This day in history

[Richard Frost]

19th February

197 Battle of Lugdunum [Battle of Lyon]: Roman Emperor, Lucius Septimius Severus' army beats Clodius Albinus at Lyon

356 Emperor Constantius II shuts all heathen temples

842 Medieval Iconoclastic Controversy ends as a council in Constantinople formally reinstates the veneration of icons in churches

1516 Consecration of the Lady Chapel, part of Westminster Abbey, by Henry VII, called "one of the most perfect buildings ever erected in England"

1539 Jews of Tyrnau Hungary (then Trnava Czech), expelled

1574 Spanish troops plunder Krommenie, Wormerveer & Jisp, Netherlands

1582 Francis of Valois, Duke of Anjou gains the title Duke of Brabant, the hereditary sovereign of the Dutch United Provinces

1594 Having already inherited the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth through his mother, Catherine Jagellonica of Poland, Sigismund III of the House of Vasa is crowned King of Sweden, succeeding his father John III of Sweden.

1600 Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in South American recorded history

1624 English "Happy Parliament", the final Parliament of King James I opens at Westminster

1634 Battle of Smolensk: King Wladyslaw IV of Poland beats Russians

1674 Netherlands & England sign Peace of Westminster (NYC becomes English)

1771 French astronomer Charles Messier adds M46-M49 to his catalog (galactic clusters in Puppis & Hydra & galaxy in Virgo)

1797 The Peace of Tolentino : Pope Pius VI cedes Papal territories of Avignon, Venaissin, Ferrara, Bologna, and the Romagna to France

1807 British squadron under Admiral Duckworth attempts to force passage of Dardanelles

1819 British explorer William Smith discovers the South Shetland Islands, and claims them in the name of King George III

1878 Thomas Edison is granted a patent for his gramophone (phonograph)

1884 "Enigma Outbreak" of over 60 tornadoes in Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana kill hundreds, if not over a thousand (hence the "enigma") people

1900 British troops occupy Hlangwane, Natal

1906 W.K. Kellogg (after falling out with brother over development credit and wanting to add sugar to cereal) joins Charles D. Bolin in founding the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, now the multinational food manufacturer Kellogg's

1915 British fleet opens fire on Dardanelles coast

1927 General strike against British occupiers in Shanghai

1936 Manuel Azaña becomes Prime Minister of Spain for the second time

1943 German tanks under Major General Karl Buelowius attack Kasserine Pass, Tunisia

1944 823 British bombers attack Berlin

1944 U-264 sinks off Ireland

1945 980 Japanese soldiers reportedly killed by crocodiles in 2 days on Ramree Island, Burma

1959 Britain, Turkey & Greece sign agreement granting Cyprus independence

1964 UK flies ½ ton of Beatles wigs to the US

1970 USSR launches Sputnik 52 & Molniya 1-13 communications satellite

1971 British TV chat show "Parkinson" debuts on BBC1 presented by Michael Parkinson

1985 British soap opera "Eastenders" premieres on the BBC

1985 Canned & bottled Cherry Coke introduced by Coca-Cola

1985 Mickey Mouse welcomed in China

2004 Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal is awarded an honorary knighthood in recognition of a "lifetime of service to humanity."

2012 44 people killed in prison brawl in Apocada, Mexico, between two rival drug cartels

2013 12 people are killed and 11 are injured after a Yemeni Air Force plane crashes in Sana'a

2014 Death toll in Ukraine reaches 26 after Government crackdown on protesters

2018 At least 17 killed when a garbage mound collapses in Maputo, Mozambique

[Richard Frost]

20th February

The Friendship 7 spacecraft and its pilot, Major John Glenn, make three orbits around the Earth and travel 65,763 nautical miles in just under five hours. Glenn's flight, called the Mercury-Atlas 6, comes just months after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's successful orbit of Earth on April 12, 1961.

1280 Japanese Imperial Court orders all temples and shrines to pray for victory in the impending second Mongol invasion

1472 Orkney and Shetland are left by Norway to Scotland, due to a dowry payment

1547 King Edward VI of England crowned following the death of his father Henry VIII

1653 Defeat of Dutch fleet under Adm Van Tromp by Admiral Blake off Portsmouth

1673 1st recorded wine auction held in London

1725 10 sleeping Indians scalped by whites in New Hampshire for £100 a scalp bounty

1745 Jacobite troops occupy Fort Augustus, Scotland

1798 French General Louis Alexandre Berthier forcibly removes Pope Pius VI from Rome during French occupation of Rome (Pope later dies a prisoner in Valence)

1810 Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean patriot and leader of rebellion against Napoleon's forces, executed.

