JANUARY January 01, 2011 Dilma Rousseff was sworn in as Brazil’s first female President. She was re-elected in 2014 but was impeached and removed from office in 2016 1901: The Commonwealth of Australia came into being 1981: Greece was admitted as the 10th member of the European Economic Community 1996: King Fahd of Saudi Arabia handed management of government affairs to his half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, following a stroke 2006: Russian gas giant Gazprom cut supplies to Ukraine after failing to reach agreement over a price increase January 02, 2002 Scientists announced they had successfully cloned pigs without the presence of a gene that would cause a human body to reject a transplant 1839: Pioneering French photographer Louis Daguerre took the first picture of the moon 1843: Wagner’s opera Der Fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman), was first performed in Germany 1959: The USSR launched Luna I, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the moon and to orbit the sun 2011: housands of refugees fled the Ivory Coast as battle raged between supporters of two rival presidents January 03, 1870 Construction began on New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, which connects Manhattan and Brooklyn 1925: Mussolini announced that he would assume dictatorial powers in Italy 1977: Apple Computer, founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, was incorporated 1995: he World Health Organisation reported that AIDS cases worldwide now exceeded one million 2010: Peru’s Supreme Court upheld a 25-year prison sentence for former President Alberto Fujimori, convicted of mass human rights violations January 04, 2010 The Burj Khalifa, at 825m the tallest structure ever built, was opened in Dubai. It was named in honour of UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan 1885: Dr Williams West Grant of Iowa performed the first successful operation to remove an appendix 1964: Pope Paul VI began a visit to the Holy Land, which included the first visit by a pope to Jerusalem 1980: U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced the curtailment of grain sales to the Soviet Union over the invasion of Afghanistan 2007: Evidence of liquid methane was found on Saturn’s moon Titan January 05, 1971 One-day cricket was born when the Test match between England and Australia at Melbourne was curtailed due to rain 1841: An expedition led by British explorer James Clark Ross was the first to enter Antarctic pack ice. The Ross Sea and Ross Ice Shelf were later named after him 1896: The first public account of Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of X-rays was published in Austria 2001: The Beatles’ landmark album Revolver was judged the best album in rock ‘n’ roll history 2017: A U.S. report revealed a Russian campaign to influence U.S. voters in 2016’s presidential election January 06, 2014 A polar vortex saw weather records shattered across the U.S. and Canada, with temperatures in some areas as low as -37C, colder than recent readings on Mars 1937: President Franklin D. Roosevelt renewed America's Neutrality Act, forbidding shipments of arms to Spain 1950: Britain formally recognised China’s communist government 1990: Leaders of Poland’s Communist Party agreed to its dissolution and replacement by a non-Marxist party 2010: Presidents Ahmadinejad and Berdymukhamedov inaugurated a new gas pipeline link to Iran from its energy-rich neighbour, Turkmenistan January 07, 1990 The Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to tourists for the first time in its 800-year history to allow work on reducing its tilt to a safer angle to get underway 1785: Dr John Jeffries and Jean Pierre Blanchard made the first crossing of the English Channel in a hot-air balloon 1830: Mount Clare railway station, which claims to be the world’s oldest, opened in the U.S. city of Baltimore 1895: Korea proclaimed its independence from China 2015: Islamist extremists attacked the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, killing 12 people January 08, 1935 Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll” and one of the great cultural icons of the 20th century, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. He would have been 85 today 1940: Rationing of sugar, bacon and butter began in Britain 1998: Scientists said nicotine addiction was related to the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter chemical in the brain 2007: Astronomers found the first triple quasar. Quasars are thought to be powered by supermassive black holes 2 010: Venezuela’s national currency, the bolivar, was devalued by between 17% and 50% January 09, 1960 Construction work began in Egypt on the Aswan High Dam, to control the annual Nile floods, provide water for irrigation and to generate hydroelectricity 1816: The Davy safety lamp was introduced to reduce explosions in coal mines caused by flammable gases 1863: London’s first underground train left Paddington station on its inaugural passenger journey 2007: Apple boss Steve Jobs introduced the hugely anticipated iPhone, a multimedia mobile device that radically reshaped the smartphone industry 2008: India’s Tata Motors launched the world’s cheapest production car, the Tata Nano, in Delhi January 10, 1945 British rock star Rod Stewart was born in North London. His distinctive raspy voice has sold over 100 million records of hits such as Sailing and Maggie May 1840: Over 100,000 letters were sent in London on the day that the “Penny Post” came into operation 1855: Engineer Henry Bessemer took out a patent for a process that created steel inexpensively 1920: he ratification of the Treaty of Versailles created the League of Nations, with 29 initial members 2010: China took over the mantle of the world’s largest exporting nation, pushing Germany from the top spot January 11, 2010 China said that by the end of the decade 24 million men of marrying age would be unable to find a wife. The crisis led to the relaxation of the one-child policy 1922: A 14-year-old Canadian boy with diabetes was the first person to be successfully treated with insulin 1970: Biafran leader General Ojukwu flew into exile after Nigerian troops took control of the rebel state 2004: Israel began constructing a concrete barrier around Jerusalem, sealing off Palestinian districts 2011: Widespread protests in Tunisia over poor living conditions launched the Arab Spring revolts January 12, 1970 The first Boeing 747 arrived at London’s Heathrow airport after its proving flight from New York. The first fare-paying flight to Heathrow followed on January 22 1875: Kwang-su, penultimate Emperor of China, came to the throne when he was only four years old 1945: The land route from India