This Day in History

[GordMay]

January 25

0041: Claudius I, who extended Roman rule in North Africa, and made Britain a province of the Roman Empire, was affirmed as emperor, raised to the post one day after the murder of his nephew, Gaius Caesar [Caligula].

1840: American naval expedition, under Charles Wilkes, is first to identify Antarctica as a new continent.

1890: Journalist Nellie Bly beats the fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg, around the world, by 8 days [72 days].

1905: At the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a 3,106-carat diamond is discovered during, a routine inspection by the mine’s superintendent, Frederick Wells. Weighing 1.33 pounds, and christened the “Cullinan,” it was the largest diamond ever found.

1924: 1st Winter Olympic Games [‘International Winter Sports Week’] opens in Chamonix, France.

1939: 1st nuclear fission experiment [splitting of a uranium atom] in the US, in basement of Pupin Hall, Columbia University, by a team including Enrico Fermi.
1939: Earthquake hits Chillan, Chile, 10,000 killed.

1941: In an effort to prevent tooth decay, Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first U.S. city to add fluoride to its water system.

1955: Columbia University scientists develop an atomic clock, that is accurate to within one second, in 300 years.

1968: The Israeli submarine “Dakar” [formerly HMS “Totem”], carrying 69 sailors, disappears, and remains missing for some 30 years. The “Dakar” wreckage was finally located, in 1999, between the islands of Cyprus and Crete, at a depth of some 9,800 feet.

1971: In Los Angeles, California, cult leader Charles Manson is convicted, along with followers Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkle, of the brutal 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate, and six others [Tate-LaBianca murders].

1974: Dr. Christiaan Barnard transplants 1st heterotopic heart transplant [adding donor heart without removal of old].

1981: Mao's widow, Jiang Qing [Chiang Ch'ing], sentenced to death, but Chinese supreme court commutes death sentence to life, in 1983.

2016: British rowing team becomes first female crew, and first crew of four, to cross the Pacific, San Francisco to Cairns in 257 days.

2018: ‘Doomsday clock’ moved, by 30 seconds, to 2 minutes to midnight, by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, closest since 1950s.

[GordMay]

The first Winter Games took place from Friday, January 25 to Tuesday, February 5, 1924, in Chamonix, France.

Going back to the very first year, there were 16 events, associated with five sports. The sports that took place were bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey*, skating, figure skating, and Nordic skiing.

For many days leading to the event, it rained in Chamonix. The ice rink looked more like a pond. But Mother Nature was looking out for the athletes. On January 25th, the temperatures dropped, the sun came out, and the games began.

Sixteen countries participated in the games, including the dominating Norway and Finland, and the only overseas nations, the U.S. and Canada.

Those 16 countries were represented by 258 athletes, 245 were men. and 13 were women. At the time, the only sport open to women was figure skating.




* Toronto 'Granites', 1924 Winter Games champions.
Top row, left to right: H. Westerby, D.T. Prentice, H.E. Beatty, W.J. Lumbers, F. Carroll.
Second row: H.S. Smith, Dr. J.M. Sheldon. Third row: H.E. Watson, D.B. Munro, A.J. McCaffrey, H.J. Fox, D.J. Jeffrey.
Bottom row: F.G. Sullivan, E.J. Collett, A.E. Romeril, R.F. Anderson, J.T. Aggett.

[GordMay]

January 26

1500: Spanish explorer Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, who had commanded the "Nina", during Christopher Columbus’ first expedition to the New World, reaches the northeastern coast of Brazil, the first recorded account of a European explorer, sighting the Brazilian coast.

1531: Lisbon hit by Earthquake; about 30,000 die.

1697: Isaac Newton receives Jean Bernoulli's 6 month time-limit mathematical problem. The object was “To find the curve [`brachistochrone'] connecting two points, at different heights and not on the same vertical line, along which a body acted upon only by gravity will fall in the shortest time.” He began working on the problem shortly after 4pm; by 4am he had the solution.
➥ https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.u...achistochrone/

1777: Captain James Cook stops in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), with “Resolution”, for supplies, on his 3rd trip to Pacific Ocean.

