On February 18th...

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Independence Day (Gambia)

999 Pope Gregory V died.

1294 Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan died.

1455 Painter Fra Angelico died.

1478 George, Duke of Clarence, was privately executed in the Tower of London.

1516 Mary I, first reigning Queen of England, was born.

1519 Hernando Cortés left Cuba for the Yucatan Peninsula with 11 ships and 500 men.

1546 Protestant leader Martin Luther died.

1564 Artist Michelangelo died.

1678 John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was licensed for publication.

1685 Fort St. Louis was established by a Frenchman at Matagorda Bay, forming the basis for a French claim to Texas.

1688 Quakers conducted the first formal protest of slavery in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

1745 Physicist Alessandro Volta was born.

1797 Trinidad was surrendered to a British fleet under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby.

1804 The first U.S. land-grant college, Ohio University, was chartered.

1839 Pascual Cervera y Topete, Spanish admiral during the Spanish-American War, was born.

1848 Artist Louis Comfort Tiffany was born.

1850 The California Legislature created nine Bay Area counties.

1855 Tsar Nicholas I died.

1856 Millard Fillmore was nominated as the first American (Know Nothing) Party presidential candidate.

1861 Jefferson Davis took the oath as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1861 King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia became the first King of Italy.

1862 Businessman Charles M. Schwab was born.

1878 John Tunstall was murdered by Jessie Evans in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

1876 A direct telegraph link was established between Great Britain and New Zealand.

1885 Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published.

1890 Actor Edward Arnold was born.

1892 American politician Wendell Willkie was born.

1895 Notre Dame football player George Gipp, aka "The Gipper," was born.

1898 Automobile builder Enzo Ferrari was born.
1898 Luis Muñoz Marín, the first elected Governor of Puerto Rico, was born.

1901 H. Cecil Booth patented a dust removing suction cleaner.
1901 Winston Churchill made his maiden speech in the British House of Commons.

1902 Businessman Charles Lewis Tiffany died.

1908 The first "coil" U. S. postage stamps were issued.

1911 The first official flight with air mail took place in Allahabad, British India, when 23-year-old pilot Henri Pequet delivered 6,500 letters to Naini.

1915 "Wild West" outlaw Frank James died.

1919 Actor Jack Palance was born.

1920 Television personality Bill Cullen was born.

1922 Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown was born.

1925 Actor George Kennedy was born.

1929 The first Academy Awards were announced.
1929 Novelist Len Deighton was born.

1930 Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.

1931 Cartoonist Johnny Hart was born.

1932 Japan declared Manchuria independent.
1932 Sonja Henie won her sixth straight World Women's Figure Skating title.

1933 Yoko Ono, wife of John Lennon, was born.

1939 The Golden Gate International Exposition opened in San Francisco, California.

1944 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall became the youngest ever professional baseball player after signing a contract with the Cincinnati Reds.

1947 Seventeen persons were confirmed killed and at least 85 others injured when a passenger train derailed about 10 miles west of Altoona, Pennsylvania.

1950 Film director John Hughes was born.
1950 Actress Cybill Shepherd was born.

1951 Nepal became a constitutional monarchy.

1952 Singer Juice Newton was born.

1953 Bwana Devil, the first 3-D feature film, debuted in New York City, New York.

1954 The first Church of Scientology was established in Los Angeles, California.
1954 Actor John Travolta was born.

1955 Turkey and Iraq formed a defense alliance.

1957 Television personality Vanna White was born.

1959 Actress Jayne Atkinson was born.

1960 The 8th Winter Olympic Games opened in Squaw Valley, California.

1962 Fireball Roberts won the Daytona 500.

1964 Actor Matt Dillon was born.

1965 Gambia became independent of the United Kingdom.
1965 A massive glacial avalanche buried a Granduc Mining Company copper mine north of Stewart, British Columbia, Canada, and killed 26 men.
1965 Music producer Dr. Dre was born.

1967 Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer died.

1968 David Gilmour joined Pink Floyd.
1968 Actress Molly Ringwald was born.

1972 The California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty.
1972 Giulio Andreotti was sworn in as Premier of Italy.

1973 Richard Petty won the Daytona 500.

1977 Actor Andy Devine died.

1979 Richard Petty won the Daytona 500.

1981 Businessman Jack Northrop died.

1990 Derrike Cope won the Daytona 500.

2001 Dale Earnhardt was killed in a last lap crash at the Daytona 500.
2001 FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union.

2003 Country singer Johnny Paycheck died.

2004 A run-away freight train carrying sulfure, petrol, and fertilizer caught fire and exploded near Neyshabur, Iran, killing 295 persons.

2007 Kevin Harvick won the Daytona 500.

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This page was last updated on August 19, 2018.