Event-a-Day

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1789 – George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.

1801 – John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.

1825 – The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal.

1861 – American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six break-away U.S. states meet and form the Confederate States of America.

1936 – Radium becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.

1941 – The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.

1945 – World War II: Santo Tomas Internment Camp is liberated from Japanese authority. The Yalta Conference between the "Big Three" (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea. The British Indian Army and Imperial Japanese Army begin a series of battles known as the Battle of Pokoku and Irrawaddy River operations.

1967 – Lunar Orbiter program: Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft.

2004 – Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg.

AD 62 – Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.

1778 – South Carolina becomes the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

1909 – Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world's first synthetic plastic.

1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.

1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane; this is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.

1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

1962 – French President Charles de Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence.

1963 – The European Court of Justice's ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen
establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the most important, if not the most important, decisions in the development of European Union law.

1971 – Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission.

1649 – The claimant King Charles II of England and Scotland is declared King of Great Britain, by the Parliament of Scotland. This move was not followed by the Parliament of England nor the Parliament of Ireland.

1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland becomes King upon the death of his brother Charles II.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.

1788 – Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.

1815 – New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.

1819 – Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founds Singapore.

1862 – American Civil War: Forces under the command of Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew H. Foote give the Union its first victory of the war, capturing Fort Henry, Tennessee in the Battle of Fort Henry.

1899 – Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, is ratified by the United States Senate.

1918 – British women over the age of 30 get the right to vote.

1951 – The Canadian Army enters combat in the Korean War. The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history.

1952 – Elizabeth II becomes queen regnant of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.

1987 – Justice Mary Gaudron becomes the first woman to be appointed to the High Court of Australia.

1988 – Michael Jordan makes his signature slam dunk from the free throw line inspiring Air Jordan and the Jumpman logo.

1301 – Edward of Caernarvon (later King Edward II of England) becomes the first English Prince of Wales.

1795 – The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

1807 – Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon finds Bennigsen's Russian forces taking a stand at Eylau. After bitter fighting, the French take the town, but the Russians resume the battle the next day.

1935 – The classic board game Monopoly is invented.

1940 – The second full-length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premieres.

1951 – Korean War: More than 700 suspected communist sympathizers are butchered by South Korean forces.

1962 – The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports.

1974 – Grenada gains independence from the United Kingdom.

1979 – Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either was discovered.

1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B Mission: Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).

1986 – Twenty-eight years of one-family rule end in Haiti, when President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees the Caribbean nation.

1990 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its
monopoly on power.

1991 – Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in.

1992 – The Maastricht Treaty is signed, leading to the creation of the European Union.

1997 – NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X.

2013 – Mississippi officially certifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was formally ratified by Mississippi in 1995.

2016 – North Korea launches Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 into outer space.

1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

1601 – Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, rebels against Queen Elizabeth I and the revolt is quickly crushed.

1837 – Richard Johnson becomes the first Vice President of the United States chosen by the United States Senate.

1865 – Delaware refuses to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Slavery was outlawed in the United States, including Delaware, when the Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 6, 1865. Delaware ratified the Thirteenth Amendment on February 12, 1901, which was the ninety-second anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

1885 – The first government-approved Japanese immigrants arrived in Hawaii.

1887 – The Dawes Act authorizes the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments.

1910 – The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by William D. Boyce.

1915 – D. W. Griffith's controversial film The Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles.

1922 – United States President Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio set in the White House.

1925 – National day of Air Force of Iran

1924 – Capital punishment: The first state execution in the United States by gas chamber takes place in Nevada.

1942 – World War II: Japan invades Singapore.

1945 - Mikhail Devyataev escapes with nine other Soviet inmates from a Nazi concentration camp in Peenemünde on the island of Usedom by hijacking the camp commandant's Heinkel He 111.

1950 – The Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, is established.

1952 – Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom.

1974 – After 84 days in space, the crew of Skylab 4, the last crew to visit American space station Skylab, returns to Earth.