1808: ‘Rum Rebellion’, the only successful [albeit short-lived] armed takeover of the government, in Australia.

1818: January 26 became an official holiday, marking the 30th anniversary of British settlement in Australia. ‘Australia Day’ [‘Invasion Day’] commemorates the founding of Australia [in 1788], when Captain Arthur Phillip guides a fleet of 11 British ships [HMS “Sirius” etc], carrying convicts, to the colony of New South Wales [Sydney Cove], effectively founding Australia.

1926: John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor, gives the first public demonstration of a true television [‘televisor’] system, in London. Baird based his televisor on the work of Paul Nipkow, a German scientist who patented his ideas for a complete television system, in 1884.

1950: India became a republic, achieving full independence from Great Britain. Rajendra Prasad elected India's first president.

1972: Serbian air stewardess Vesna Vulovic survives 10,160m fall, without parachute - world's highest fall without a parachute.
1972: ‘Aboriginal Tent Embassy’, protest for land rights, begins on the lawn of Parliament House, Canberra, Australia. Longest continuous protest for indigenous rights in the world.

1980: Israel & Egypt establish diplomatic relations.

1989: AT&T reports 1st loss in 103 years; $1.67 B in 1988.

1998: Intel launches 333 MHz ‘Pentium II’ chip.
1998: US President Bill Clinton says: "I want to say one thing to the American people; I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

2001: A massive earthquake struck near Bhuj, Gujarat, India, killing more than 20,000 people, and causing extensive damage.

2004: A whale explodes, in the town of Tainan, Taiwan. A build-up of gas in the decomposing sperm whale is suspected of causing the explosion.
2004: ‘Mydoom’, the most destructive computer worm [so far], first sighted on computers, in North America. Goes on to cause $38 billion in damages.

2010: The World Health Organization rejects claims that it overstated the severity of the swine flu pandemic, under pressure from vaccine companies.

2020: A helicopter, carrying former pro basketball player, Kobe Bryant [41y/o], his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others crashes in Calabasas, California, killing all aboard.

[GordMay]

January 27

1671: Welsh pirate Henry Morgan lands at the gates of Panama City.

1825: US Congress approves Indian Territory [Oklahoma], clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians, on the ‘Trail of Tears’.

1853: US whaling and sealing vessel the “Levant”, captained by Mercator Cooper, makes the first known landing on mainland Antarctica, at Oates Coast, Victoria land.

1880: Thomas Edison patented the electric incandescent lamp.

1888: National Geographic Society founded, in Washington, D.C., for "the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge". To date, it has given out more than 1,400 grants, funding that helped Robert Peary journey to the North Pole, Richard Byrd fly over the South Pole, Jacques Cousteau delve into the sea, and Jane Goodall observe wild chimpanzees, among many other projects.

1915: US Marines occupy Haiti.

1926: Physicist Erwin Schrödinger publishes his theory of wave mechanics, and presents what becomes known as the ‘Schrödinger equation’, in quantum mechanics.

1944: Siege of Leningrad lifted, after 880 days, and more than 2 million Russians killed.

1945: Soviet troops enter Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, freeing the survivors of the network of concentration camps, and finally revealing to the world, the depth of the horrors perpetrated there.
Auschwitz was really a group of camps, designated I, II, and III. There were also 40 smaller “satellite” camps. It was at Auschwitz II, at Birkenau, established in October 1941, that the SS created a complex, monstrously orchestrated killing ground: 300 prison barracks; four “bathhouses” in which prisoners were gassed; corpse cellars; and cremating ovens. Thousands of prisoners were also used for medical experiments overseen and performed by the camp doctor, Josef Mengele, the ‘Angel of Death’.
In anticipation of the Soviet arrival, SS officers began a murder spree in the camps, shooting sick prisoners, and blowing up crematoria, in a desperate attempt to destroy the evidence of their crimes. When the Red Army finally broke through, Soviet soldiers encountered 648 corpses, and more than 7,000 starving camp survivors. There were also six storehouses, filled with hundreds of thousands of women’s dresses, men's suits, and shoes, that the Germans did not have time to burn.

1956: RCA records releases Elvis Presly single ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, his first million-seller [written by Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden].