1811 Austria declares bankruptcy

1823 English Captain James Weddell reaches 74°15' S, 1520 km from South Pole

1835 Concepcion, Chile, destroyed by earthquake; 5,000 die

1846 British occupy Sikh citadel of Lahore

1856 The steam packet-ship John Rutledge, en route from Liverpool to New York, hits an iceberg and sinks with the loss of 120 passengers and 19 crew; only one survivor (Thomas Nye of New Bedford

1872 Hydraulic electric elevator patented by Cyrus Baldwin

1872 Luther Crowell patents a machine that manufactures paper bags

1872 Silas Noble & JP Cooley patents toothpick manufacturing machine

1873 British Naval Officer John Moresby discovers the site of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea and claims it for the United Kingdom

1913 King O'Malley drives in the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of Australian capital Canberra

1919 French Prime Minister Georges Clémenceau injured during assassination attempt

1922 Vilnius, Lithuania, agrees to separate from Poland

1933 US House of Representatives completes congressional action to repeal Prohibition

1938 UK Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigns stating Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has appeased Nazi Germany

1941 1st transport of Jews to concentration camps leave Plotsk Poland

1941 Nazi Germany orders Polish Jews barred from using public transportation

1943 New volcano Paracutin erupts in farmer's corn field (Mexico)

1944 Battle of Eniwetok: US forces take Enewetak Atoll at the cost of 37 Americans killed or missing and 94 wounded, Japanese losses were 800 dead and 23 prisoners

1944 World War II: The "Big Week" began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centres

1947 Chemical mixing error causes explosion that destroys 42 blocks in LA

1947 Earl Mountbatten of Burma appointed as last viceroy of India to oversee the move to independence

1947 State of Prussia ceases to exist.

1962 John Glenn becomes the 1st American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7

1965 Ranger 8 makes hard landing on the Moon, returns photos, other data

1971 National Emergency Center erroneously orders US radio & TV stations to go off the air. Mistake wasn't resolved for 30 minutes

1979 11 'loyalists' known as the "Shankill Butchers" are sentenced to life in prison for 19 murders; the gang was named for its late-night kidnapping, torture and murder (by throat slashing) of random Catholic civilians in Belfast

1987 Bomb blamed on Unabomber explodes by a computer store in Salt Lake City

1988 500 die in heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1989 An IRA bomb destroys a section of a British Army barracks in Ternhill, Shropshire. Now known as Clive Barracks.

1991 A gigantic statue of Albania's long-time dictator, Enver Hoxha, is brought down in the Albanian capital, Tirana, by mobs of angry protesters

1994 3 Afghans take 70 Pakistani children hostage

1998 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan lands in Baghdad, for peace negotiations

2002 In Reqa Al-Gharbiya, Egypt, a fire on a train injures over 65 and kills at least 370.

2003 Pyrotechnics display sets 'The Station' nightclub ablaze during a concert by rock band Great White; kills 100 and injuries over 300 others (West Warwick, Rhode Island)

2005 Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout.

2010 On the Portuguese Atlantic island of Madeira heavy rain causes floods and mudslides, leaving at least 32 deaths in the worst disaster on the history of the archipelago.

2012 Scientists successfully regenerate the flowering plant, Silene stenophylla from a 31,800 year old piece of fruit, greatly surpassing the previous record of 2,000 years

2018 Queen Elizabeth II makes surprise appearance at London fashion week

2018 Venezuela becomes the first country to launch a virtual currency, the petro, to counteract their financial crisis

2020 New Bank of England £20 note with painter JMW Turner released, replacing earlier one with economist Adam Smith

2021 Bloodiest day of protests in Myanmar since its coup after security forces open fire, killing two people with 40 wounded in Mandalay

2021 US President Joe Biden declares a major disaster in Texas as state struggles to cope with aftermath of a crippling winter storm

2022 95-year-old Queen Elizabeth II tests positive for COVID-19

[Richard Frost]

21st February

1173 Pope Alexander III canonizes Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury

1431 Joan of Arc's first day of interrogation during her trial for heresy

1440 The Prussian Confederation is formed

1598 Boris Godunov crowned Tsar of Russia

1613 Michael Romanov, son of Patriarch of Moscow, elected first Russian Tsar of the house of Romanov

1675 Prince William of Orange appointed viceroy of Gelderland

1746 Jacobite Rising 1745: British forces surrender Inverness Castle to Bonnie Prince Charlie (Pretender to the British throne) and the Jacobite forces

1764 English House of Commons tries John Wilkes in absentia and finds him guilty of publishing a seditious libel for his "Essay on Women," an obscene parody of Alexander Pope’s "Essay on Man"

1795 Freedom of worship established in France under constitution

1797 Trinidad, West Indies, a Spanish colony, surrenders to the British

1804 1st locomotive, Richard Trevithick's, runs for the 1st time, along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil

1808 Russia invades Finland, then part of the Swedish Kingdom, with 24,000 troops

1842 1st known sewing machine patented in US by John Greenough of Washington, D.C.

