January 31st in History
1865: Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in America
1929: Leon Trotsky expelled from Russia
1946: Yugoslavia adopts new constitution, becomes a federal republic
1950: President Truman reveals that he ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to develop hydrogen bomb
1958: America launches its first satellite, Explorer I, from Cape Canaverel
1968: The Island of Mauritius gains independence
1994: German based BMW buys Rover cars from British Aerospace for 800 million


January 31st birthdays
1797: Franz Schubert, Austrian composer
1882: Anna Pavlova, Celebrated Russian prima ballerina
1921: Mario Lanza, American Tenor and film actor, who died suddenly aged 38
1938: Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands

February 1st in History
1790: Supreme Court convenes for the first time
1965: Martin Luther King Jr and 700 demonstrators arrested in Selma, Alabama
1991: South African president F W de Klerk says he would repeal all apartheid laws


February 1st birthdays
1872: Paul Fort, French poet.
1895: John Ford, American director.
1901: Clark Gable, American actor.
1902: Langston Hughes, American poet.
1931: Boris Yeltsin, Russian politician.

February 2nd in History
1653: New Amsterdam (later renamed New York) is founded
1914: Cub Scouts founded in England
1933: Three days after becoming chancellor, Adolf Hitler dissolves Parliament. Göring bans communist meetings/demonstrations in Germany
1943: Battle of Stalingrad ends with final surrender of the German army, leaving 600,000 dead


February 2nd birthdays
1650: Nell Gwynne, Comedy actress and mistress of Charles II
1882: James Joyce, Irish writer
1905: Ayn Rand, American philisopher.

February 3rd in History
1877: The piano piece 'chopsticks' is copyrighted
1913: the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, giving the government the power to impose and collect taxes on income
1919: Kiev was captured by the Bolsheviks
1966: First soft landing on the Moon by spacecraft Luna 9
1969: the Palestine National Congress appoints Yasser Arafat head of the Palestine Liberation Organization
1989: Twenty villages evacuated in Russia, after high radiation fall-out from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster


February 3rd birthdays
1809: Felix Mendelssohn, German composer
1907: James Michener, American author

February 4th in History
1783: England officially proclaims an end to hostilities in America
1938: Adolf Hitler takes command of the German Army
1945: Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin meet at Yalta in the Crimea to discuss plans for the defeat of the Axis powers and to decide on the post-war future
1971: Rolls Royce goes bankrupt after a disastrous contract to supply aero engines to Lockheed Aircraft


February 4th birthdays
1688: Pierre De Marivaux, French writer.
1881: Fernand Leger, French painter.
1900: Jacques Prevert, French poet.
1902: Charles Lindbergh, American pilot
1913: Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist
1921: Betty Friedan, American philosopher.
1947: Dan Quayle, Former American Vice-President

February 5th in History
1901: Pierpont Morgan forms US Steel
1904: American occupation of Cuba ends
1917: Mexican constitution proclaimed
1922: The very first 'Readers Digest' appears on the shelves
1971: The US Apollo 14 (Shepard and Mitchell onboard) lands on the Moon
1988: Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize


February 5th birthdays
1840: John Dunlop, Scottish inventor of pneumatic bicycle tire
1919: Red Buttons, American actor.
1940: H R Giger, Dutch painter.
1943: Nolan Bushnell, American game designer (founder of Atari and creator of Pong, the first videogame)
1946: Charlotte Rampling, British actress.

February 6th in History
1778: France recognizes US, signs treaty of aid in Paris (First US treaty). England immediately declares war on France.
1788: Massachusetts becomes the sixth of the United States.
1899: Treaty of Paris is ratified by the U.S. Senate by one vote, ending the Spanish-American War
1958: A plane carrying the Manchester United football team crashed at Munich airport, killing 7 of the team
1959: Indira Ghandi becomes the leader of India's Congress Party
1991: Debris from the Soviet space station 'Salyut 7' fall into the Atlantic as it breaks up


February 6th birthdays
1911: Ronald Reagan, Former actor and US (40th) President
1919: Zsa Zsa Gabor, American actress
1922: Patrick McNee, British actor.
1932: Francois Truffaut, French director
1945: Bob Marley, Jamaican singer.

February 7th in History
1900: Labour Party forms in England
1984: US astronaut Bruce McCandless is the first person to 'Spacewalk' untethered to a spacecraft
1990: The Soviet Communist Party leadership agrees to surrender its 70-year monopoly on power, paving the way for a multi-party democracy
1992: European Community ministers formally sign the Maastricht Treaty, paving the way for the creation of the European Union.


February 7th birthdays
1812: Charles thingyens, British writer
1932: Gay Talese, American actor.
1943: Gareth Hunt, British actor
1945: Pete Postlethwaite, American actor.

February 8th in History
1725: Catherine the Great becomes the Empress of Russia
1924: Gas chamber used for the first time in an American state prison
1926: Walt Disney Studios is formed
1942: Congress advises FDR that Americans of Japanese descent should be locked up en masse so they wouldn't oppose the US war effort
1969: Last edition of Saturday Evening Post, which used to carry Norman Rockwell covers.
1969: First test flight of the Boeing 747 Jumbo jet
1973: Senate names seven members to investigate Watergate scandal
1974: The US spacestation, Skylab, crashes back to Earth, breaking up in the atmosphere


February 8th birthdays
1819: John Ruskin, English writer and artist
1820: William Sherman, US general whom the 'Sherman Tank' was named after
1828: Jules Verne, French author
1920: Lana Turner, American film actress
1925: Jack Lemmon, Veteran American film actor
1931: James Dean, American film actor ('Rebel Without A Cause')
1932: John Williams, US film score writer

February 9th in History
1923: Soviet Aeroflot airlines established
1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy says the US State Department is infested with communists
1970: World's first nerve transplant, in Germany
1971: First British soldier killed in Northern Ireland
1989: Neo-Nazi groups outlawed in West Germany
1992: Fighting between government and guerrilla forces in Rwanda
1994: Israeli minister Shimon Perez signs accord with PLO's Yasser Arafat.


February 9th birthdays
1700: Daniel Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician
1909: Carmen Miranda, Brazilian actress.
1943: Joe Pesci, American actor.
1945: Mia Farrow, American film actress