1959: NASA selects 110 candidates, for the first U.S. space flight.

1965: 1st ground station-to-aircraft radio communication, via satellite.
1965: ‘Shelby GT 350' [version of Ford Mustang] debuts.

1967: A launch pad fire, during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral, Florida, kills astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee. An investigation indicated that a faulty electrical wire, inside the Apollo 1 command module, was the probable cause of the fire.

1968: French submarine “Minerve” disappears, in the Mediterranean, with the loss of 52 crew.

1973: The United States [William Rogers], South Vietnam, Viet Cong, and North Vietnam [Nguyen Duy Trinh] formally sign “An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam”, in Paris; providing for an exchange of prisoners, and for the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Vietnam.
The last U.S. serviceman to die in combat, in Vietnam, Lt. Col. William B. Nolde, was killed by an artillery shell, at An Loc, 60 miles northwest of Saigon, only 11 hours before the truce went into effect.

1996: Germany celebrates its 1st Holocaust Remembrance Day.

2013: Novak Đoković wins Open era record, 4th Australian men’s crown; beats Andy Murray, of Scotland, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3, 6-2.

2019: Novak Đoković of Serbia wins his record 7th, Australian singles title; beats Spaniard Rafael Nadal 6-3, 6-2, 6-3.

2018: Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad, who founded the home furnishings retailer IKEA, died at age 91.

[SV_FlyingTigress]

We missed Burns Night on 1/25. Usually celebrate it with my friends, beer, poetry and haggis.

[GordMay]

January 28

0814: Charlemagne, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, died at Aachen (Germany).

1624: Sir Thomas Warner founds the first English colony, in the Caribbean, on Saint Kitts.

1754: Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word ‘serendipity’.

1915: Congress created the U.S. Coast Guard, by combining the Revenue Cutter Service, with the U.S. Lifesaving Service.
1915: 1st US ship lost in WW I, “William P Frye” (carrying wheat to UK).

1921: Albert Einstein startles Berlin, by suggesting the possibility of measuring the universe, with his address ‘Geometry and Experience’, given at the Prussian Academy of Sciences, in Berlin.
➥ https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.u...tein_geometry/

1958: Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, whose father founded the company LEGO, in Denmark, filed for a Danish patent (later granted) for a toy building block, that became hugely popular around the world.

1980: USCGC “Blackthorn” (WLB-391) collides with the tanker “Capricorn”, while leaving Tampa Florida, and capsizes, killing 23 Coast Guard crewmembers.

1985: Music stars gather to record “We Are the World”, that would eventually go on to sell more than 7 million copies, and raise more than $60 million for African famine relief.

1986: At 11:38 a.m. EST, the space shuttle “Challenger” lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space, when, seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief, as the shuttle broke up, in a forking plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors. The resulting investigation determined that the disaster was caused by the failure of an “O-ring” seal, in one of the two solid-fuel rockets. The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected, because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the massive loss.

2014: DNA analysis confirms that the 6th century ‘Plague of Justinian’ was caused by a variant of Yersinia pestis (the same bacteria for the Black Death).

[sailorboy1]

Today in 1917 the US Congress created the US Coast Guard by combining the Revenue Cutter Service and the US Lifesaving Service

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Today in 1917 the US Congress created the US Coast Guard by combining the Revenue Cutter Service and the US Lifesaving Service

According to the USCG hisrian: “The service received its present name in 1915 under an act of Congress when the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the Life-Saving Service.", as I noted, in my previous post.
➥ https://www.history.uscg.mil/home/history-program/

[BillyOram]

Gordmay, thank you so much. I find these very interesting. I have researched some and find even more interesting info

[GordMay]

January 29

0661: Rashidun Caliphate, then the largest empire in history, ends with the death of its leader, Ali. Succeeded by the Umayyad Caliphate.

1594: Mathematician John Napier dedicates his ‘Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John’ to King James VI, predicts end of the world, in 1688 or 1700.

1819: British East India Company administrator, Sir Stamford Raffles, established the port of Singapore.

1820: Ten years after mental illness forced him to retire from public life, King George III, the British king who lost the American colonies, dies at the age of 81.