to China reopened when the first convoy set out on the Ledo Road across Burma 1990: Romania became the first East European state and Warsaw Pact member to outlaw the Communist Party 2010: A magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the impoverished Caribbean island of Haiti, killing over 220,000 people January 13, 1921 Brothers Fred and William Folberth invented the automatic windshield wiper in Cleveland, Ohio. The first mechanical wipers were developed in 1903 1752: The Change of Style Act took effect in Britain, marking the New Year on January 1 instead of March 25 1906: The first advertisement for a radio offered a Telimco model priced at $7.50 2010: Venezuela imposed rolling four-hour blackouts every alternate day to combat a major energy crisis 2012: The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized off the coast of Tuscany with the loss of 32 lives January 14, 1990 The Simpsons, America’s longest-running animated sitcom, made its TV debut. It features a dysfunctional family in the fictional town of Springfield 1950: The first prototype of the Soviet MiG-17 subsonic fighter aircraft made its maiden flight 1970: The drug L-dopa was reported to reverse the progress of Parkinson’s disease 1980: The UN called for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion 1995: The British Army ended 25 years of daylight patrols in Belfast, Northern Ireland January 15, 2005 China and Taiwan agreed to permit direct flights throughout the Chinese New Year holidays, the first non-stop flights between China and Taiwan since 1949 1870: The U.S. Democratic Party was first represented as a donkey in a cartoon in Harper’s Weekly 1970: Oil drilling off Australia was halted pending an inquiry on the impact to the Great Barrier Reef 1970: Diana Ross performed with The Supremes for the last time 1990: he Bulgarian parliament formally scrapped the Communist Party’s monopoly on power, clearing the way for multi-party democracy January 16, 1970 Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya, also declared himself prime minister and defence minister 1909: The British Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton reached the magnetic South Pole 1920: Prohibition took effect in the United States, forbidding the sale, manufacture, or import of alcohol 1920: The first meeting of the Council of the League of Nations took place in Paris, France 1925: Leon Trotsky was formally dismissed as Chairman of the Russian Revolutionary Council January 17, 1995 A 6.8-magnitude earthquake in Japan devastated the city of Kobe, killing 6,434 people and leaving 300,000 homeless. Damage was put at 10 trillion yen ($100bn) 1773: The Resolution, commanded by Captain James Cook, became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle 1874: Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker died within three hours of each other, at 62. Both were married 2000: The merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham created one of the world’s largest drug firms 2019: A suicide car bombing killed 21 people at Colombia’s National Police Academy in Bogota January 18, 1654 Ukrainian Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky accepted the Muscovite Tsar as overlord, thus uniting the newly created state of Ukraine with Russia 1974: Egypt and Israel signed an agreement to disengage their forces along the Suez Canal 2001: OPEC announced it was cutting crude oil output by 1.5 million barrels a day 2005: The “superjumbo” Airbus A380, capable of carrying as many as 850 passengers, was unveiled 2019: More than 90 people were killed in an explosion at an oil pipeline in Mexico January 19, 1915 French physicist Georges Claude was granted a patent for the neon sign. It swiftly became a revolutionary tool within the advertising industry 1419: In the Anglo-French Hundred Years’ War, Henry V of England completed his conquest of Normandy 1915: Germany carried out the first Zeppelin air raid on Britain, attacking eastern coastal towns in Norfolk 1995: Russian forces in Chechnya hoisted the national tricolour over Grozny’s battered presidential palace 2010: Japan Airlines, Asia’s biggest air carrier and over $25bn in debt, filed for bankruptcy protection January 20, 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in for his fourth term as U.S. president, a record that will go unbroken as there is now a limit of two elected terms 1882: A draper’s in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, became the world’s first shop to be lit by electric light 1920: Italian film director Federico Fellini was born. His best known films included La Dolce Vita 1995: The U.S. agreed a trade pact with North Korea and lifted sanctions in place since the Korean War 2010: A French court ruled that an Orthodox church built in Nice by Tsar Nicholas II belonged to Russia January 21, 1954 USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, was launched. Her many records included the first submerged transit of the North Pole in 1958 1790: French doctor Joseph Guillotin proposed a new, humane method of execution, the guillotine 1905: French fashion designer Christian Dior was born 1950: British novelist George Orwell, whose works included Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four, died 2000: President Jamil Mahuad of Ecuador was ousted following mass protests at his plans to replace the national currency with the U.S. dollar January 22, 2015 King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died at around 90 years of age. Seen as something of a reformer, he became a vocal advocate of peace in the Middle East 1905: Over 200 unarmed workers were killed by troops on “Bloody Sunday”, the start of Russia’s 1905 revolution 1964: Kenneth Kaunda was sworn in as the first prime minister of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia 1970: The first “jumbo jet”, the Boeing 747, entered commercial service, making air travel affordable to millions 1984: The Apple Macintosh computer was introduced in a TV commercial during the Super Bowl January 23, 1960 The bathyscaphe Trieste dived to a depth of 10,916 metres in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the deepest known point of the Earth’s oceans 971: In China, Song dynasty troops armed with crossbows defeated the war elephant corps of the Southern Han 1930: Wilhelm Frick became the first Nazi Party member to be appointed a minister in a state government 1980: Israel completed its withdrawal from two-thirds of the Sinai Peninsula, under the Camp David Accords 2004: The ESA’s Mars Express orbiter confirmed the presence of water ice at the south pole of Mars January 24, 1960 A major insurrection, the “week of barricades”, began in Algiers in protest against French President