February 20th
 

1626 ~ Death of John Dowland, Composer and lutenist.

1742 ~ The premiere of Giulio Cesare, an opera by George Frideric Handel, took place in London.

1835 ~ Concepción, Chile was destroyed by an earthquake

19002 ~ Birthday of Ansel Adams, Photographer.

1904 ~ Birthday of Alexei Kosygin, Premier of the Soviet Union.

1927 ~ Birthday of Sidney Poitier, Actor.

1952 ~ The film The African Queen opened in New York City.

1962 ~ Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn orbited the earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes, to become the first American to orbit the earth.

1966 ~ Death of Chester Nimitz, American admiral.

2001 ~ FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 15 years.

February 21st
 

1743 ~ The premiere in London of George Frideric Handel's oratorio, Samson.

1875 ~ Birthday of Jeanne Calment. She then went on to live for 122 years 164 days, the longest confirmed lifespan for any human being in history.

1893 ~ Birthday of Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist.

1903 ~ Birthday of Anaïs Nin, Writer.

1907 ~ Birthday of W. H. Auden, Poet.

1916 ~ World War I: The Battle of Verdun began. The battle was fought between February 21 and 19 December 1916, and resulted in nearly one million deaths and an additional 450,000 wounded and missing.

1947 ~ Edwin Land demonstrated the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.

1965 ~ Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam..

1975 ~ Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to prison.

1991 ~ Death of Dame Margot Fonteyn, ballet dancer.

February 22nd
 

1732 ~ Birthday of George Washington, 1st President of the U.S.

1819 ~ Spain ceded Florida to the U.S.

1857 ~ Birthday of Robert Baden-Powell, Chief Scout of the World.

1879 ~ Frank Woolworth opened his first "Five Cent Store" in Utica, New York.

1935 ~ Airplanes were no longer permitted to fly over the White House.

1946 ~ George Kennan, the American charge d'affaires in Moscow, sent an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union, and U.S. policy toward the communist state. Kennan's analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for America's Cold War policy of containment.

1967 ~ General Suharto takes full power in Indonesia

1980 ~ U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets 4–3 at Lake Placid, N.Y.

(I watched it happen. It really was a "Miracle on Ice")

1994 ~ Double agent Aldrich Ames was arrested.

1997 ~ Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute announced that a sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned.

February 23rd
 

1633 ~ Birthday of Samuel Pepys, Diarist.

1685 ~ Birthday of Georg Friederich Händel, Composer.

1732 ~ First performance of Händel's Orlando, in London.

1855 ~ Death of Carl Friedrich Gauss, Mathematician, Astronomer, Physicist.

1893 ~ Rudolf Diesel received a patent for the diesel engine.

1915 ~ Birthday of Paul Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay

1927 ~ The Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) began to regulate the use of radio frequencies.

1945 ~ WWII - US flag raised over Iwo Jima: The 28th Regiment of the 5th Marines take Mount Suribachi

1965 ~ Death of Stan Laurel, Actor & Comedian

1998 ~ Osama bin Laden published a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders.

February 24th
 

303 ~ Galerius, Roman Emperor, published his edict that begins the persecution of Christians in his portion of the Empire.

1786 ~ Birthday of Wilhelm Grimm, Philologist & Folklorist.

1803 ~ The Supreme Court of the United States, in Marbury v. Madison, established the principle of judicial review

1856 ~ Death of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Russian mathematician.

1943 ~ Birthday of George Harrison, member of The Beatles.

1946 ~ Juan Perón was elected president of Argentina.

1955 ~ Birthday of Steve Jobs, Computer Pioneer.

1981 ~ Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.

1989 ~ Ayatollah Khomeini offered a $3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.

2001 ~ Death of Claude E. Shannon, "father of information theory".

February 25th
 

1723 ~ Death of Sir Christopher Wren, Architect.

1778 ~ Birthday of José de San Martín, Argentine general, liberator along with Simón Bolívar, of Spanish South America.

1836 ~ Samuel Colt received a patent for the Colt revolver.

1841 ~ Birthday of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Painter, Graphic artist & sculptor.

1901 ~ J.P. Morgan incorporated the United States Steel Corporation.

1913 ~ The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing a graduated income tax, was ratified

1972 ~ Terrorism: Germany gave $5 million to an Arab terrorist as ransom for the passengers and crew of a hijacked jumbo jet.

1983 ~ Death of Tennessee Williams, playwright.

1999 ~ Death of Glenn T. Seaborg, Nuclear scientist.

2004 ~ On Ash Wednesday, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was released in movie theaters across the United States, grossing approximately $370 million, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film ever made.

February 26th

1797 ~ The Bank of England issued the first one pound note.

1802 ~ Birthday of Victor Hugo, Poet.

1848 ~ Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto in London.

1903 ~ Death of Richard Gatling, Inventor.

1918 ~ Birthday of Theodore Sturgeon, Science Fiction writer.

1935 ~ Robert Watson-Watt gave the first demonstration of RADAR.

1991 ~ Tim Berners-Lee introduces WorldWideWeb, the first web browser.

1993 ~ World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a van bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center exploded, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand.

1994 ~ Death of Bill Hicks, Comedian.

2001 ~ The Taliban destroyed two giant buddhas in Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
__________________
eudamonia

February 27th

1807 ~ Birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet (The Song of Hiawatha, The Village Blacksmith, Paul Revere's Ride)

1812 ~ Poet Lord Byron gave his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddites.

1827 ~ The first Mardi Gras was celebrated in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1873 ~ Birthday of Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor.

