf discovers the Codex Sinaiticus
The “Sinai Bible”, a handwritten copy of the Greek Bible, is considered a great historical treasure.

1789 George Washington is elected as the first President of the United States
Washington took office on April 30, 1789.
 
Births On This Day, February 4th 🎂

1948 Alice Cooper
American singer-songwriter, actor

1913 Rosa Parks
American activist

1906 Dietrich Bonhoeffer
German pastor, theologian

1902 Charles Lindbergh
American pilot, activist

1746 Tadeusz Kościuszko

Deaths On This Day, February 4th 🪦

2006 Betty Friedan
American author, activist

2001 Iannis Xenakis
Greek/French composer, engineer, theorist

1987 Liberace
American singer, pianist, actor

1987 Meena Keshwar Kamal
Afghan activist founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

1894 Adolphe Sax
Belgian musician invented the saxophone
 

1938
Thornton Wilder's play' Our Town' opens on Broadway. The story explores the life of the citizens of a fictional New Hampshire town'Grover's Corner' It won Pulitzer Prize for Drama
1945
Pres Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill &Joseph Stalin meet in Yalta in the Crimea to discuss the final phase of WWII
1971
NASDAQ{National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations stock exchange, the 2nd largest in the world is founded in NYC
1977
Fleetwood Mac's 11th album' Rumours' is released,sold 20 million copies
1991
Alex Trebak makes game show' history by being the 1st person to host 3 American game shows at the same time 'Jeopardy, Classic Concentration& To Tell The Truth
2004
Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook from his Harvard Univ dorm room
 
On This Day In History, February 5th

1924 The Greenwich Time Signal is broadcast for the first time
The “BBC pips” are 5 short and 1 long tones that are broadcast by many BBC radio stations to mark the precise start of the hour.

1919 United Artists was founded
Charlie Chaplin was one of the film studio's founders.

1909 The world's first synthetic plastic is developed
Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announced his invention of Bakelite at a meeting of the American Chemical Society that day.

1869 The biggest gold nugget in history is found
The “Welcome Stranger” was found at Moliagul in Australia and had a calculated refined weight of 71.081 kg.

1852 The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg opens to the public
It is one of the world's largest and oldest museums and was originally founded in 1764.
 
Births On This Day, February 5th 🎂

1985 Cristiano Ronaldo
Portuguese footballer

1969 Michael Sheen
Welsh actor

1900 Adlai Stevenson
American politician, 31st Governor of Illinois

1878 André Citroën
French engineer, businessman, founded Citroën

1840 John Boyd Dunlop
Scottish businessman, co-founded Dunlop Rubber

Deaths On This Day, February 5th 🪦

2010 Harry Schwarz
German/South African lawyer, politician, diplomat, 13th South African Ambassador to the United States

2008 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Indian guru

1993 Joseph L. Mankiewicz
American director, screenwriter, producer

1938 Hans Litten
German jurist

1881 Thomas Carlyle
Scottish historian
 
5th February

1782 The Spanish defeated British forces and captured the island of Minorca.

1811 The Regency Act was passed in Britain, allowing Prince George of Wales to rule because his father, King George III, was considered insane. He later became George IV.

1953 Sweet rationing ended in Britain

1994 Market massacre in Sarajevo. A mortar bomb exploded in the main market square in Sarajevo killing 68 and wounding 200 people.
 
Feb 6th:
1894
bottle opener was patented by U.S. inventor, William Painter
1935
board game 'Monopoly by Parker Brothers goes on sale for 1st time cost was $2 There are now over 300 versions of the game
1965
Righteous Brothers single' You've Lost That Lovin Feelin' goes to #1 on music charts stays there for 11 weeks. The song was written by married songwriters Barry Mann&Cynthia Weil
1971
U.S. astronaut, Alan Shepard becomes the 1st person to hit a golf ball on the moon
1987
No Smoking rules in all U.S. Federal Buildings goes into effect
2022
Queen Eliz II becomes the 1st British monarch to celebrate a Plantium Jubilee- 70 yrs on the throne
 
On This Day In History, February 7th

2009 The Black Saturday bushfires in Australia kill 173 people
The fires were the worst natural disaster in Australian history.

