On February 1st...

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1327 Edward III was crowned King of England.

1328 King Charles IV of France died.

1552 English jurist Sir Edward Coke was born.

1587 Queen Elizabeth I of England signed a death warrant for Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland.

1662 The Dutch garrison on Formosa surrendered to Chinese pirates.

1691 Pope Alexander VIII died.

1707 Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, was born.

1720 Sweden and Prussia signed a peace treaty.

1733 King Augustus II of Poland died.

1742 Sardinia and Austria signed an alliance.

1788 The first U. S. steamboat patent was issued, by Georgia to Briggs and Longstreet.

1790 The U.S. Supreme Court met for the first time.

1793 France declared war on Great Britain and the Netherlands.
1793 Ralph Hodgson was granted a patent for oiled silk and linen.

1796 The capital of Upper Canada was moved from Newark to York.

1810 The first insurance company managed by blacks, American Insurance Co. of Philadelphia, was established.

1814 Volcano Mayon on the Philippine island of Luzon erupted, killing about 1,200 people.

1840 The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery was incorporated.

1851 Author Mary Shelley died.

1856 East Alabama Male College (now Auburn University) was chartered.

1859 Composer/conductor/cellist Victor Herbert was born.

1860 Morris Raphall became the first rabbi to open the U. S. House of Representatives.

1861 Texas seceded from the Union.

1862 Julia Ward Howe published "Battle Hymn of Republic."

1871 Jefferson Long became the first black to make an official speech in the U. S. House of Representatives (opposing leniency to former Confederates).

1873 Oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury died.

1878 Hattie Wyatt Caraway, the first woman to be elected to the U. S. Senate, was born.

1882 Louis S. St. Laurent, Prime Minister of Canada, was born.

1884 The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.

1887 Harvey Wilcox began selling lots in a real estate development named Hollywoodland.

1893 Thomas Edison completed the world's first movie studio, in West Orange, New Jersey.

1894 Film director John Ford was born.

1896 Giacomo Puccini's opera La Boheme premiered in Turin, Italy.

1898 The first auto insurance policy in the U. S. was issued by Travelers Insurance Co.

1901 Actor Clark Gable was born.

1902 Author James Langston Hughes was born.

1906 The first federal penitentiary building was completed at Leavenworth, Kansas.

1908 King Carlos I and Prince Luis Filipe of Portugal were assassinated in Terreiro do Paco, Lisbon.

1914 Tanganyika Railway opened.

1920 The first commercial armored car was introduced in St. Paul, Minnesota.
1920 The Royal Northwest Mounted Police merged with the Dominion Police to form the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

1921 Actor Peter Sallis was born.

1924 The Netherlands Press Museum opened in Amsterdam.

1929 The prototype Knoll KN-1 airplane was destroyed in a crash.

1931 Bangladesh President Iajuddin Ahmed was born.
1931 Russian President Boris Yeltsin was born.

1933 The German Parliament was dissolved.

1937 Singer Don Everly was born.

1938 Actor Sherman Hemsley was born.

1942 Actor Terry Jones was born.

1946 The Republic of Hungary was proclaimed.
1946 Actor Bart Braverman was born.

1948 The Federation of Malaysia was formed from nine sultanates.
1948 Singer Rick James was born.

1949 The 200-inch Hale Telescope was used for the first time.
1949 RCA released the first ever 45 record.

1951 The X-ray moving picture process was demonstrated for the first time.
1951 An atomic explosion was telecast for the first time.

1953 "General Electric Theater" debuted on CBS-TV.
1953 "You Are There," with Walter Cronkite, debuted on CBS-TV.

1954 Actor Bill Mumy was born.

1957 P. H. Young became the first black pilot on a U. S. scheduled passenger airline.
1957 Twenty passengers were killed when a Northeast Airliner crashed onto Rikers Island, New York.

1958 The United Arab Republic was formed by the union of Egypt and Syria.
1958 A military transport collided with a Navy patrol bomber over Norwalk, California, killing 47 persons aboard the two planes and a Norwalk resident.

1960 An uprising of Europeans in Algiers, Algeria, collapsed and many of its leaders were flown to France for trial.
1960 Thirty-two miners died in a mine blast on Hokkaido Island, Japan.
1960 A freight train rammed a standing passenger train near Devon, South Africa, killing 15 persons.

1961 A Minuteman ICBM was successfully fired for the first time, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1963 Hastings Kamuzu Banda became the first Prime Minister of Nyasaland.

1964 The Boeing 727 made its first commercial passenger flight, an Eastern Air Lines flight from Miami, Florida, to Washington, D.C.
1964 About 70 persons were killed when an express train ran head-on into a standing freight tain in Altamirano, Argentina.
1964 The Beatles hit #1 for the first time with "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

1965 Martin Luther King, Jr. and 700 demonstrators were arrested in Selma, Alabama.
1965 Actor Brandon Lee was born.
1965 Princess Stephanie of Monaco was born.

1966 Actress Hedda Hopper died.
1966 Silent movie star Buster Keaton died.

1968 Vince Lombardi resigned as coach of the Green Bay Packers.
1968 Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley, was born.
1968 Actor Pauly Shore was born.

1970 A passenger train slammed into a parked commuter train in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 136 persons.
1970 Israeli and Syrian tank and artillery units fought their heaviest battle since 1967, in the Golan Heights.
1970 Pope Paul VI declared that celibacy of priests is too fundamental a principle of the Church to be questioned.

1971 Actor Michael C. Hall was born.

1972 The Yang de-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia granted a royal charter to the city of Kuala Lumpur.
1972 The first scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, was introduced (retail price $395).

1974 The situation comedy "Good Times" debuted on CBS.

1976 The mini-series "Rich Man, Poor Man" debuted on ABC.
1976 Physicist Werner Heisenberg died.

1979 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 15 years in exile.

1980 The soap opera "Love of Life" ended after a run of 28 years.

1981 Douglas Aircraft founder David W. Douglas died.

1982 Senegal and Gambia formed a loose confederation.
1982 "Late Night With David Letterman" debuted on NBC.

1988 Actress Heather O'Rourke died.

1991 An earthquake killed about 1,200 people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
1991 A U.S. Air jet collided with a Skywest Fairchild jet at Los Angeles (California) International Airport, killing 32 persons.

1992 Barry Bonds signed baseball's highest single year contract -- $4.7 million.

2003 The Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas during re-entry, killing all seven crew members.

2004 A stampede during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia killed 251 persons and injured 244.
2004 The New England Patriots defeated the Carolina Panthers 32-29 in Super Bowl XXXVIII.

2005 Nepalese King Gyanendra staged a coup d'état and became Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

2007 Composer Gian-Carlo Menotti died.

2009 The Pittsburg Steelers defeated the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 in Super Bowl XLIII.

2012 Don Cornelius, host of "Soul Train," died.

2013 The Nigerian Army bombed a Boko Haram camp, killing 18 persons.
2013 A suicide bombing killed 21 persons and wounded 30 in a Hangu, Pakistan, market.
2013 A fireworks truck exploded and caused a highway to collapse in Henan,China, killing 26 persons.

2014 Mount Sinabung erupted in Indonesia, killing 14 persons.

2015 The New England Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 in Super Bowl XLIX.

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This page was last updated on February 01, 2019.