1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish "The Communist Manifesto" in London

1861 Steeple of Chichester Cathedral collapses despite the desperate efforts of 70 workmen

1874 Benjamin Disraeli succeeds William Gladstone as British Prime Minister

1914 In a secret meeting of civil and military leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov convinces them to support a plan for seizing the straits, controlled by Turkey, that block access to the Mediterranean

1915 Russian 20th Army corps surrenders to the German 10th Army after being surrounded

1916 World War I: Battle of Verdun begins with a German offensive, leads to an estimated 1 million casualties and becomes the longest battle of the entire war (9 months)

1917 British troopship SS Mendi sinks off Isle of Wight, 646 die

1919 Kurt Eisner, Premier of the Bavarian Republic, is assassinated by a far-right German nationalist in Munich
1919 Revolutionary strike in Barcelona

1922 Britain declares Egypt a sovereign state

1922 Irish Nationalist Eamon De Valera calls a convention of the Sinn Féin, declaring the Republican Government the only legitimate one in all Ireland

1931 Alka Seltzer introduced

1937 The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War

1945 Battle of Monte Castello (Italy): Allied forces, including the first land battle of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, defeat Germans after three months of fierce fighting in the foothills of the Apennine Mountains

1945 Dutch Archbishop of Utrecht Johannes de Jong calls for help with war casualties following the Nazi occupation of Netherlands from the allies

1945 Operation Veritable: British Army captures Goch from Germany, forcing German retreat away from the Rhineland

1946 Anti-British demonstrations in Egypt

1952 Bangladesh Martyrs Day (martyrs of Bengali Language Movement)

1958 British artist Gerald Holtom designs Nuclear Disarmament logo, based on blended semaphore signals for the letters N and D; it later became an international peace symbol

1964 UK flies 24,000 rolls of Beatles wallpaper to US

1971 Series of tornadoes cuts through Mississippi & Louisiana killing 117

1972 Richard Nixon becomes the first US President to visit China, normalizing relations between the countries in a meeting with Chinese leader Mao Zedong in Beijing

1972 The first session of the Widgery Tribunal, investigating the events of 'Bloody Sunday' (30 January 1972), is held in Coleraine, County Derry

1973 Israeli fighters shoot Libyan aircraft down, killing 108

1991 USSR announces that Iraq has agreed to a proposal to end the Gulf War, but the US calls the plan unacceptable

1997 NASA's STS 82 (Space Shuttle Discovery 22) lands

1999 Lahore Declaration signed between India's Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan's Navaz Sharif on use of nuclear weapons

2013 21 people are killed and 54 are injured in a bombing in Hyderabad, India

2013 83 people are killed and 250 are injured in a series of bombing attacks in Damascus, Syria

2014 11 people are killed after a Libyan Air Force plan crashes in Tunisia

2014 Police in Kiev open fire on protesters: 27 killed and around 570 injured

2016 Bombings in the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus kill 140 people, Islamic State claims responsibility

2017 Bodies of 87 African migrants wash ashore at Zawiya, Libya

2017 Plane crashes into shopping centre in Essendon, Melbourne, Australia killing the five people on board

2019 Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 touches down on asteroid Ryugu on mission to collect rock samples

2019 The Lunar Library, a 30 million page digital library launched on board Israel’s Beresheet Lunar Lander, aiming to be stored on the Moon

2021 India's BJP party issues resolution country had "defeated COVID under the able, sensitive, committed and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”, massive second wave hits two months later

2021 WHO pleads with Tanzania to start reporting COVID-19 cases amid fears of a hidden epidemic in the country

2022 60 people die in an explosion at an unregulated gold mine near Gaoua, Burkina Faso

2022 Australia's international border reopens to vaccinated tourists after 704 days, nearly two years

2022 Russian leader Vladimir Putin recognises Russia-backed separatists in two Ukrainian regions, ordering in troops for "peacekeeping functions"

[macliam]

21st February

1922 Irish Nationalist Eamon De Valera calls a convention of the Sinn Féin, declaring the Republican Government the only legitimate one in all Ireland

This is true, but it must be remembered that de Valera was at this time the leader of the Anti-Treaty minority having resigned his position in Daíl Eireann when the treaty was ratified in January 1922. This was the preamble to the Irish Civil War.