1887 ~ Death of Alexander Borodin, composer.

1902 ~ Birthday of John Steinbeck, Writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 1962.

1912 ~ Birthday of Lawrence Durrell, Writer.

1933 ~ Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was set on fire.

1951 ~ In a victory for freedom lovers, the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, was ratified.

2002 ~ Indian Sectarian Violence: a train caught fire a few minutes after it left the Godhra railway station, killing an estimated 58 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya, triggering riots that led to the death of 1000 people, mostly Muslims.
__________________
eudaimonia

February 28th
 

1827 ~ The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was incorporated, becoming the first railroad offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1833 ~ Birthday of Alfred von Schlieffen, German field marshal.

1854 ~ The United States Republican Party was organized in Ripon, Wisconsin. as a party opposed to the expansion of slavery

1900 ~ The Boer War: The 118-day "Siege of Ladysmith" is lifted.

1901 ~ Birthday of Linus Pauling, double Nobel Prize winner: Chemistry 1954 and Peace 1962

1935 ~ Nylon was discovered by Wallace Carothers.

1953 ~ James Watson and Francis Crick announced that they had determined the chemical structure of DNA. The formal announcement followed on April 25 following publication in Nature.

For those who would like to learn more about this interesting development:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth..._50/default.stm
http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/archive.html
In Crick’s words: http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/Crick3.pdf

1979 ~ Death of "Mr. Ed", the talking horse.

1983 ~ The final episode of M*A*S*H was broadcast in the U.S. It became the most watched television episode in history, with > 75% viewership.

1986 ~ Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, was assassinated in Stockholm.

one important date today 28 February 2005.............my oldest daughter turns 13 today............... :jump:

March 1st
 

1810 ~ Birthday of Frédéric Chopin, Composer & Pianist.

1872 ~ Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first national park.

1896 ~ Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity.

1904 ~ Birthday of Glenn Miller, Bandleader.

1912 ~ Georg Ritter von Trapp, head of the famous Austrian singing family memorialized in the musical The Sound of Music married Agathe.

1927 ~ Birthday of Harry Belafonte, Musician & Actor.

1928 ~ Birthday of Dr. Seymour Papert, South African Mathematician & Artificial Intelligence researcher.

1950 ~ Cold War: Klaus Fuchs was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union by giving them top secret atomic bomb data.

1954 ~ Nuclear testing: The Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, was detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States.

1966 ~ Venera 3 Soviet space probe crashed on Venus becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.


Holidays and observances

Tasmania, Australia ~ Eight Hours Day.

March 2nd
 

1824 ~ Birthday of Bedrich Smetana, Composer.

1836 ~ Texas Revolution: Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.

1904 ~ Birthday of Dr. Seuss, Author.

1919 ~ The first Communist International met in Moscow.

1930 ~ Death of D. H. Lawrence, Writer.

1931 ~ Birthday of Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union.

1939 ~ Death of Howard Carter, British archaeologist.

1956 ~ Morocco declared its independence from France.

1963 ~ Release of Please Please Me in the U.K., the first LP from The Beatles.

2004 ~ Al Qaeda carried out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.

March 3rd
 

1706 ~ Death of Johann Pachelbel, Composer.

1831 ~ Birthday of George Pullman, Inventor & Industrialist,

1845 ~ Florida was admitted as the 27th U.S. state.

1845 ~ Birthday of Georg Cantor, German mathematician.

1847 ~ Birthday of Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish inventor.

1923 ~ TIME magazine published for the first time.

1939 ~ In Bombay, Mahatma Gandhi begins to fast in protest of the autocratic British rule in India.

1974 ~ Roman Catholic and Lutheran officials reached an agreement for eventual reconciliation into one communion, marking the first agreement between the two churches since the Reformation.

1983 ~ Death of Hergé, Belgian comics creator.

1991 ~ An amateur video captured the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.

March 4th
 

1461 ~ Wars of the Roses: Lancastrian King Henry VI was deposed by his Yorkist cousin, who then became King Edward IV.

1678 ~ Birthday of Antonio Vivaldi, Italian Composer.

1681 ~ Charles II of England granted a land charter to William Penn for what will later become Pennsylvania.

1804 ~ The Battle of Vinegar Hill, colony of New South Wales.

1861 ~ The "Stars and Bars" was adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.

1877 ~ Pyotr Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake first performed.

1917 ~ Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first female member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

1975 ~ Charlie Chaplin was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1994 ~ Four terrorists were convicted for their roles in the World Trade Center bombing which killed six and injured more than a thousand.

1997 ~ U.S. President Bill Clinton prohibited federal funding for any research on human cloning.

March 5th
 

1512 ~ Birthday of Gerardus Mercator, Flemish Geographer & Cartographer.

1658 ~ Birthday of Antoine Cadillac, founder of Detroit.

1770 ~ The Boston Massacre: A pre-Revolutionary incident that grew out of anger towards British troops, occurred. Five anti-British rioters were killed.

1871 ~ Birthday of Rosa Luxemburg, German Revolutionary.

1908 ~ Birthday of Rex Harrison, English actor.

1933 ~ In the last free elections in Germany until after World War II, the Nazi Party received 44% of the vote.

1946 ~ Cold War: Winston Churchill delivered his famous Iron Curtain speech, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent…”

1953 ~ Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died at age 73, after 29 years in power.

1993 ~ Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson is banned from athletics for life after failing a drug test for a second time.

1997 ~ North and South Korean representatives met for the first time in 25 years for peace talks.