1840: First Governor of New Zealand, and co-author of the ‘Treaty of Waitangi’, Captain William Hobson arrives in the Bay of Islands, NZ.

1886: German mechanical engineer, Karl Benz, patented the first practical automobile, powered by an internal-combustion engine [‘Benz Patent-Motorwagen Nummer 1'], in Karlsruhe, Germany.

1892: The Coca-Cola Company is incorporated, in Atlanta, Georgia.

1896: Emile Grubbe is the first doctor to use radiation treatment, for breast cancer.

1919: The Eighteenth [Prohibition] Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, and went into effect the following year.

1936: The U.S. Baseball Hall of Fame elects its first members, in Cooperstown, New York: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson. Ty Cobb was the most productive hitter in history; Babe Ruth was, both, an ace pitcher, and the greatest home-run hitter to play the game; Honus Wagner was a versatile star shortstop, and batting champion; Christy Matthewson had more wins than any pitcher in National League history; and Walter Johnson was considered one of the most powerful pitchers to ever have taken the mound.

1943: New Zealand cruiser “Kiwi” rams Japanese submarine “I-1", at Guadalcanal.
➥ https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/bird-c...kiwi-bag-a-sub

1944: The last battleship commissioned by the US Navy, USS “Missouri III”, is launched.
➥ https://www.history.navy.mil/researc...souri-iii.html

1978: Sweden outlaws aerosol sprays, due to their harmful effect on the ozone layer, becoming the first nation to enact such a ban.

1980: 6 Iranian-held, US hostages escape, with help of Canadians ['Canadian Caper' - 'Argo']
➥ https://diplomacy.state.gov/argo-and-the-canadian-six/

1990: “Exxon Valdez” captain, Joseph Hazelwood, goes on trial, due to oil spill.

1996: President Jaques Chirac announced the “definite end” to France's nuclear testing program, just 1 day after the country exploded a nuclear device, in the South Pacific.

2015: Malaysia officially declares the disappearance of missing flight “MH370" an accident.

2019: Approaching ‘polar vortex’ prompts state of emergency to be declared in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Alabama and Mississippi. US Postal Service suspends deliveries to ten states.

2021: Johnson & Johnson's Janssen single-dose vaccine shown to be 66% effective in trials, with complete protection against hospitalization and death.
➥ https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55857530
2021: Novavax vaccine shows 89% efficacy in UK trials, including against UK variant.
➥ https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55850352

[GordMay]

January 30

1607: Massive flooding in England destroys around 200 square miles of coastline, and results in approximately 2,000 casualties.

1647: After nine months of negotiations, Scottish Presbyterians sell captured Charles I to Cromwell’s English Parliament, for around £100,000.

1649: King Charles I [of Great Britain and Ireland], whose authoritarian rule, and quarrels with Parliament provoked the English Civil War, is beheaded, for treason.

1661: Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed, after having been dead for two years

1774: Captain James Cook reaches 71°10' south, 1820km from south pole [record].

1790: Lifeboat 1st tested at sea, by Mr Greathead, the inventor.

1815: Burned US ‘Library of Congress’ re-established, with Thomas Jefferson's 6,500 volumes.

1820: British explorer Edward Bransfield, aboard “Williams”, sights Trinity Peninsula, Antarctica, claiming it for Britain.

1862: The USS “Monitor”, US Navy's 1st ironclad warship, is launched, at Greenpoint, Long Island.

1895; SS “Elbe” sinks, after collision in North Sea, 332 killed.

1911: The Canadian Naval Service becomes the Royal Canadian Navy.

1920: Jujiro Matsuda forms Toyo Cork Kogyo, a business that makes cork, in Hiroshima, Japan; just over a decade later the company produces its first automobile, and eventually changes its name to Mazda.

1933: President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader [führer] of the National Socialist German Workers Party [‘Nazi’ Party], as Reich Chancellor of Germany. WWI General Erich Ludendorff sends a letter to him stating: "this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery"

1945: One of the greatest maritime disasters in history occurred, as the German ocean liner “Wilhelm Gustloff” was sunk, off Danzig, by a Soviet submarine, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 9,400 people.