1922 - the Civic Guard (renamed An Garda Síochána na hÉireann in 1923) was created by Michael Collins, leader of Daíl Eireann. However, it was not until the Dublin Metropolitan Police merged with it in 1925 that it became the national police force.

1933 - Nina Simone was born in Tyron, North Carolina.

1937 The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War

This had no effect... the various volunteer units of the Republican forces continued to fight in the 15th International Brigade until the Republican government mistakenly abolished it in 1938 in the hope that the league would also enforce the withdrawal of Italian and German support for the Nationalist side.

1947 - The first instant developing camera was demonstrated by Thomas Land. The first "Polaroid" camera went on sale in Boston a year later and sold out in minutes.

1965 - Malcolm X was assassinated in new York.

[Richard Frost]

22nd February

303 1st official Roman edict for persecution of Christians issued by Emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia, ordering all churches to be closed and scriptures burnt

896 Pope Formosus crowned Arnulf King of Carinthia and Holy Roman Emperor

1071 Battle of Cassel; Robert I the Frisian defeats Arnulf III/I

1281 Simon de Brion elected Pope Martinus IV

1288 Girolamo Masci elected Pope Nicolas IV

1300 Pope Boniface VIII issues papal bull (decree) instating a Jubilee Year, granting forgiveness of sins and debts for those who fulfill various conditions

1349 Jews are expelled from Zurich, Switzerland

1415 English King Henry V lays the foundation stone for Syon Abbey for nuns of the Bridgettine Order. Became one of the wealthiest abbeys in England.

1495 French King Charles VIII enters Naples to claim crown

1561 William of Orange appointed viceroy of Burgundy and Charolais

1632 Galileo's book "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" is published comparing the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems and whether the Earth orbits the sun

1633 St. Peter's Baldachin, the cathedral's sculptural centerpiece, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini is inaugurated by Pope Urban VIII in Rome

1656 New Amsterdam granted a Jewish burial site

1744 Battle of Toulon or Battle of Cape Sicié: British vs. French & Spanish fleet

1746 French troops conquer Brussels

1746 Jacobite troops vacate Aberdeen

1774 British House of Lords rules authors do not have perpetual copyright

1775 Jews expelled from outskirts of Warsaw, Poland

1797 The Last Invasion of Britain, launched by the French during the Revolutionary Wars, begins near Fishguard, Wales

1825 Russia & Britain establish Alaska-Canada boundary

1879 First "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store" opened by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Utica, New York. It fails almost immediately.

1904 The Hague Tribunal gives its decision in claims against Venezuela; it sets the sum to be paid by Venezuela and gives preferential treatment to the three powers that initiated the block - Britain, Germany, and Italy

1904 The United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina; the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.

1907 1st cabs with taxi meters begin operating in London

1911 The Canadian Parliament resolves to maintain union with the British Empire, while controlling domestic fiscal affairs

1915 Germany begins "unrestricted" submarine war

1916 The House-Grey Memorandum, drafted by US and Britain, states: 'Should the Allies accept [the American idea of a conference to end the war] and should Germany refuse it, the United States would "probably" enter the war against Germany'

1917 German Navy torpedoes 7 Dutch ships

1918 Germany claims Baltic states, Finland & Ukraine from Russia

1922 London issues a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence

1933 Hungarian scholar and the founder of Tibetan studies Alexander Csoma de Kőrös declared a Bodhisattva (Buddhist saint) in Japan

1933 Malcolm Campbell sets world land speed record speed of 272.46 mph driving his famous Blue Bird car at Daytona Beach, Florida

1934 André Malraux and Édouard Corniglion-Molinier set out to find the lost capital of the Queen of Sheba, as mentioned in the Old Testament

1939 Netherlands recognizes Francisco Franco's dictatorial regime in Spain

1940 German air force sinks 2 German destroyers, killing 578

1941 Arthur "Bomber" Harris becomes British Air Marshal

1941 German assault on El Agheila Libya

1941 Nazi police raid Amsterdam and roundup 429 young Jews for deportation to be sent to Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps

