On February 12th...

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1554 Lady Jane Grey was executed.

1577 Don Juan of Habsburg signed the "Eternal Edict."

1624 TheEnglish "Happy Parliament" commenced.

1733 James Oglethorpe founded Savannah in what is now Georgia.

1746 Thaddeus Kosciusko, Polish patriot, was born.

1771 Gustav III became King of Sweden.

1789 Revolutionary hero Ethan Allen died.

1791 Industrialist/philanthropist Peter Cooper was born.

1793 The first U. S. Fugitive Slave Act was passed.

1804 Philosopher Immanuel Kant died.

1809 Naturalist Charles Darwin was born.
1809 Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, was born.

1818 Chile gained its independence from Spain.

1821 The Greek War of Independence began.

1825 The Creek Indian Treaty, in which tribal chiefs agreed to turn over all their land in Georgia to the government and migrate west by September 1, 1826, was signed.

1832 Ecuador annexed the Galapagos Islands.

1840 The Housatonic Railroad opened.

1855 Michigan State University was established.

1865 Henry Highland Garnet became the first black minister to preach to the U.S. House of Representatives.

1870 An official proclamation set April 15 as the last day of grace for U.S. silver coins to circulate in Canada.

1873 The U. S. Congress abolished bimetalism.

1874 King David Kalakaua of Hawaii became the first reigning monarch to visit the United States.

1877 The first news dispatch by telephone was sent between Boston and Salem, Massachusetts.
1877 U. S. railroad builders staged a strike against wage reductions.

1878 The catcher's mask was patented by Frederick Thayer.

1879The first artificial ice rink in North America was installed at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York.

1880 The U. S. National Croquet League was organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1880 American labor leader John L. Lewis was born.

1885Carl Peters founded the German East-Africa Society.

1893 U.S. Army General Omar Nelson Bradley was born.

1904 Entertainer Ted Mack was born.

1909 Sixty people met in New York City and formed the nucleus of what is now the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

1912 The Chinese Republic was formed.

1915 The cornerstone of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was laid.
1915 Actor Lorne Greene was born.

1919 Actor Forrest Tucker was born.

1925 The first federal arbitration law was passed by the U. S. Congress.
1925 Estonia banned the Communist Party.

1926 Baseball player Joe Garagiolo was born.

1927 A British expeditionary force landed in Shanghai.

1931 Vatican Radio began broadcasting.

1934 Basketball player Bill Russell was born.

1936 Actor Joe Don Baker was born.

1937 The Cleveland Rams was granted an NFL franchise.

1938 German troops entered Austria.

1939 Keyboardist Ray Manzarek was born.

1941 Adventurer Naomi Uemura was born.

1942 Painter Grant Wood died.

1947 Actor Sidney Toler died.

1948First Lieutenant Nancy Leftenant became the first black in the U. S. Army Nursing Corps.

1950 Guitarist Steve Hackett was born.

1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the first U. S. advisors to South Vietnam.
1955 Talk show host Arsenio Hall was born.

1959 Nepal was proclaimed a constitutional monarchy by King Mahendra.
1959 The first Boeing B-52G was delivered to the Strategic Air Command.
1959 The Sidney Myer Music Bowl was officially opened in Melbourne, Australia.
1959 Composer George Antheil died.

1962 Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling, cartonist and conservationist, died.

1971 Businessman J.C. Penney died.

1973 The first U. S. POW's in North Vietnam were released; 116 of 456 were flown to the Philippines.

1976 Actor Sal Mineo died.

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

1983 Jazz pianist Eubie Blake died.

1984 Cale Yarborough became the first to qualify for the Daytona 500 at over 200 miles per hour.

1989 Barbara Harris became the first female bishop of a U. S. Episcopal church.

1994 The 17th Winter Olympic Games opened in Lillehammer, Norway.

1999 U. S. President Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial.

2000 Professional football coach Tom Landry died.
2000 Cartoonist Charles Schulz died.

2002 An Iran Air Tu-154 crashed just before landing at Khorramabad, Iran, killing 119 persons.

2009 Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed near Buffalo, New York, killing 50 persons.

2010 The 21st Winter Olympic Games opened in Vancouver, Canada.

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This page was last updated on February 11, 2018.