1948: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is assassinated, in New Delhi, by Hindu extremist, Nathuram Godse.

1959: MS “Hans Hedtoft” sinks, 95 die.

1961: US President John F. Kennedy asks for an ‘Alliance for Progress’, & ‘Peace Corps’.

1962: 2 members of Flying Wallendas' high-wire act killed, when their 7-person pyramid collapsed, during a performance, in Detroit.

1963: Ivan Sutherland submits a thesis, containing his ‘Sketchpad’ program, a forerunner to modern-day graphic user interfaces, and computer-aided design programs.

1965: State funeral for Winston Churchill, at St Paul's Cathedral, in London; at the time, the world's largest ever state funeral.

1968: Viet Cong, and the North Vietnamese, launch the ‘Tet offensive’, against South Vietnamese, and US forces.

1969: ‘The Beatles’ perform their last live gig, a 42 minute concert, on the roof of Apple Corps HQ, in London, England.

1972: A demonstration, by Roman Catholic civil rights supporters, in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, turned violent, when British paratroopers opened fire, killing 13 and injuring 14 others; Bloody Sunday, as it became known, precipitated an upsurge in support for the Irish Republican Army. This is the highest death toll, from a single shooting incident, during 'the Troubles'.

1973: Jury finds Watergate defendants Liddy & McCord guilty, on all counts of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping.

1975: Ernő Rubik applies for a patent for his ‘Magic Cube’ invention, later to be known as a ‘Rubik's cube’.

1982: Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, when he was in the 9th grade. ‘Elk Cloner’ is 400 lines long, and disguised as an Apple II boot program. It is widely believed to have been one of the first large-scale, self-spreading, personal computer viruses ever created
➥ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk_Cloner

1992: Inventor Ray Kurzweil publishes his first book, ‘The Age of Intelligent Machines’, on artificial intelligence, predicting the popularity of the internet.

1994: Péter Lékó becomes the youngest chess Grand Master. Lékó earned the International Master title in 1992. In 1994 he became a Grandmaster, at the age of 14 years, 4 months and 22 days, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record, previously held by Judit Polgár.

1995: Workers from the National Institutes of Health announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease.
1995: Flooding forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from low-lying areas of the Netherlands.

2017: Scientists in central China reveal oldest known human ancestor - 540-million-year-old ‘Saccorhytus’, in a fossil.

2019: Scientists reveal discovery of cavity six miles long, 1,000 feet deep, under Thwaites Glacier, in West Antarctica, leading to fears it might collapse, and raise sea levels by two feet.
➥ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/huge-c...ls-rapid-decay
➥ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau3433

2020: The World Health Organization declares COVID-19 a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’, at a meeting in Geneva

[GordMay]

January 31

1865: The U.S. House of Representatives passes [121-24] the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in America. The amendment read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

1880: The ship "Atlanta," with 290 people aboard, vanished, after leaving a Bermuda port.

1907: Timothy Eaton, founder of the T. Eaton Company of Canada, died in Toronto, at age 72. He revolutionized Canadian retailing, by introducing cash sales, and fixed prices for goods; replacing the old credit, bargain and barter method.

1918: A series of accidental collisions, on a misty Scottish night, leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines, with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.

1928: ‘Scotch’ tape 1st marketed, by 3-M Company.

1929: Revolutionary Leon Trotsky, and his family, were expelled from the Soviet Union.

1945: Pvt. Eddie Slovik becomes the first American soldier, since the Civil War, to be executed for desertion - and the only one who suffered such a fate during, World War II.

1950: U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announces his decision to support the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful, than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, during World War II. On November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated ‘Mike’ the world’s first hydrogen bomb, on the Eniwetok Atoll, in the Pacific Marshall Islands. The 10.4-megaton thermonuclear device, built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation implosion, instantly vaporized an entire island, and left behind a crater more than a mile wide.

1958: “Explorer 1" was the first artificial space satellite ,orbited by the United States, marking the country's entry into the space race.

1966: The Soviets launched “Luna 9", the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.

1968: As part of the Tet Offensive, a squad of Viet Cong guerillas seized, and held [6 hrs], the U.S. Embassy, in Saigon.