1943 3 members of White Rose student anti-Nazi resistance group are executed in Munich, Germany

1943 Plane crash in the Tagus River, Lisbon, Portugal kills 23 with 15 survivors including singer Jane Froman

1944 World War II: US Army Air Forces accidentally bomb Dutch town of Nijmegen, around 800 civilians die

1945 British troops take Ramree Island, Burma

1948 Arabs bomb attack in Jerusalem, 50 die

1955 British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sets sail

1958 Egypt & Syria form United Arab Republic (UAR)

1965 USSR launches Kosmos 57 into earth orbit (Voskhod Test)

1966 Soviets launch Kosmos 110 with Veterok & Ugolek, 1st 2-dog crew

1967 25,000 US and South Vietnamese troops launch Operation Junction City against the Viet Cong. Largest US airborne assault since WWII.

1972 The Official IRA bombs Aldershot military barracks, the headquarters of the British Parachute Regiment, killing seven people; thought to be in retaliation for Bloody Sunday.

1979 St Lucia gains independence from Britain

1980 Afghanistan declares martial law

1983 Hindus kill 3000 Muslims in Assam, India

1989 UK physicist Stephen Hawking calls the proposed missile defense system known as Star Wars a "deliberate fraud"

1989 US authors demonstrate against Iranian death threats against Salman Rushdee, author of "The Satanic Verses"

1995 Algiers police kill at least 99 prison rioters

1995 Steve Fossett completes 1st air balloon over Pacific Ocean (9600 km)

1997 Dolly the Sheep, world's first cloned mammal (from an adult cell) is announced by the Roslin Institute in Scotland

2006 At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery ever, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or 78€ million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent

2011 An earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude strikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 181 people

2012 Train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 50 and injures hundreds

2013 13 Chadian soldiers and 65 Muslim insurgents are killed in conflict in Northern Mali

2013 29 people are killed and 150 are injured by 3 Syrian army missiles in Aleppo

2014 Viktor Yanukovych is ousted as President of Ukraine by the parliament following the Euromaidan revolution

2016 10 million people are without water in Delhi after caste protests in Jat sabotage the Munak water canal

2017 Discovery of 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting star Trappist-1 announced in Journal "Nature" - raises possibility of alien life

2017 US President Donald Trump overturns Obama directive on Transgender rights to use toilets

2018 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stirs up controversy by declaring he prefers quinoa to rice, the national dish

2018 Neanderthals, not humans, were the first artists on Earth, producing red cave paintings 65,000 years ago in Spain, according to new research published in "Science"

2021 US death toll from COVID-19 passes 500,000, higher than US deaths in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hold a candle-lighting ceremony outside the White House and say "we must not grow numb to the sorrow".

2022 US President Joe Biden announces new sanctions against Russia, saying its latest moves in Ukraine amount to "the beginning of a Russian invasion"

[macliam]

22nd February

1797 The Last Invasion of Britain, launched by the French during the Revolutionary Wars, begins near Fishguard, Wales

Yes-ish and no-ish. The invasion was certainly under the French colours, but La Seconde Légion des Francs (otherwise known as La Légion Noire - "The Black Legion") was commanded by Chef de Brigade William Tate, a 44 year-old Irish-American who did not speak French! They used uniforms and equipment captured at the unsuccessful anti-revolutionary landing at Quiberon in 1795 - British uniforms dyed to a brown/black colour from which the unit got its nickname. After 3 days the force surrendered - some 46 officers and 1178 men - having lost eight men in the landing and four due to enemy action. Some were reportedly British prisoners and there were certainly Irish officers and men amongst them. After brief imprisonment, Tate was returned to France in a prisoner exchange in 1798, along with most of his invasion force.

2018 Neanderthals, not humans, were the first artists on Earth, producing red cave paintings 65,000 years ago in Spain, according to new research published in "Science"

Not directly related, but I remember driving through Cantabria with my sister and her kids in 1984. We misjudged the journey time and found ourselves driving through the foothills of the Picos de Europa at sunset. Driving was pretty tiring, so I pulled into a "layby" for a break and was approached by a guy with an acetylene lantern. He asked if I "wanted to see the cave" as he was just closing. It turned out that his family "owned" a cave just off the road, with paintings like in Altamira. We followed him to the cave and got our own lanterns... and it was wonderful! My sister was worried that her youngest (aged 3) would reach out and touch the paintings - and our "host" explained everything in castillian and then waited for me to translate, nodding whenever he heard a word that suggested I had understood! It cost buttons and I have never forgotten the experience.... one of many we had at that magical time.

