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February 15: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – February 15 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 15th Feb 399 BC: Philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death in the city of Athens on charges of corrupting the minds of young people of the city and for impiety.
2. 15th Feb 1145: On this day Bernardo was elected as Pope Eugene III.
3. 15th Feb 1386: The Council of Flanders was formed on this day by Prince Philip the Stout.
4. 15th Feb 1386: Christianity was introduced to Lithuania when Grand Duke Jogaila and Vytautas underwent Baptism at the Cathedral of Cracow.
5. 15th Feb 1495: Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander weds Duchess Elena in Moscow.
6. 15th Feb 1539: In Toledo Emperor Charles on this day receives Cardinal Pole.
7. 15th Feb 1552: Heavy storm hits the Dutch coast on this day.
8. 15th Feb 1563: Russian forces led by Ivan IV takeover Polocka.
9. 15th Feb 1637: After the demise of Ferdinand II King of Bohemia, Ferdinand III succeeds him as the Holy Roman Emperor.
10. 15th Feb 1677: King Charles II reports an anti-French covenant with the Netherlands.
18th Century – What Happened on February 15 – The 1700s
11. 15th Feb 1763: Austria, Prussia, and Saxony sign a treaty of Hubertus Burg which brings to an end the French and Indian War and War of Seven Years.
12. 15th Feb 1764: Pierre Laclade Ligue founded St Louis, Missouri as a French trading post.
13. 15th Feb 1768: The first mustard manufactured in America was advertised in Philadelphia.
14. 15th Feb 1775: Angelo Braschi was on this day chosen as Pope Pius VI.
15. 15th Feb 1799: In Pennsylvania, the printed ballot was authorized for the first time in the US.
19th Century – February 15 This Day That Year – The 1800s
16. 15th Feb 1804: Slavery was abolished in New Jersey. It was the last northern state to do so.
17. 15th Feb 1842: The first adhesive postage stamps in the US were made available by a private delivery company in New York City.
18. 15th Feb 1845: William Parsons, Earl of Rosse, first used the 72” (183 cm) reflector.
19. 15th Feb 1848: Sarah Roberts was barred from a white school in Boston.
20. 15th Feb1851: Black abolitionists invaded a Boston courtroom to rescue a fugitive slave.
21. 15th Feb 1852: The Great Ormond St. Hospital for Sick Children in London admitted its first patient today.
22. 15th Feb 1869: Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis were on this day.
23. 15th Feb 1870: Ground was broken on this day near Duluth in Minnesota for the Northern Pacific Railway.
24. 15th Feb 1879: The U.S. Congress on this day authorized women lawyers to practice before the Supreme Court.
25. 15th Feb 1882: On this day the first cargo of frozen meat was shipped from New Zealand to Britain. SS Dunedin left New Zealand that day with the cargo.
26. 15th Feb 1895: Heavy snowfall in New Orleans, recording 9” (23 cm) of snow.
27. 15th Feb 1898: US battleship USS Maine, which was anchored in Havana harbor blew up in an explosion and sank, killing over 266 sailors. Sabotage was suspected.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day February 15th – The 1900s
28. 15th Feb 1900: British troops on this day relieve Kimberly in South Africa which was under siege by the Boers since October 1899.
29. 15th Feb 1902: The underground railway in Berlin, Berlin U-Bahn was opened today.
30. 15th Feb 1903: The first teddy bear was introduced on this day in America by Morris and Rose Michtom.
31. 15th Feb 1905: The first race meet at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas, was run on this day.
32. 15th Feb 1906: The British Labor Party was organized on this day.
33. 15th Feb 1910: Boy Scouts of America was founded on this day.
34. 15th Feb 1912: Schooner ‘Fram’ reached the southernmost point ever reached by a ship when it reached latitude 78° 41’south.
35. 15th Feb 1918: A US Army ship was on this day torpedoed and sunk by Germany off Ireland’s coast.
36. 15th Feb 1918: Gregorian calendar was adopted by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on this day.
37. 15th Feb 1919: The American Legion was organized in Paris today.
38. 15th Feb 1922: Regular broadcasting transmissions were begun today from Essex by inventor Guglielmo Marconi.
39. 15th Feb 1924: A delegation of the South African Indian Congress (S.A.I.C) met Interior Minister Sir Patrick Duncan and presented a memorandum objecting to the Class Areas Bill.
40. 15th Feb 1925: London Zoo announced today that would install lights the cheer up fogged-in animals.
41. 15th Feb 1926: Contract air mail service opens in the United States.
42. 15th Feb 1932: The 3rd Winter Olympic Games closes in Lake Placid in New York.
43. 15th Feb 1933: American President-elect Franklin Roosevelt on this day survived an assassination attempt.