1990: McDonald's opened its first outlet in the Soviet Union, in Moscow's Pushkin Square. Thousands lined up for hours, to eat in the 700-seat restaurant, the company's largest in the world.

2003: The Waterfall rail accident occurs, near Waterfall, New South Wales, Australia.

2009: Hundreds of impoverished people, in Molo, Kenya, flocked to an overturned tanker, to siphon fuel, when it exploded, and killed at least 113, and injured 200 others.

2018: The Trump administration formally suspends the “destructive and horrible” Clean Water Act [WOTUS]. The repeal returns the US to water standards from 1986.

2020: The United Kingdom formally left the European Union, more than three years after the country voted for “Brexit.”
2020: The United States declared a public health emergency, because of the novel coronavirus. Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, also announced that President Donald Trump would temporarily bar foreign nationals, believed to be a risk for transmitting the virus, from entering the U-S.

[GordMay]

On Wednesday, January 31, 1906, Ecuador and Colombia were hit with an 8.8 magnitude earthquake. On the Richter scale (which was only developed in 1935), this magnitude is categorized as a "great earthquake," which is the most severe group.

The quake triggered a tsunami that killed around 500 people (death toll reported between 500-1,500). The tsunami reached heights of 5 metres. The tsunami affected areas such as Tumaco, Colombia, Hilo, Hawaii and even made it to Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, California and Japan.

The earthquake occurred over a 500–600 km-span. This is the strongest earthquake for this zone, though four major events have occurred in the same area.

The coastal areas of Ecuador and Colombia are prone to megathrust earthquakes that are associated with their geographical location on the Malpelo-North Andes plate boundary.
Subsequent earthquakes include 1942 (Mw = 7.8), 1958 (Mw = 7.7), 1979 (Mw = 8.2), and 2016 (Mw = 7.8). The 2016 earthquake killed 676 people injured 16,600.
In 1868, Colombia and Ecuador experienced their most deadly earthquake in their history, killing 70,000 people.

[GordMay]

February 1

1788: 1st US steamboat patent issued, by Georgia, to Briggs & Longstreet.

1790: In the Royal Exchange Building, on New York City’s Broad Street, the Supreme Court of the United States meets for the first time, with Chief Justice John Jay, of New York, presiding.

1884: The first portion [A-Ant], or fascicle, of the Oxford English Dictionary [OED], considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, is published. Conceived of as a four-volume, 6,400-page work, it was estimated the project would take 10 years to finish. In fact, it took over 40 years until the 125th, and final, fascicle was published, in April 1928, and the full dictionary was complete [over 400,000 words and phrases in 10 volumes], and published under the title ‘A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles’.

1917: German Grand Admiral, Alfred von Tirpitz, announces unrestricted submarine warfare, against allied shipping.

1920: Royal Canadian Mounted Police [RCMP] forms, as Royal Northwest Mounted Police merge with Dominion Police.

1933: German Parliament is dissolved, by President [& WWI General] Paul von Hindenburg, by the request of new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler.

1942: Second Norwegian government, of Prime Minister [& Nazi Collaborator] Vidkun Quisling’s Nasjonal Samling [National Union] party forms. On the 24th of October, 1945, Quisling was executed [found guilty of embezzlement, and murder, to high treason], by firing squad, in Oslo, at Akershus Fortress.

1943: Mussert forms pro-Nazi shadow cabinet, in Netherlands.

1946: Norwegian politician and diplomat, Trygve Lie, was elected the first secretary-general of the United Nations.

1948: Nine Malay sultanates, and two British Straits Settlements [Penang and Malacca] form the Federation of Malaya.

1957: Felix Wankel's first working prototype ‘DKM 54', of the rotary Wankel engine, was running, at the NSU research and development department Versuchsabteilung TX, in Germany.

1961: 1st full-scale test, of US ‘Minuteman’ ICBM, is successful.

1964: The ‘Beatles' 1st #1 hit, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, topped the Hot 100, stays #1 for 7 weeks, before being replaced by ‘She Loves You’, also by The Beatles.