1886 - At Ulster Hall in Belfast, Lord Randolph Churchill gave a speech which included the incendiary phrase "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right." to incite militant loyalists against Home Rule.

1933 - General Eoin O'Duffy was forced to resign from his post as Commissioner of the Garda Síochána by new Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, because O'Duffy had urged the outgoing Cumann na nGaedheal Taoiseach, W. T. Cosgrave to stage a military coup rather than hand over power after the election. O'Duffy would then form the Blueshirts, a Fascist organization which suppoterd Franco in Spain.

1995 - Taoiseach John Bruton and British PM John Major launched a framework document pertaining to peace negotiations and government in Northern Ireland. It was the start of the process that led to the Good Friday Agreement.

[Richard Frost]

23rd February

1455 Johannes Gutenberg prints his first Bible (estimated date)

1540 Francisco Vázquez de Coronado's expedition sets off from Mexico in search of the 7 cities of Cibola

1574 France begins 5th "holy war" against Huguenot

1689 Dutch prince William III proclaimed King of England

1782 Engineer James Watt's patent for a rotary motion for the steam engine (his sun-and-planet gear) is granted

1820 Cato Street conspiracy uncovered, attempt to murder British Prime Minister Earl of Liverpool and Government Ministers

1836 Alamo besieged for 13 days until March 6 by Mexican army under General Santa Anna; entire garrison eventually killed

1854 Great Britain & Orange Free state sign Convention of Bloemfontein

1886 "The Times" of London newspaper publishes world's 1st classified ad

1887 French/Italian Riviera struck by Earthquake; 2,000 die

1898 Emile Zola is imprisoned in France for writing his "J'accuse" letter which accused the government of anti-Semitism and of wrongly jailing Alfred Dreyfus

1900 Battle at Hart's Hill, South Africa (Boers vs British army)

1903 The US and Cuba sign an agreement by which Cuba releases Guantanamo and Bahia Hondo to the US for naval stations

1918 First victory of Red Army over the Kaiser's German troops near Narva and Pskov. Since 1923 this date become the Day of Red Army in honour of this victory.

1919 Fascist Party formed in Italy by Benito Mussolini

1940 Walt Disney's animated movie "Pinocchio" released

1941 Plutonium first produced and isolated by American chemist Glenn T. Seaborg at Berkeley

1942 Japanese submarine fires on oil refinery in Ellwood, California

1943 German troops pull back through Kasserine-pass Tunisia

1954 1st mass inoculation against polio with the Jonas Salk vaccine takes place at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1963 Luciano Pavarotti makes his debut at the Vienna State Opera in "La traviata"

1966 Military coup in Syria ends Bitar government

1970 Guyana becomes a republic (National Day)

1980 Oil tanker explosion off Pilos, Greece, causes 37-mil-gallon spillage

1981 "Tejerazo" Spanish coup led by Civil Guard officer Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero Molina fails after televised speech by King Juan Carlos I

1991 Military coup in Thailand, Premier Choonhaven arrested

1991 US President George H. W. Bush gives Iraq a 24-hour deadline to withdraw from Kuwait or face a ground war

1996 "Trainspotting" directed by Danny Boyle based on the book by Irvine Welsh, starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Jonny Lee Miller opens in cinemas in the UK and Ireland

1998 Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders

1998 Tornadoes in Florida kills at least 31

1999 An avalanche destroys the Austrian village of Galtür, killing 31

2007 A train derails on an evening express service near Grayrigg, Cumbria, England, killing one person and injuring 22. This results in hundreds of points being checked over the UK after a few similar accidents.

2007 Japan launches its fourth spy satellite, stepping up its ability to monitor potential threats such as North Korea.

2010 Unknown criminals pour more than 2.5 million litres of diesel oil and other hydrocarbons into the river Lambro, in Northern Italy, causing an environmental disaster.