2005 Ellen MacArthur breaks the speed record for sailing solo around the world
The journey took her 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes, and 33 seconds.

1992 The European Union is established as the Maastricht Treaty is signed
The treaty also defined a single European currency: the Euro.

1986 Haiti's president, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, flees the country, ending 28 years of family rule
On the same day 5 years later, the first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was sworn in.

1984 NASA astronauts take the first untethered spacewalk
The photographs of Bruce McCandless and Robert L. Stewart hovering freely in space became some of the most iconic images of the 1980s.
 
Births On This Day, February 7th 🎂

1978 Ashton Kutcher
American model, actor, producer

1962 Eddie Izzard
Yemeni/English actor, comedian

1962 Garth Brooks
American singer-songwriter, guitarist

1906 Oleg Antonov
Soviet aircraft designer founded the Antonov Aircraft Company

1812 Charles Dickens
English author

Deaths On This Day, February 7th 🪦

2015 Dean Smith
American basketball player, coach

1994 Witold Lutosławski
Polish composer, conductor

1986 Cheikh Anta Diop
Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist

1959 Nap Lajoie
American baseball player

1938 Harvey Samuel Firestone
American businessman founded the Firestone Tire, and Rubber Company
 
7th February

1863 185 British sailors were killed when HMS Orpheus was wrecked off the coast of New Zealand.

1964 The four members of the British hit band, the Beatles, arrived in New York at the start of their first tour of the United States

1974 The island of Grenada, in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, gained independence from Britain.

1976 Joan Bazeley became the first woman to referee a football match between two men's teams when she took charge at Croydon.

1976 Diane Thorne became the first woman to win a race under National Hunt rules, riding Ben Ruler to victory in the Nimrod Hunters' Chase at Stratford-upon-Avon.

2015 Printing blocks from a typeface called 'Doves Type' were discovered in the River Thames. The font has not been used for nearly a century as the printing type blocks, used to print letters, were thrown into the river in 1917.
 
On This Day In History, February 8th

1971 The NASDAQ holds its first trading day
The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations was the world's first electronic stock exchange.

1960 The first 8 stars are added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame
More than 2400 five-pointed stars have since been embedded in the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street to honour entertainment industry stars.

1950 The Stasi, East Germany's notorious secret police, is established
The “Staatssicherheit”, which was dissolved in 1990, is considered one of the most repressive intelligence agencies in the world.

1910 The Boy Scouts of America is founded
3 years earlier, British General Robert Baden-Powell had founded the Scout movement in England.

1879 Sandford Fleming proposes the use of time zones
The later introduction of Universal Standard Time, which is based on time zones, revolutionized timekeeping.
 
Births On This Day, February 8th 🪦

1941 Nick Nolte
American actor

1932 John Williams
American pianist, composer, conductor

1931 James Dean
American actor

1925 Jack Lemmon
American actor, singer, director

1828 Jules Verne
French author

Deaths On This Day, February 8th 🪦

2007 Ian Stevenson
American biochemist

2007 Anna Nicole Smith
American model, actress

1998 Enoch Powell
British politician

1957 John von Neumann
Hungarian/American mathematician

1587 Mary, Queen of Scots
 
On This Day In History, February 9th

1996 The Irish paramilitary organisation IRA ends an 18-month ceasefire by exploding a large bomb in London
The explosion in London's Canary Wharf left 2 people dead and 39 injured.

1969 The Boeing 747 flies for the first time
The “Jumbo Jet” was the world's largest passenger aircraft at the time.

1964 The Beatles embark on their first tour in the United States
Their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show marked the beginning of the “British Invasion”

1959 The world's first intercontinental ballistic missile becomes operational in the USSR
The Soviet R-7 Semyorka missile ranged from 8800 km (5500 mi).

1950 U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy launches his anti-communist campaign
On this day, McCarthy accused the U.S. State Department of being infiltrated by communists.
 