Charles de Gaulle’s policy of self-determination for Algeria 1935: The first canned beer went on sale, with a special coating to prevent the beer from reacting with the tin 1950: U.S. engineer Percy Spencer was issued a patent for the original microwave oven 1995: The trial of O.J. Simpson, for the murder of his wife Nicole and a male companion, started in Los Angeles 2015: The radical anti-austerity Syriza party swept to victory in Greece’s general election January 25, 2019 A dam collapse at an iron ore mine in Brumadinho, Brazil, triggered mudflows that slammed through the mine’s offices and cafeteria, killing over 270 people 1911: The U.S. cavalry was sent to preserve the neutrality of Rio Grande during the Mexican Civil War 1945: The U.S. city of Grand Rapids became the first in the world to add fluoride, a mineral found in rocks and soil, to its drinking water to reduce tooth decay 1955: he Supreme Soviet officially ended the state of war with Germany 1990: Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan became the first head of government to give birth while in office January 26, 1500 Spain made landfall in Brazil but was unable to claim it due to a treaty between Spain and Portugal that divided the New World along geographical lines 1790: Mozart’s comic opera Cosi Fan Tutte, also known as The School for Lovers, was first staged in Vienna 1875: American inventor George F. Green of Kalamazoo, Michigan, patented the electric dental drill 1965: Riots broke out in southern India after Hindi was declared the country’s official language 1990: Indian troops brought Kashmir under direct rule following the resignation of the state government January 27, 1945 Russian troops liberated the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz, where 1.1 million people, 90% of them Jewish, were murdered from 1942 to late 1944 1880: Thomas Edison patented his electric incandescent lamp, the first practical electric light bulb 1965: The military seized power in South Vietnam, ousting the civilian government of Tran Van Huong 2010: Apple unveiled the first iPad, a touch-screen device sized between a mobile phone and a laptop 2018: Ingvar Kamprad, founder of the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea, died at age 91 January 28, 2005 New research at the University of California showed that the Turin Shroud, dismissed by carbon-dating as a medieval fake, could in fact date from the time of Christ 1930: The dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera ended in Spain 1935: Iceland became the first country to legalise abortion on socio-medical grounds 1939: Nobel prize-winning German chemist Otto Hahn revealed he had discovered how to split the atom 1950: he French Assembly ratified the agreement under which Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos became independent states within the French union January 29, 1886 German engineer Karl Benz patented the first successful petrol-driven motor car. It had three rubber-tyred wheels and travelled at 9.3mph 1635: The Academie Francaise, still responsible for the French language, was founded by Cardinal Richelieu 1820: Britain’s King George III died, ending a 60-year reign that witnessed both the American and French Revolutions 1900: The American Baseball League was founded in Chicago 1995: Peru launched a major offensive against Ecuador over a stretch of border in the Andes disputed since 1821 January 30, 2010 Guangzhou South Railway Station was opened. It is one of China’s largest rail transport hubs, located on the high-speed line linking Beijing with Hong Kong 1948: Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist who objected to his tolerance for Muslims 1995: Torrential rain in the Netherlands forced 250,000 people to be evacuated from their homes as the dykes came close to collapse 2005: Millions voted in Iraq’s first democratic election in 50 years 2011: Southern Sudan’s referendum on independence resulted in 99.57% voting to secede from the north January 31, 1971 A limited telephone service linked East and West Berlin for the first time in 19 years 1876: The U.S. government issued an order requiring all remaining Native American Indians to move on to reservations, or be arrested as “hostiles” 1999: Scientists confirmed that the HIV virus originated in a subspecies of chimpanzee found in central Africa 2001: A Scottish court in the Netherlands convicted one Libyan and acquitted a second of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie 2020: The United Kingdom left the European Union. The Brexit process, which bitterly divided the country, was set in motion by a referendum in June 2016 ———————— FEBRUARY February 01, 1971: Ex-Beatle George Harrison's single My Sweet Lord, written in praise of the Hindu god Krishna, sold 110,000 copies in one day 1896: Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Boheme premiered in Turin, Italy 1931: City Lights, Charlie Chaplin’s tragic tale of the Tramp in the big town and a major artistic triumph, opened 1996: Poland's president named Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, an ex-communist leader who had often stood outside his dominant party's mainstream, as prime minister to lead the country out of political crisis 2011: Around one million people protested in Cairo against the regime of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak February 02, 1971: Major General Idi Amin took over as military head of state in Uganda. Over 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during his eight-year regime 1536: Buenos Aires was founded by Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza 1901: The state funeral of Queen Victoria, who ruled the British Empire for 63 years, took place in London” 1986: The women of Liechtenstein voted for the first time in parliamentary elections” 2020: The Philippines announced the first confirmed death from coronavirus outside mainland China. The patient, a 44-year-old male, was a Chinese national from Wuhan who had arrived in the country via Hong Kong on Jan 21 February 03, 2019: The New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl, a sixth victory for both the Patriots and their star quarterback Tom Brady 1637: Tulip mania collapsed in the Netherlands after soaring prices decimated sales” 1690: America’s first paper money was issued in Massachusetts” 1867: Prince Mutsuhito became Emperor Meiji of Japan at the age of 14” 1959: Rock ‘n’ roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed when their plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, on “the day the music died” February 04, 1600: German astronomer Johannes Kepler, considered the father of modern astronomy, met Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague, becoming