2012 A series of bomb attacks across 12 Iraqi cities kills 60 and injures 200

2013 51 people are killed and 62 are injured in conflict between rival tribes in Darfur, Sudan

2014 A pro-Euromaidan rally is held in Simferopol, Ukraine, while in Kerch, protesters attempt to replace the Ukrainian flag from city hall with a Russian flag

2019 Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir declares a national emergency, dismisses the federal government and sacks all state governors

2020 China's Supreme Leader Xi Jinping describes the country's COVID-19 outbreak as the China's largest health emergency since 1949

2020 First major COVID-19 outbreak in Europe in Italy with 152 cases and three deaths, prompting emergency measures, locking down 10 towns in Lombardy

2020 President Moon Jae-in puts South Korea on high alert, empowering the government to lock down cities after 602 cases of COVID-19 reported with six deaths

2020 Violent protests against new citizenship laws in Delhi, India erupt leaving at least 38 people dead over the next few days

2021 Covid-19 antibodies survey in Nigeria suggests 4 million people have had the virus in Lagos state alone, more than officially recorded for whole of Africa

2021 Discovery of oldest Australian rock art, a 17,300-year-old painting of a kangaroo in Kimberley region, Western Australia, published in "Nature Human Behaviour"

[Richard Frost]

24th February

1208 St Francis of Assisi, 26, received his vocation in Portiuncula Italy

1387 King Charles III of Naples and Hungary is assassinated at Buda

1496 England's Henry VII ends commercial dispute with Flanders

1510 Pope Julius II excommunicates the republic of Venice

1525 Battle of Pavia: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's troops beat the French. French King Francois I captured, 15,000 killed or wounded

1527 Ferdinand of Austria crowned as king of Bohemia

1528 John Zápolya the disputed King of Hungary and Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sign treaty

1530 1st imperial coronation by a Pope, Charles V crowned by Clement V

1538 Treaty of Nagyvarad/Peace of Grosswardein signed between Ferdinand I of Austria and John Zápolya of Hungary.

1541 Santiago, Chile founded by Pedro de Valvidia (or 2/12)

1552 Privileges of Hanseatic League in England are abrogated

1739 Battle of Karnal: Army of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah

1779 George Rogers Clark captures Vincennes (Ind) from British

1786 Charles Cornwallis appointed governor-general of India

1797 Colonel William Tate and his force of 1,000-1,500 soldiers surrender after the Last Invasion of Britain (according to legend, to Welsh women in tall black hats, mistaken for elite guards regiment)

1804 London's Drury Lane Theatre burns to the ground, leaving owner Richard Brinsley Sheridan destitute

1807 17 die & 15 wounded in a crush to witness the execution of John Holloway, Owen Haggerty & Elizabeth Godfrey http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/godfrey.html

1821 Agustín de Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero agree to the Plan of Iguala, stating that Mexico will become a constitutional monarchy, Roman Catholicism the official religion and that Peninsulares and Creoles will enjoy equal political and social rights

1826 The signing of the Treaty of Yandaboo marks the end of the First Burmese War

1839 Steam shovel patented by William Otis, Philadelphia

1848 King Louis-Philippe abdicates, 2nd French republic declared

1875 The SS Gothenburg hits the Great Barrier Reef and sinks off the Australian east coast, killing approximately 100, including a number of high profile civil servants and dignitaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Gothenburg

1891 French troops under Captain Archinard occupy Diena West Sudan

1894 Nicaragua captures Tegucigalpa, Honduras

1895 Cuban war for independence begins

1902 Battle at Yzer Spruit: Boer General De la Rey beats British

1906 Tomas Estrada Palma defeats Jose Gomez in the election for president of Cuba, but Gomez and his followers refuse to accept results and sponsor an uprising

1918 Estonia declares independence from Russia

1920 Peace treaty gives Estonia independence

1923 "Flying Scotsman" locomotive of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), built at Doncaster Railway Works, goes into service

1924 Greek parliament proclaims republic

1924 Mahatma Gandhi released from jail

1932 Malcolm Campbell sets world land speed record speed of 253.96 mph driving his famous Blue Bird car at Daytona Beach, Florida

1938 Du Pont begins commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles

1944 Minister of War Juan Perón leads a coup in Argentina. Elected President in 1946

1945 Egypt & Syria declare war on nazi-Germany

1945 Egyptian Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree

1945 Manila freed from Japanese

1950 Labour wins UK parliamentary election by 5 seats

1955 Pact of Baghdad signed between Iraq & Turkey

1969 Northern Ireland Stormont parliament elections are held; the Unionist party fragments into 'Official Unionist' and 'Unofficial Unionist'

1970 29 Swiss Army officers die in avalanche (Reckingen, Switzerland)

1974 Pakistan officially recognizes Bangladesh

1976 Cuba adopts its constitution

1979 War between North & South Yemen begins

1981 An earthquake registering 6.7 on the Richter scale hits Athens, killing 16 people and destroying buildings in several towns west of the city.

