Captain Joseph "Mutt" Summers, chief test pilot for Vickers, performed a series of exercises to evaluate the Spitfire’s handling characteristics and performance capabilities, and found that the aircraft demonstrated remarkable ...

5th March 1936: Supermarine Spitfire aircraft makes its maiden test flight

Johnson’s drunkenness during his inaugural address was widely reported in the press and was a source of embarrassment for Lincoln, who was seated ...

4th March 1865: Andrew Johnson, Vice President of the United States, delivers his inaugural address while drunk

Despite being driven north towards Ravenna by Emperor Justinian's forces, the Ostrogoths were determined to reclaim Rome and reassert their dominance over ...

2nd March 537: First Siege of Rome begins as the Ostrogoth army encircle the Byzantine forces of the general Belisarius

The massacre at Vassy exacerbated religious tensions that had been simmering for years, serving as a rallying cry for both Catholics and Protestants, each side seeing the incident as justification for their cause. Within just a few weeks of the massacre, violence erupted across the ...

1st March 1562: Massacre of Vassy marks the beginning of the French Wars of Religion

The Jay Treaty, named after John Jay, the chief negotiator on behalf of the United States, sought to resolve several key disputes in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War and the subsequent Treaty of Paris in ...

29th February 1796: Jay Treaty marks the start of ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain

On February 28, 1849, SS California steamed into San Francisco carrying around 400 passengers seeking their fortune. The city's population, which had been around a thousand in 1848, skyrocketed to tens of thousands within a ...

28th February 1849: First ‘49ers arrive in San Francisco to begin the California Gold Rush

Hitler announced that the DAP had officially become the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), known colloquially as the Nazi Party. Alongside the name change, he also introduced the 25 Point Programme, a set of ideological principles outlining the party’s ...

24th February 1920: Adolf Hitler announces the 25 Point Programme and the establishment of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP)

The Long Telegram emphasized that the Soviet Union was inherently expansionist and ideologically driven, and advocated for the restriction of Soviet influence rather than direct ...

22nd February 1946: The ‘Long Telegram’ sent by George F. Kennan, a senior American diplomat in Moscow

On February 20, 1939, at an event that arguably marked the height of the German American Bund, Fritz Julius Kuhn addressed approximately 20,000 people at a rally at New York City’s Madison Square ...

20th February 1939: Pro-Nazi rally held at Madison Square Garden in New York City

On February 4, 1915, Admiral Hugo von Pohl of the German High Seas Fleet warned that ‘every enemy merchant vessel’ in British waters would be targeted and that ‘it may not always be possible to prevent attacks on enemy ships from harming neutral ...

18th February 1915: Germany initiates a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare during the First World War

During the presidential campaign, 11-year-old Grace Bedell had written a letter to Abraham Lincoln in which she suggested that he would look more distinguished, and garner more votes, if he grew a ...

16th February 1861: Abraham Lincoln meets the girl who advised him to grow a beard to gain more votes

Bismarck was the first of two of the largest battleships ever built by Germany. Ordered for Nazi Germany’s Kriegsmarine, the ship was a testament to Nazi Germany’s ambitions to build a powerful and modern ...

14th February 1939: German battleship Bismarck launched at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg

Although committed to democratic principles, the Weimar Republic and President Ebert faced persistent challenges from both the left and the right amidst the daunting task of guiding Germany through economic turmoil, political polarization, and the drafting of a new ...

11th February 1919: Friedrich Ebert elected as first President of the German Weimar Republic

In his address to the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club, McCarthy claimed to possess a list of 205 State Department employees with Communist affiliations. This assertion marked the start of what became known as McCarthyism or the Second Red ...

9th February 1950: Joseph McCarthy starts the Second Red Scare with a speech claiming Communists were working in the U.S. Department of State

The film was an immediate success, and audiences were quick to recognize the arrival of a new and unique talent. Reviewers at the time identified Chaplin as ‘a born screen ...

7th February 1914: Charlie Chaplin’s iconic ‘Tramp’ character makes his first public appearance in the film Kid Auto Races at Venice

The commercial success of Bakelite extended beyond its utility as its distinctive appearance, became a hallmark of the Art Deco era and added another layer to Bakelite’s rapid and widespread ...

5th February 1909: Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic, announced by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland

Approximately 4,000 people perished in the blizzard, where the worst affected areas were buried in up to 8 metres (26 feet) of snow that would have covered a two and half story ...

3rd February 1972: The deadliest recorded blizzard hit northwestern, central and southern Iran

Marooned alone on Más a Tierra Island in the uninhabited Juan Fernández archipelago, Selkirk survived for more than four years, foraging for food and hunting wild goats, while using the limited tools available to him to construct huts for ...

2nd February 1709: Alexander Selkirk rescued after spending more than four years as a castaway

Elected representatives assembled in Austin on January 28, 1861, and four days later on 1 February the convention voted 166 to 8 in favour of secession. The decision was confirmed through a state-wide referendum on 23 ...

1st February 1861: Texas declares its secession from the United States after a convention votes overwhelmingly in favour

Arnold faced three additional charges of using a locomotive without a horse, having fewer than three people in charge of the vehicle and for not having his name and address on the vehicle. The local magistrates found him guilty on all counts and placed a fine of £4 7s, of which one shilling plus costs, was for ...

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