his assistant 1789: Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first President of the United States 1945: Allied leaders Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at Yalta, in the Crimea, to map out the post-World War II future 1994: Japan launched the H-2 rocket, the first large rocket to use only Japanese-developed technology 2003: The federation of Yugoslavia was dissolved after nearly 74 years February 05, 1971: A British soldier shot dead during riots in Belfast, became the first serving soldier to be killed in action since troops went to Northern Ireland in 1969 1909: The first synthetic plastic, Bakelite, later promoted as “the material of 1000 uses” was reported by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland” 1936: Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin’s last silent movie, opened. Hailed as one of Chaplin’s greatest ever achievements, it remains one of his most popular films” 2011: Thousands of Italians attended a rally to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi over his latest sex scandal” 2020: The U.S. Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in his impeachment trial, ending a bid to remove him from office that bitterly divided the country February 06, 1971: Apollog 14 Astronaut Alan Shepard famously hit three golf balls with a six iron club while on the lunar surface 1976: Patricia O’Shane became the first Aborigine to be admitted to the Australian bar, practising in Sydney 2001: Hardliner Ariel Sharon won a landslide victory to become prime minster of Israel 2013: The Halley VI Research Station, built on huge hydraulic skis, was unveiled in Antartica 2018: SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket on its maiden flight, carrying founder Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload February 07, 1990: The Soviet Communist Party leadership agreed to surrender its 70-year monopoly on power, paving the way for a multi-party democracy 1870: Austrian psychoanalyst Alfred Adler, who developed the concept of the “inferiority complex”, was born 1932: The “neutron”, a neutral particle in the nucleus of atoms, was first reported in Nature by James Chadwick 1940: The world premiere of Walt Disney’s film Pinocchio took place 1968: The leaders of all 10 provinces of Canada agreed to give the French language equal status with English February 08, 1865: Gregor Mendel, botanist and monk who pioneered the laws of genetics, read his first scientific paper describing his studies of pea plants 1725: Peter I of Russia, known as Peter the Great, died 1915: The motion picture Birth of a Nation, directed by D.W. Griffith and considered the first great movie production, had its premiere 1995: French scientists published evidence that Stone Age man burned coal as a fuel 74,000 years ago 2010: A colony of Galapagos Islands fur seals relocated to northern Peru, the first colony outside the islands February 09, 2005: North Korea admitted for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons, and announced it was suspending participation in disarmament talks 1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy said there were card-carrying Communists in the U.S. State Department 1991: The Baltic state of Lithuania voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union 2000: A spate of hacker attacks disrupted services of major websites including Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and CNN 2000: The Kurdistan Workers Party ended 15 years of armed struggle for Kurdish independence from Turkey February 10, 1931: The city of New Delhi was inaugurated as the capital of India. It houses all three branches – legislative, executive and judicial – of the Government of India 1763: France ceded Canada to Britain in the Treaty of Paris 1985: ANC leader Nelson Mandela refused an offer of freedom from jail that was conditional on his renouncing violence 2005: Playwright Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman, died aged 89 2005: Voters in Saudi Arabia took part in the first ever nationwide elections, but only men were allowed to vote or stand for office February 11, 1945: World War II’s “Big Three”, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, met at Yalta to map out the future of post-war Europe and agree plans to found the United Nations 1975: Conservative Margaret Thatcher became the first woman leader of a British political party 1995: The fragile peace in Bosnia broke down as Serbs and Croats disputed the region of Krajina 2010: A court in Beijing rejected an appeal by prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo against his 11-year jail term 2010: Iran declared it was now a nuclear state following a successful 20% uranium enrichment February 12, 2019: The Republic of Macedonia formally changed its name to the Republic of North Macedonia, ending a 27-year naming dispute with Greece 1980: Former West German chancellor Willy Brandt emphasized the need to reshape the relationship between rich and poor countries in a report to the UN 1995: UNITA rebels accepted a peace treaty to end 19 years of war in Angola 2005: An artwork of 7,503 vinyl gates hung with saffron silk, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, opened in New York 2019: Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was found guilty of 10 criminal charges in the U.S., and was later jailed for life at a Supermax prison Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was found guilty of 10 criminal charges in the U.S. February 13, 1895: French brothers Louis and Auguste Lumiere patented the Cinematographe, a joint camera and film projector that ushered in the birth of modern cinema 1668: Spain recognised the independence of Portugal under the Treaty of Lisbon 1945: Hungary’s capital Budapest fell to Russian troops after a 50-day siege in which 50,000 Germans died 1960: The French tested their first atomic bomb in the Sahara desert in southern Algeria 2019: NASA concluded its 15-year Opportunity Mars rover mission, which had stopped communicating in 2018 February 14, 2010: Alexandre Bilodeau won Canada’s first ever Olympic gold medal on home soil, in the men’s freestyle skiing moguls at the Vancouver Olympics 1920: The League of Women Voters was founded in the U.S. Six months later women won the right to vote 1945: The German city of Dresden was devastated by Allied bombing 1995: The governments of Peru and Ecuador both claimed victory in a long-standing border dispute 2005: YouTube, a website in which videos could be freely uploaded, shared, and viewed, was established by three former PayPal employees February 15, 1971: Decimalization in Britain replaced shillings and pence with 100 new pence to the pound 1922: The Permanent Court