1978 – Proceedings of the United States Senate are broadcast on radio for the first time.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.

1788 – The Habsburg Empire joins the Russo-Turkish War in the Russian camp.

1825 – After no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the US presidential election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as President of the United States.

1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.

1870 – US president Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.

1889 – US president Grover Cleveland signs a bill elevating the United States Department of Agriculture to a Cabinet-level agency.

1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.

1900 – The Davis Cup competition is established.

1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.

1950 – Second Red Scare: US Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.

1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers across the USA.

1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to be voted into the USA's Baseball Hall of Fame. Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned Moon landing.

1975 – The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.

1978 – The Budd Company unveils its first SPV-2000 self-propelled railcar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1567 – Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is found strangled following an explosion at the Kirk o' Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland, a suspected assassination.

1763 – French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.

1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians.

1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1861 – Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.

1906 – HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships is christened and launched by King Edward VII.

1933 – In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City's Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf. Schaaf dies four days later.

1940 – The Soviet Union begins mass deportations of Polish citizens from occupied eastern Poland to Siberia.

1942 – The first gold record is presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo".

1954 – United States President Dwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.

1962 – Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

1967 – The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

1534 – Henry VIII of England is recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.

1790 – The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions U.S. Congress for the abolition of slavery.

1794 – First session of United States Senate opens to the public.

1937 – A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers.

1938 – BBC Television produces the world's first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Čapek play R.U.R., that coined the term "robot".

1943 – World War II: General Dwight D. Eisenhower is selected to command the allied armies in Europe.

1953 – U.S.President Dwight D. Eisenhower denies all appeals for clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The Soviet Union breaks off diplomatic relations with Israel.

1971 – Eighty-seven countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union, sign the Seabed Arms Control Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor in international waters.

1973 – Vietnam War: First release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam takes place.

1978 – Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

1990 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa after 27 years as a political prisoner. Buster Douglas, a 42:1 underdog, knocks out Mike Tyson in ten rounds at Tokyo to win boxing's world Heavyweight title and cause the largest upset in sports history.

1997 – Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

2012 - Singer Whitney Houston dies at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverley Hills, California.

1554 – A year after claiming the throne of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason.

1733 – Englishman James Oglethorpe founds Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, and its first city at Savannah (known as Georgia Day).

1814 – Battle of Château-Thierry.

1825 – The Creek cede the last of their lands in Georgia to the United States government by the Treaty of Indian Springs, and migrate west.

1912 – The Xuantong Emperor, the last Emperor of China, abdicates.

1914 – In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

1921 – Bolsheviks launch a revolt in Georgia as a preliminary to the Red Army invasion of Georgia.

1924 – George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue received its premiere in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music", in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Paul Whiteman and his band, with Gershwin playing the piano.

1935 – USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sinks.

1946 – World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats. African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the Civil Rights Movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil.

1947 – The largest observed iron meteorite until that time creates an impact crater in Sikhote-Alin, in the Soviet Union.

1961 – Soviet Union launches Venera 1 towards Venus.

1963 – Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

2004 – The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

1462 – The Treaty of Westminster is finalised between Edward IV of England and the Scottish Lord of the Isles.

1542 – Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.

1575 – Henry III of France is crowned at Reims and marries Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont on the same day.

1633 – Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.

1689 – William of Orange and his wife Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.

1880 – Thomas Edison observes the Edison effect.

1935 – A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.

1945 – World War II: The siege of Budapest concludes with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian forces to the Red Army. Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment.

1954 – Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game.

2004 – The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

2011 – For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.

2012 – The European Space Agency (ESA) conducted the first launch of the European Vega rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

1349 – Several hundred Jews are burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews are forcibly removed from Strasbourg.

1400 – Richard II of England dies, most probably from starvation, in Pontefract Castle, on the orders of Henry Bolingbroke.