1968: Saigon police chief, Nguy n Ng c Loan, executes Viet Cong officer, Nguy n Văn Lém, with a pistol shot to head. The execution is captured by photographer Eddie Adams, and becomes an anti-war icon.
➥ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42864421


1972: 1st scientific hand-held calculator [‘HP-35'] introduced [$395].

2003: While returning to Earth from an orbital mission, the U.S. space shuttle “Columbia” broke up catastrophically, at an altitude of about 40 miles (60 km) over Texas, killing all seven crew members.

2004: 'Nipplegate' controversy, at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show. Justin Timberlake briefly exposed one of Janet Jackson’s breasts, in what was later described as a "wardrobe malfunction." New England Patriots beat Carolina Panthers, 32-29.

2009: Icelandic politician, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, was sworn in as the Iceland's prime minister, becoming the first woman to hold that post in Iceland, and the world's first openly gay head of government.

2016: WHO declares a global public health emergency, over the rapid spread of zika-linked conditions.
2016: Alphabet, Google's parent company, surpasses Apple, as the world's most valuable company [$568bn vs $535bn], after releasing income results.

2017: British MPs vote in favour of the ‘European Union Bill’, allowing the government to begin ‘Brexit’.

2021: ‘Wisdom’, the world's oldest known bird [albatross], hatches a chick, at 70, at the Midway Atoll national wildlife refuge, North Pacific.

[GordMay]

February 2

1349: By this date, at least 200 people a day, were being buried, in London, as a result of the ‘Black Death’.

1536: Pedro de Mendoza founds Argentine city of Buenos Aires.

1653: New Amsterdam [New York City] was incorporated as a city.

1709: British sailor, Alexander Selkirk, is rescued, by William Dampier, after being marooned on a desert island, for 5 years, his story inspires ‘Robinson Crusoe’.

1812: Staking a tenuous claim to the riches of the Far West, Russians establish ‘Fort Ross’, on the Spanish-controlled coast of California, north of San Francisco. The Russians had begun their expansion into the North American continent, in 1741, with a massive scientific expedition to Alaska. An American emigrant to California, John Sutter bought Fort Ross, in 1841, with an unsecured note for $30,000, that he never paid. He cannibalized the fort, to provide supplies for his colony in the Sacramento Valley, where, seven years later, a chance discovery ignited the California Gold Rush.

1847: The first woman of a group of pioneers, commonly known as the ‘Donner Party’, dies during the group’s journey through a Sierra Nevada mountain pass. The disastrous trip west ended up killing 42 people, and turned many of the survivors into cannibals.

1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican-American War, in favor of the United States. The Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo added an additional 525,000 square miles to United States territory, including the area that would become the states of Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming [for $15 m]. Although President Polk’s war was successful, he lost public support, after two bloody years of fighting, during which the U.S. lost 1,773 men, and spent a whopping $100 million.
1848: 1st ship load of Chinese immigrants arrive in San Francisco.

1870: The press agencies Havas, Reuter, and Wolff sign an agreement, whereby, between them, they can cover the whole world.

1922: It was 2:22:22 on 2/2/22.

1925: Dogsleds reach Nome, Alaska, with emergency diphtheria serum, after 1000-km run.

1943: The Battle of Stalingrad, in World War II, ended, with the surrender of German troops [6th Army] to the Soviets.

1959: Charles Hardin [‘Buddy’] Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson [aka ‘The Big Bopper'] give their last performance, at the Surf Ballroom, in Clear Lake, Iowa. *
➥ https://societyofrock.com/the-last-l...f-buddy-holly/
➥ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...y-holly-93571/

1980: FBI releases details of ‘Abscam’, a sting operation, that targeted 31 elected & public officials, for bribes for political favors.

1990: South African President F.W. de Klerk lifted the 30-year ban on the African National Congress [& 60 other political organizations], resulting in the release from prison of Nelson Mandela, and marking the beginning of the end of apartheid.

2012: MV “Rabaul Queen” sinks, off the coast of Papua New Guinea, with 246 people saved, and 126 missing [100 of these estimated to be trapped inside].

2020: ‘Palindrome Day’: the date 02022020 reads the same, forward and backward, including in the US and China [last one like this 11 November 1111].

* The last calls by Buddy, and Ritchie, were made from this pay phone.