of International Justice, sitting in The Hague in Holland, held its first session 1993: Scientists announced the discovery of a huge range of volcanoes in deep waters in the South Pacific 2001: Small-town bullfights in Spain came under threat when carcasses of fighting bulls over 30 months old had to be destroyed due to mad cow disease 2013: A meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, in Siberia, injuring more than 1,000 people February 16, 1937: DuPont received a patent for its new synthetic “miracle” fibre, named nylon. Commercial production of nylon for stockings started in 1939 1994: A prototype European Union police force, Europol,was launched 2005: The Kyoto Protocol came into force, obliging 55 industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions 2005: North America’s entire NHL ice-hockey season was cancelled after negotiations broke down between owners and the players’ union 2019: Swiss actor Bruno Ganz died at age 77. Perhaps best known for his portrayal of Hitler in the film Downfall, he also did notable work with directors Werner Herzog, Eric Rohmer, Francis Ford Coppola, and Wim Wenders February 17, 1971: English songwriter and singer Elton John, who has sold more than 300 million albums worldwide, won his first American gold disc for his self-titled album 1923: Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon opened the inner tomb of the Egyptian king Tutankhamun at Luxor. The tomb had been sealed since 1337 BC 1996: World chess champion Garry Kasparov beat the Deep Blue computer to win their series 4-2 2006: France, the EU’s largest poultry producer, became the latest EU country to report the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu 2011: Security forces in Libya crack down on protesters in Benghazi demanding the removal of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, in power for 41 years February 18, 1745: Count Alessandro Volta was born. The Italian physicist, after whom a unit of electricity was named, invented the first electric battery in 1800 1865: Union forces finally took the city of Charleston, South Carolina, after a two-year siege during the U.S. Civil War 1930: Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto, now reclassified as a “dwarf planet” 1977: Enterprise made its maiden test voyage atop a Boeing 747, paving the way for the space shuttle programme 2005: A burst of light energy, greater than the total emitted by the sun in 150,000 years, was detected February 19, 2019: German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld died at 85. As creative director of Chanel and his own label, he always wore dark glasses and his signature white ponytail 1800: Napoleon Bonaparte established himself as First Consul in France 1945: The U.S. Fifth Fleet launched the invasion of Iwo Jima against the Japanese during World War II 2010: Golfer Tiger Woods made an emotional public apology for his extramarital affairs, in his first public appearance since the scandal broke 2010: A 400-year-old minaret collapsed at a mosque in Meknes, Morocco, killing 41 people February 20, 1707: Aurangzeb, sixth and last of the great Mughal Emperors, died. Under his 49-year rule the empire expanded to encompass nearly all of the Indian subcontinent 1472: Norway gave Orkney and Shetland to Scotland after James III of Scotland married Margaret of Norway 1995: U.S. marines arrived in Somalia to oversee the withdrawal of 2,500 UN troops caught up in the civil war 2005: The Israeli cabinet approved Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw settlers from the Gaza Strip 2010: The Dutch government collapsed over a dispute within the governing coalition on extending troop deployments in Afghanistan February 21, 2019: Peter Tork (far left), who found fame with the popular 1960s band The Monkees, died aged 77. Tork played keyboard and bass on hits such as I’m A Believer 1848: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto, an analysis of the class struggle and the problems of capitalism 1960: Fidel Castro nationalized all private businesses in Cuba 1995: Steve Fossett landed in Canada after making the first solo flight across the Pacific in a balloon 2008: The U.S. Navy shot down a disabled spy satellite carrying toxic fuel, over the Pacific Ocean February 22, 1630: English colonists in America first tasted popcorn, kernels of corn that “pop” when heated over a flame, and known to Native Americans for over 1,000 years 1819: Spain ceded Florida to the United States 1940: Four-year-old Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was installed as the spiritual leader of Tibet 1946: The discovery of the antibiotic streptomycin, the first antibiotic for tuberculosis, was announced 2017: Astronomers detected seven Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1, three of them in its habitable zone February 23, 1945: U.S. Marines captured Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. Their raising of the U.S. flag became the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph 1744: Meyer Amschel Rothschild, German founder of the banking dynasty, was born in the Jewish ghetto of Frankfurt am Main 1836: Several thousand Mexican troops besieged the Alamo, held by just 145 Texans including Davy Crockett 1941: Plutonium-238 was identified but its discovery was not published until after World War II 1999: Turkey charged rebel Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan with treason February 24, 1304: Celebrated Arab traveller Ibn Battuta was born in Tangier, Morocco. Over 30 years, he visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands 1868: Andrew Johnson became the first U.S. president to have impeachment proceedings brought against him by the House of Representatives. He was subsequently acquitted 1980: The shekel replaced the pound as the currency of Israel 1991: Allied night attacks launched the Gulf War ground campaign 2010: India’s Sachin Tendulkar became the first ever player to score a double century in ODI cricket February 25, 1875: The Guangxu Emperor of China began his reign, aged three, with Empress Dowager Cixi as regent. He was the penultimate emperor of the Qing Dynasty 1455: Johannes Gutenberg, who pioneered printing with movable type, printed his first Bible in Germany 1964: Kim Il-sung of North Korea called for all cooperative farms to become state-run collectives 1990: Nicaragua’s U.S.