1981 Prince Charles announces engagement to Lady Diana Spencer

1984 Iraq resumes air attack on Iran

1989 150 million year old fossil egg found in Utah with a fossilized dinosaur embryo inside, the oldest dinosaur egg yet found in the Northern Hemisphere

1996 Cuba downs 2 US planes

1996 The last occurrence of February 24 as a leap day in the European Union and for the Roman Catholic Church.

1998 Elton John knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in London

1999 A China Southern Airlines Tupolev TU-154 airliner crashes on approach to Wenzhou airport in eastern the People's Republic of China, killing 61.

2006 President of the Philippines Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares Proclamation 1017 placing the country in a state of emergency in attempt to subdue possible military coup.

2008 Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba due to ill health after nearly fifty years

2013 10 Chadian soldiers and 28 Muslim insurgents are killed in conflict in Adrar des Ifoghas, Mali

2013 Raúl Castro is elected to a second term as the President of Cuba


2014 7 people are killed & 37 are injured after a bridge collapses in Vietnam

2014 A 4.4 billion-year-old Crystal is discovered to be the oldest known fragment from the earth's crust

2016 Oldest Muslim graves in Europe, from the 8th century, identified at a burial site in Nimes, France

2018 UN Security Council passes resolution for 30 day ceasefire in Syria

2019 At least 133 people have died and 200 treated in hospital after drinking toxic bootleg alcohol in Golaghat district, north-eastern India

2020 Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein found guilty of rape and a criminal sexual act in landmark case that ignited #MeToo movement

2020 Malaysia's 94-year old Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad resigns only to be reinstated later in the day as interim Prime Minister

2020 New York firefighter Daniel Foley, who found his brother's body in ruins of World Trade Center, dies of cancer bringing first responders death toll to 343

2020 Scientists identify the first animal that doesn't need oxygen to breathe - a tiny parasite living in salmon tissue, reported in journal PNAS

2021 United Nations-backed COVAX initiative begins delivering vaccines to middle and low income countries with first AstraZeneca shipment to Ghana

2022 Russian leader Vladimir Putin announces the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine to "demilitarize" the country moments before Russia launches a full-scale pre-dawn invasion by land, air and sea, with bombings in several cities amid international condemnation

2022 Zahir Zakir Jaffer sentenced to death in Islamabad, Pakistan for the rape, murder and beheading of Noor Muqaddam after she refused to marry him, highlighting violence towards women in the country

[macliam]

February 24th

1582 - Pope Gregory XIII announced the new Gregorian calendar, replacing the Julian calendar

1692 - The Treaty of Limerick, ending the Williamite war in Ireland, was ratified by William of Orange

1780 - A British Act of Parliament opened colonial trade to Irish goods

1841 - John Philip Holland, inventor and developer of the modern submarine, was born in Co. Clare

1854 - Death in Bogotá of Daniel Florence O’Leary, Cork-born aide-de-camp to Simón Bolívar.

1919 - Belfast general strike offiicially ends.

1919 - A shop in Kilkenny was raided by the RIC and several pamphlets relating Dáil Éireann were seized.

1920 - A police raid in Dublin led to the arrests of several senior Sinn Féin members

1920 - IRA Vice Commandant Martin Devitt was killed during an ambush in Co. Clare.

1920 - RIC Barracks in Timoleague, Co. Cork and nearby Mount Pleasant were attacked by the IRA.

1920 - The 25 Points, a political manifesto from the NSDAP, was proclaimed by Adolf Hitler in Munich.

2007 - Ireland v England 6-nations Rugby match at Croke Park, Dublin ended in an Ireland win 43 -13.

2022 - Putin announced his decision to launch a "special military operation" in eastern Ukraine. Within minutes, missiles hit airfields, military headquarters and military depots in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. Russian military vehicles entered Ukraine from Belarus and Russian troops entered from Crimea and near Kharkiv as well as a large-scale amphibious landing near Mariupol. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy proclaimed martial law and broke off Russia–Ukraine relations, effective immediately. Russian airborne troops seized Hostomel Airport, near Kyiv and Russia captured Snake Island following naval and air bombardment. All thirteen Ukrainian border guards on the island were assumed to have been killed, after refusing to surrender to a Russian warship. A recording of the refusal went viral on social media.

[Sarah]

22nd April

The construction of Tower Bridge began #onthisday in 1886.

Over 11,00 tons of steel were transported from Glasgow, providing the framework for the Towers and the Walkways. This framework was then clad in Cornish Granite and Portland Stone.

Discover more: http://bit.ly/towerbridgehistory

https://twitter.com/TowerBridge/status/ ... 34914?s=20