1502 – Spanish Inquisition: The Catholic Monarchs issue a decree forcing Muslims in Granada to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain.

1556 – Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.

1778 – The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.

1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Kettle Creek is fought in Georgia. James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Cape St. Vincent: John Jervis, (later 1st Earl of St Vincent) and Horatio Nelson (later 1st Viscount Nelson) lead the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.

1849 – In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.

1852 – Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically
for children, is founded in London.

1855 – Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.

1859 – Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.

1899 – Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

1903 – The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor).

1912 – Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state. The US Navy commissions its first class of diesel-powered submarines.

1929 – Saint Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster enemies of Al Capone's gang, are murdered in Chicago.

1956 – The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union begins in Moscow. On the last night of the meeting, Premier Nikita Khrushchev condemns Joseph Stalin's crimes in a secret speech.

1990 – The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later become famous as Pale Blue Dot.

2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.

2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source for viral videos.

1493 – While on board the Niña, Christopher Columbus writes an open letter (widely distributed upon his return to Portugal) describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World.

1764 – The city of St. Louis is established in Spanish Louisiana (now in Missouri, USA).

1798 – The Roman Republic is proclaimed after Louis-Alexandre Berthier, a general of Napoleon, had invaded the city of Rome five days earlier.

1879 – Women's rights: US President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

1898 – The battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing 274. This event leads the United States to declare war on Spain.

1923 – Greece becomes the last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar.

1925 – The 1925 serum run to Nome: The second delivery of serum arrives in Nome, Alaska.

1933 – In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate US President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead shoots Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds on March 6, 1933.

1942 – World War II: Fall of Singapore. Following an assault by Japanese forces, the British General Arthur Percival surrenders. About 80,000 Indian, United Kingdom and Australian soldiers become prisoners of war, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history.

1946 – ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

1952 – King George VI of the United Kingdom is buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

1954 – Canada and the United States agree to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska.

2013 – A meteor explodes over Russia, injuring 1,500 people as a shock wave blows out windows and rocks buildings. This happens unexpectedly only hours before the expected closest ever approach of the larger and unrelated asteroid 2012 DA14.

1933 – The Blaine Act ends Prohibition in the United States.

1959 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.

1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

1961 – Explorer program: Explorer 9 (S-56a) is launched.

1968 – In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system goes into service.

1978 – The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago).

1874 – Silver Dollar becomes legal US tender.

1881 – The Canadian Pacific Railway is incorporated by Act of Parliament at Ottawa (44th Vic., c.1).

2005 – The National Hockey League cancels the entire 2004–05 regular season and playoffs.

2006 – The last Mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.

1801 – An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr, Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.

1819 – The United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise for the first time.

1863 – A group of citizens of Geneva founded an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

1864 – American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.

1865 – American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina, is burned as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.

1871 – The victorious Prussian Army parades through Paris, France, after the end of the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.

1913 – The Armory Show opens in New York City, displaying works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century.

1959 – Project Vanguard: Vanguard 2: The first weather satellite is launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.

1964 – In Wesberry v. Sanders the Supreme Court of the United States rules that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.

1965 – Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

1968 – In Springfield, Massachusetts, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opens.

1996 – In Philadelphia, world champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match. NASA's Discovery Program begins as the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft lifts off on the first mission ever to orbit and land on an asteroid, 433 Eros.

1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is executed in private at the Tower of London.

1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Montereau.

1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America. With Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumes the title of King of Italy.

1865 – American Civil War: Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia.

1878 – John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jesse Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

1885 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States.

1930 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto. Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.

1932 – The Empire of Japan declares a puppet state of Manzhouguo (the obsolete Chinese name for Manchuria) independent from the Republic of China and installed former Chinese Emperor Aisin Gioro Puyi as Chief Executive of the State.

1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

1972 – The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, (6 Cal.3d 628) invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment.

1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747.

2001 – Seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt dies in an accident during the Daytona 500.