-backed coalition, led by Violeta Chamorro, defeated Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government 1994: A Jewish settler massacred 43 Muslims at a Hebron mosque before being beaten to death February 26, 2010: Short track speed skater Wang Meng became the first Chinese athlete to win three gold medals at a single Winter Olympics, at the Vancouver Games 1919: The Grand Canyon National Park was established in the U.S. state of Arizona 1935: Robert Watson-Watt first demonstrated the potential of radar (radio detection and ranging) 1980: Egypt and Israel established diplomatic relations, marking the end of 30 years of war between them 1990: The Soviet Union agreed to withdraw all its 73,500 troops from Czechoslovakia within five months February 27, 2015: Boris Nemtsov, a charismatic Russian opposition politician and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead in Moscow, triggering mass protests 1869: The U.S. Constitution gave the right to vote to freed slaves following the American Civil War 1940: Carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon which enabled radiocarbon dating, was discovered 1980: U.S. pop star Michael Jackson won his first Grammy award 2010: An 8.8 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile killed over 500 people and triggered a tsunami that destroyed several coastal towns February 28, 2019: German-born U.S. conductor and composer André Previn died at age 89. His all-round talent blurred the boundaries between jazz, pop, film and classical music 1790: John Irving became the first Australian convict to be officially granted his freedom 1935: Nylon, a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers, was first produced by U.S. firm DuPont 1950: The French national assembly passed a law to curb the sale of Coca-Cola 2010: A massive iceberg struck an Antarctic glacier, dislodging a block of ice and so creating a new iceberg February 29, 1960: Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club in Chicago, famous for its Playboy Bunny waitresses dressed in satin corsets, bunny ears and fluffy white tails 1792: Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini, known for his operas William Tell and The Barber of Seville, was born 1880: The St Gotthard tunnel, linking Switzerland and Italy, was completed 1908: Helium was liquefied for the first time by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes 2004: Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the last in the trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, won 11 Oscars ———————— MARCH March 01, 1940: Vivien Leigh won an Oscar as Best Actress for her role as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, one of the most popular films of all time 1810: Sweden became the first country to appoint an ombudsman to safeguard the rights of citizens 1810: Polish composer Frederic Chopin was born 1950: Chiang Kai-shek resumed the presidency of the Nationalist Chinese government 1995: Yahoo! Inc., the U.S. internet corporation known for its web portal and search engine Yahoo Search, was incorporated March 02, 1825: Engineer Marc Isambard Brunel and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel began work on the Thames Tunnel in London, the world’s first tunnel under a navigable river 1940: The liner Queen Elizabeth, painted battleship grey, began her maiden voyage to the U.S. in secret 1995: Former Italian premier Giulio Andreotti was ordered to stand trial on charges of Mafia collusion 2015: Iraqi security forces, aided by Iranian-backed Shiite militias, began an offensive to recapture Tikrit from ISIS 2017: The superheavy elements Moscovium, Tennessine and Oganesson were added to the periodic table March 03, 1875: Bizet’s opera Carmen was first staged at the Opera Comique in Paris. Now one of the world’s most popular operas, it was initially considered scandalous 1950: The U.S. Congress admitted Alaska as the 49th State of the Union 1990: Venezuela suspended foreign debt payments after mass rioting 2005: Steve Fossett completed the first solo nonstop round the world flight in his Global Flyer aircraft 2015: Addressing the U.S. Congress, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked President Barack Obama’s efforts to get Iran to freeze its nuclear programme March 04, 1971: Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, 51, secretly married 22-year-old Margaret Sinclair 1991: Miners in the two largest Soviet coalfields went on strike to support demands for the resignation of President Mikhail Gorbachev and for pay rises 2001: Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal for immediate membership talks with the European Union 2006: A new species of shark was discovered off Mexico, bringing the number of Mustelus species found in the eastern North Pacific to five 2018: A former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned by a nerve agent in Salisbury, England. The substance was identified as a Soviet-era Novichok agent March 05, 1960: Cuban photographer Alberto Korda captured his iconic image of Che Guevara, taken at an event honouring over 100 Cubans killed in an explosion in Havana 1930: American food scientist Clarence Birdseye developed the quick-freeze technique 1970: The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty came into force 1998: NASA announced the discovery of significant deposits of ice on the moon 2013: Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez died from cancer at age 58. Re-elected three times, the left-wing leader thrived on confrontation with Washington March 06, 1834: The Canadian city of Toronto was incorporated. One of the world’s most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities, it is home to more than 2.7 million people 1899: The headache relief drug Aspirin was patented 1980: Belgian-born French author Marguerite Yourcenar became the first woman writer elected to the Academie Francaise 2010: celanders refused to compensate investors in Britain and the Netherlands for the collapse of Icesave bank 2015: Nigeria’s Boko Haram militant group pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State March 07, 1971: Women in Switzerland were finally given the right to vote 1876: Scots-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. patent for the first practical telephone, capable of relaying sustained articulate speech 1912: French aviator Henri Seimet flew from Paris to London in three hours, in the first non-stop flight 1994: Poland said it would join Hungary in applying for membership of the European Union 1996: Researchers at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, announced they had successfully cloned sheep March 08, 1921: Spanish Prime Minister Eduardo Dato was assassinated by anarchists near his home in Madrid 1917: Russia’s “February Revolution” began with riots and strikes in St Petersburg 1921: French troops occupied Duesseldorf and other towns in the Ruhr after Germany failed to pay reparations 2001: China unveiled a $12 billion plan to divert water from the Yangtze River to the drought-stricken north 2006: The