Births On This Day, February 9th 🎂

1987 Magdalena Neuner
German biathlete

1942 Carole King
American singer-songwriter, pianist

1932 Gerhard Richter
German painter

1846 Wilhelm Maybach
German businessman founded Maybach

1737 Thomas Paine
English/American theorist, author

Deaths On This Day, February 9th 🪦

1981 Bill Haley
American singer-songwriter, musician

1957 Miklós Horthy
Hungarian Admiral, regent

1881 Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Russian author

1857 Dionysios Solomos
Greek poet

967 Sayf al-Dawla
Emir of Aleppo
 
Tish said:
Births On This Day, February 9th 🎂

1942 Carole King
American singer-songwriter, pianist

1846 Wilhelm Maybach
German businessman founded Maybach
Click to expand...

Utterly amazing that Carole King is 83 years old. Where the hell has the time gone? o_O

Wilhelm Maybach was an early internal combustion engine/motor designer and engineer. His son Karl later developed many of the engines used in Germany's WWII armored vehicles.
 
Feb 10th:
1863
1st U.S. fire extinguisher patent by Alanson Crane in Virginia
1897
New York Times begins using slogan'All The News That's Fit to Print'
1940
Glenn Miller&Orchestra's song' In The Mood' hits #1 on music charts, stays there for 13 weeks
1966
novel' Valley of the Dolls' by Jacqueline Susann is published sells over 30 million copies. The story focuses on fame,drugs,addiction, dark side of Hollywood glamour. The movie version was released in '67
1996
IBM chess computer'Deep Blue' becomes the 1st computer to win a game from reigning human chess champion,Garry Kasparov
2023
WWII era bomb was found in Great Yarmouth,England, explodes in a unplanned denotation as experts attempt to disarm it
 
11th February

1956 'Cambridge spies' surface in Moscow. Two British diplomats who vanished in mysterious circumstances five years ago reappeared in the Soviet Union. Burgess and Maclean were part of a spy ring involving five men who studied at Cambridge University during the 1930s. They passed information to the KGB about British military deployments and the identities of British secret agents. The "third man" who tipped off Burgess and Maclean was eventually revealed to be Harold 'Kim' Philby, who was in charge of British Intelligence's anti-communist counter-espionage activities from 1944-1946. Another member of the spy ring was Anthony Blunt who was knighted in 1956 and later had charge of the Queen's art collection.

1971 Eighty-seven countries, including the UK, the United States and the USSR, sign the Seabed Treaty. It outlawed nuclear weapons on the ocean floor in international waters.

1975 Margaret Thatcher won the Conservative Party Leadership and became the first woman leader of a British political party.

1990 Leading anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela freed from prison in South Africa after 27 years.

1993 Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales both volunteered to pay income tax and capital gains tax on their private income. The Queen also took over civil list payments to junior members of the royal family.
 
1809
American inventor, Robert Fulton patents steam boat
1929
Vatican City,world's smallest country becomes an enclave of Rome. Its 19 sq miles, size of 120 acres or 9 football fields. Its takes 2-3 hrs to walk all of it
1963
Julia Child's cooking show' The French Chef' one of the first cooking shows in the U.S. debuts on Boston, Mass station, WGBH. It aired from 1963- 1973
1990
Nelson Mandela is released from prison after serving 27 yrs in South Africa
2013
Pope Benedict XVI announces his retirement becomes the 1st Pope since 1415
2022
Australia lists the Koala as endangered for the 1st time due to steep decline in numbers
 
On This Day In History, February 12th

2002 The trial of Slobodan Milošević begins at The Hague
The former presidents of Yugoslavia and Serbia died 4 years later, before the trial's conclusion.

1994 Edvard Munch's “The Scream” is stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway
The iconic painting, one of a series of four, was recovered several months later.

1924 George Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue” premieres
The piece is among Gershwin's best-known compositions and one of the most popular pieces of the symphonic jazz genre.

1912 The last Emperor of China abdicates at the age of 6
Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City after a military coup in 1924. He died on October 17, 1967, aged 61.

1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in the U.S.
The NAACP is one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States.
 

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