February: This Month in History
What’s special about today? With a little help from the History Channel, we’ve compiled a list of major (and obscure) historical events that happened this day in history for the month of February.
- February 1: The Oxford English Dictionary is published (1884)
- February 2: Groundhog Day is celebrated for the first time in Punxsutawney, PN (1887)
- February 3: Soviet Union accomplishes the first controlled landing on the moon (1966)
- February 4: George Washington is elected president (1789)
- February 5: Hank Aaron is born (1934)
- February 6: John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men is published (1937)
- February 7: The Beatles arrive in New York (1964)
- February 8: Mary Queen of Scots is beheaded (1587)
- February 9: Daylight saving time instituted (1942)
- February 10: The French and Indian War ends (1763)
- February 11: Nelson Mandela is released from prison (1990)
- February 12: Abraham Lincoln is born (1809)
- February 13: William and Mary proclaimed joint sovereigns of Britain (1689)
- February 14: Sir Alexander Fleming discovers Penicillin (1929)
- February 15: A massive explosion sinks the battleship USS Maine in Cuba’s Havana harbor (1898)
- February 16: Archaeologist Howard Carter opens tomb of King Tut (1923)
- February 17: Sherman’s army sacks Columbia, SC (1865)
- February 18: Pluto, once believed to be the ninth planet, is discovered by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh (1930)
- February 19: U.S. Marines invade Iwo Jima (1945)
- February 20: Astronaut John Glenn orbits the earth (1962)
- February 21: The Washington Monument is dedicated (1885)
- February 22: U.S. hockey team defeats four-time gold-medal winning Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Games (1980)
- February 23: Children receive first injections of the new polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk (1954)
- February 24: President Andrew Johnson is impeached (1868)
- February 25: Congress passes the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the use of paper notes (called greenbacks) to pay the government’s bills (1862)
- February 26: President Andrew Johnson impeached (1868)
- February 27: U.S. Supreme Court upholds the 19th Amendment, providing for female suffrage (1922)
- February 28: Watson and Crick discover chemical structure of DNA (1953)
- February 29: Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored with an Oscar (1940)
Sources: History.com