European Union lifted a 10-year worldwide ban on the export of British beef introduced to prevent the spread of Mad Cow Disease March 09, 1965: U.S. President Lyndon Johnson authorized the use in Vietnam of napalm, a petroleum-based anti-personnel bomb that sticks to skin and causes severe burns 1995: Fast-food restaurants in Los Angeles were reported to be responsible for nine times more pollution than the city’s buses 2000: Ecuador received $2 billion in IMF aid as it replaced its currency, the sucre, with the U.S. dollar 2010: Indonesian terrorist Dulmatin was killed in a police raid in Jakarta 2015: Apple unveiled its hotly anticipated smartwatch, with prices ranging from $349 up to $10,000 March 10, 1977: The rings of Uranus were discovered when dips in the brightness of a star were spotted before and after the body of the planet passed in front of it 1910: D.W. Griffith’s In Old California, the first film to be made in Hollywood, was released 1995: Spain sent a gunboat to protect its trawlers fishing in international waters off Canada 2005: Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa resigned two years before the end of his term in the face of growing unpopularity 2010: Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim became the world’s richest person March 11, 105: Chinese court official Ts’ai Lun is credited with inventing paper, made from pressed and dried layers of tree bark, remnants of hemp, cloth rags and fishing nets 1845: English baker Henry Jones patented self-raising flour 1985: New Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called for more glasnost, or openness, in Soviet life 1990: Lithuania became the first Soviet Republic to declare its independence from the Soviet Union 2010: Sebastian Pinera was sworn in as President of Chile, taking office as his country struggled to recover from February’s massive earthquake March 12, 1945: Jewish diarist Anne Frank, aged 15, died in the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, just one month before it was liberated by British troops 1894: The first bottles of Coca-Cola, originally promoted as a nerve and brain tonic, went on sale 1930: Mahatma Gandhi began a 300-mile protest march in India against the British tax on salt 2000: Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s conservative Popular Party swept to victory in Spain 2005: President Bashar al-Assad of Syria agreed to the withdrawal of all Syrian troops from Lebanon March 13, 2019: The Boeing 737 MAX passenger airliner was grounded worldwide after two crashes of the aircraft within five months killed all 346 people onboard both flights 1894: A music hall in Paris staged the first professional striptease 1988: The Seikan Tunnel, the world’s longest tunnel with an undersea section, opened in Japan 1990: The Soviet parliament voted to approve a multi-party political system, ending the political monopoly of the Communist Party after 72 years 2010: He Pingping, at one time the world’s shortest man at 74.6cm (2ft 5in), died at age 21 March 14, 2013: Xi Jingping formally became President of China, completing the transition of power and putting Xi in charge of all three centres of power in the country 1885: Gilbert and Sullivan’s Japanese-set operetta, The Mikado, was first performed in London 1930: Swedish-born film star Greta Garbo starred in her first talking movie, Anna Christie 1965: Israel accepted a West German request to establish diplomatic relations 2005: China’s legislature passed a law authorising the use of force against Taiwan if the island declared formal independence March 15, 2019: A gunman killed 51 people and wounded dozens more at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in the deadliest attack in the country’s history 1985: Military rule came to an end in Brazil, 21 years after a coup ousted the democratically elected government 1990: Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the first executive President of the Soviet Union 1996: Pioneering Dutch aviation firm Fokker NV collapsed, ending 77 years of aircraft making in Holland 2007: Scientists discovered that if the polar ice cap on Mars melted water would cover the entire planet March 16, 1900: British archaeologist Arthur Evans purchased the land around the ruins of Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on the Greek island of Crete 1973: International finance ministers agreed to establish a currency system based on floating rates of exchange 1985: U.S. journalist Terry Anderson was kidnapped in Beirut and held captive for 2,454 days 2010: Thai red-shirt demonstrators spilt their own blood at the gates of the prime minister’s office 2010: Michael Jackson’s estate agreed a $200m recording deal, the biggest in history, with Sony Music March 17, 2001: The world’s largest greenhouse opened at the Eden Project in Cornwall, England. dominated by two giant domes, called biomes, that recreated the Earth's different climates, each housing thousands of different plant species 1845: The elastic band, made from vulcanized rubber, was patented by Stephen Perry of London 1980: The first patent for a life form was issued for a genetically-engineered bacterium 2010: A controversial mega-dam on a tributary of the Mekong River in Laos began generating electricity 2015: The remains of Spanish literary giant Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, were found in a Madrid convent nearly 400 years after his death March 18, 1965: Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov became the first human to walk in space, making a 12-minute tethered spacewalk during the Voskhod 2 mission 1850: The American Express Company was founded in Buffalo, New York 1902: Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso made the first good quality recording 1990: Christian Democrats won a landslide victory in East Germany’s first democratic elections 1995: King Juan Carlos’s elder daughter Elena married Jaime de Marichalar in Spain’s first royal wedding for 89 years March 19, 1918: Sudan, the last male northern white rhinoceros in the world, died 1931: The hangover cure Alka Seltzer was first marketed 1931: The U.S. state of Nevada voted to legalise gambling to bring in much needed money during the Great Depression 1999: The UN estimated that up to 240,000 people had fled their homes in Kosovo as Serb attacks continued 2009: Austrian Josef Fritzl was jailed for life for the 24-year imprisonment and rape of his daughter March 20, 1602: The Dutch East India Company was granted a charter giving it a trade monopoly in the Indian Ocean. It established its eastern base in Batavia (Jakarta), above 1815: Napoleon arrived back in Paris from exile in Elba to reclaim power 1995: Tokyo’s underground was paralysed when terrorists released deadly nerve gas, killing 12 people 2016: Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 2019: UN judges increased the sentence of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, 73, to life in prison March 21, 2010: Iceland’s Eyjafjallajoekull volcano, dormant for 200 years, began a series of eruptions that caused massive disruption to European airspace 1965: Martin Luther King led an 8,000-strong crowd on a civil rights march in support of voting rights for black people 1990: Namibia became independent after 75 years of South African rule 2000: China said it would not negotiate with Taiwan’s new governing party, which supported independence 2010: Plastiki, a boat built from 12,000 plastic bottles, set sail from San Francisco to Sydney March 22, 1895: Auguste and Louis Lumiere first demonstrated motion pictures using celluloid film. A film of workers leaving a factory in Paris was shown to invited guests 1903: The American side of Niagara Falls ran short of water due to a drought 1916: After ruling as emperor for just 83 days Yuan Shikai abandoned his effort to establish a new hereditary monarchy in China due to mounting revolts and his declining health 1930: Stephen Sondheim, U.S. composer and lyricist, was born 1945: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria founded the Arab League March 23, 1910: Akira Kurosawa, influential Japanese film director, was born. His best known films include Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and his final work, Ran 1925: The U.S. state of Tennessee banned the teaching of the theory of evolution in its schools 2010: U.S. President Barack Obama signed his landmark health care reform bill into law 2010: Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo made its maiden flight from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in California 2014: What became the worst ever outbreak of the Ebola virus was confirmed in West Africa March 24, 2002: For the first and, to date, only time in the history of the Oscars, two African-American actors, Halle Berry and Denzel Washington, scooped the top acting awards 1965: The U.S. spacecraft Ranger 9 crash-landed on the moon. Some of the 5,000 pictures it sent back were broadcast live on TV for the first time 1990: Indian peacekeeping forces pulled out of Sri Lanka 2010: Indian scientists said that a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal had disappeared beneath the rising seas 2010: Scientists revealed they had identified a previously unknown type of ancient human, found in Siberia March 25, 1995: The Schengen Treaty, to abolish border checks between European Union states, came into force. The zone now covers 26 countries and more than 400 million people 1954: The first colour television went on sale for around $1,000, roughly the same cost as a car at that time 1975: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was assassinated by his nephew, Prince Faisal. He was succeeded by his brother, Khaled bin Abdul-aziz 1995: WikiWikiWeb, the world’s first user-editable website, was created 2015: Saudi Arabia launched air strikes in Yemen against Iranian-backed Houthi militants March 26, 2015: King Richard III of England, whose remains were found buried under a car park in 2012, was reinterred in Leicester Cathedral over 500 years after his death 1945: The World War II Battle of Iwo Jima ended. Over 21,800 Japanese and around 6,800 U.S. troops died 2005: Half a million people marched through Taipei to express anger over China’s new anti-secession law 2010: A South Korean warship sank after an explosion, believed caused by a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine. 46 sailors died 2010: The U.S. and Russia finalised terms of the New START treaty March 27, 2000: Vladimir Putin continued his stunning rise to prominence by securing a full term as Russia’s head of state, winning a decisive presidential election victory 1770: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, last of the great Venetian painters, died 1914: The first successful non-direct blood transfusion, using stored blood rather than transfusing directly from donor to receiver, was performed 1933: Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being found guilty of aggression in Manchuria 1945: The last German V2 rocket landed in Britain March 28, 1920: Silent screen stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks got married after both divorced their former spouses, a potentially career-ending move at the time 1800: The Irish parliament passed the Act of Union with Great Britain 1930: Constantinople, capital of the late Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, was renamed Istanbul 2000: NASA reported that the loss of the Mars Polar Lander was due to a faulty sensor on the landing legs 2010: Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva met with anti-government “Red Shirts” to try to end the political crisis in the country March 29, 1901: Daimler’s Mercedes 35 HP, regarded as the first modern automobile, made its debut. It was named after the daughter of the man who commissioned it 1867: The Dominion of Canada was established, comprising Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec 2000: OPEC oil ministers agreed to increase production after a one-year cutback in which oil prices tripled 2004: Ireland became the world’s first country to impose a nationwide ban on smoking in public places 2015: Muhammadu Buhari became the first opposition candidate to win a presidential election in Nigeria March 30, 1858: Philadelphia stationer Hymen Lipman received a patent for his invention of a pencil with a built-in eraser. He sold the patent in 1862 for $100,000 (around $2m today) 1842: The first surgical operation using ether as an anaesthetic was carried out using ether by a physician in rural Georgia 1936: Daily broadcasts in English, Arabic and Hebrew inaugurated the Palestinian Broadcasting Service 1944: Britain lost 95 bombers out of 795 aircraft sent to attack Nuremberg, the RAF’s largest loss of World War II 2010: The Large Hadron Collider shattered records by colliding particle beams at a combined energy of 7 TeV March 31, 1855: English novelist and poet Charlotte Bronte, the eldest of three literary sisters and best known for her novel Jane Eyre, died during pregnancy 1870: Thomas Peterson-Mundy became the first black person to vote in the United States 1949: The Dominion of Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation and became the 10th Province of Canada 1951: The first UNIVAC I computer, costing $159,000 and weighing 16,686 pounds, was delivered for office use 2010: Serbia’s parliament formally apologised for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre ———————