44. 15th Feb 1933: The Social-democratic newspaper “Vorwarts” was again banned in Berlin.
45. 15th Feb 1934: The U.S. Congress on this day passed the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, allotting funds for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.
46. 15th Feb 1936: Adolf Hitler announces the building of Volkswagens, the people’s car.
47. 15th Feb 1939: The biggest battleship ever, the German battleship “Bismarck” was launched today.
48. 15th Feb 1940: Hitler on this day announced that all British merchant ships would be considered warships.
49. 15th Feb 1942: The Antillean oil refinery was on this day shelled by a German U-boat.
50. 15th Feb 1942: Japanese troops on this day marched into Palembang in South Sumatra.
51. 15th Feb 1942: British forces in Singapore surrendered to the Japanese troops led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita.
52. 15th Feb 1943: Women’s camp Tamtui on Ambon was hit by Allied air raids on this day.
53. 15th Feb 1944: American bombers attack the Abbey of Monte Cassino in Central Italy in an order to neutralize it as a German observation post.
54. 15th Feb 1944: U.S. Navy pilot Nathan Gordon from Arkansas, and his crew made separate flying boat landings to rescue several other aviators from B-52 bombers which had been shot down while attacking Japanese positions.
55. 15th Feb 1944: 891 British bombers attacked Berlin today.
56. 15th Feb 1946: The Canadian mounted police on this day arrested 22 people as Russian spies.
57. 15th Feb 1948: Chinese Communist Revolutionary Mao Zedong’s army occupies Yenan.
58. 15th Feb 1950: Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung on this day signed a mutual defense treaty in Moscow.
59. 15th Feb 1951: The US was asked to help defend Europe from the Soviets. This was to prevent the fall of Europe to the Soviet Union as such an occupation would increase the chances of an attack on the US.
60. 15th Feb 1953: Tenley Albright won the world figure skating championship at a competition in Davos, Switzerland. She was the first American to win the championship.
61. 15th Feb 1954: The first Beaverton, particle accelerator went into operation in Berkeley, California.
62. 15th Feb 1955: The first pilot plant for the production of manmade diamonds was announced today.
63. 15th Feb 1957: Andrei Gromyko replaced Dmitri T. Shepilov the foreign minister of the Soviet Union.
64. 15th Feb 1961: A Sabena airline Boeing 707 crashed near Belgium killing 73 people including 18 figure skaters from the United States.
65. 15th Feb 1962: United States performs nuclear test at the Nevada test site.
66. 15th Feb 1965: Queen Elizabeth II of England proclaimed on this day that the maple leaf would become the new symbol for Canada’s National Flag.
67. 15th Feb 1967: Thirteen US helicopters were shot down in one day in the Vietnam War.
68. 15th Feb 1967: The first anti-bootleg recording law was enacted on this day.
69. 15th Feb 1967: France on this day launched its Diademe-D satellite into the earth’s orbit.
70. 15th Feb 1970: Dominican DC 9 aircraft crashed into the sea at Santo Domingo on this day killing 102 people.
71. 15th Feb 1970: Nationalists disrupt UN session on Congo.
72. 15th Feb 1971: Great Britain adopts the decimal currency abandoning the 1200-year-old system of pence and shillings.
73. 15th Feb 1971: A British soldier who was mortally wounded in an Irish Republican Army attack 7 days back, died in North Ireland.
74. 15th Feb 1972: Sound recordings were granted US copywrite protection for the first time.
75. 15th Feb 1972: There was a left-leaning military coup in Ecuador led by Guillermo Rodriguez Lara.
76. 15th Feb 1973: The U.S.S.R. launches Prognoz 3 at Baikonur, Kazakhstan to study solar flares.
77. 15th Feb 1974: The air and sea search for the survivors of the British fishing trawler Gaul was called off today with no hope of finding any of its 36 crew alive.
78. 15th Feb 1974: Gasoline stations in the U.S. threatened to close because of federal fuel policies.
79. 15th Feb 1976: The 12th Winter Olympic Games close at Innsbruck in Austria.
80. 15th Feb 1977: The Danish parliamentary elections were won by the Social Democrats.
81. 15th Feb 1978: A serial killer and mass murderer Ted Bundy who had earlier escaped was recaptured on this day.
82. 15th Feb 1978: The legendary heavyweight boxing champion Mohammad Ali was today beaten by Leon Spinks for the heavyweight title.
83. 15th Feb 1978: Zaire on this day revised its constitution.
84. 15th Feb 1982: Ocean Ranger, the world’s largest oil-drilling platform sank in the storm-tossed Northern Atlantic, off Newfoundland. 84 people died.
85. 15th Feb 1984: 500,000 Iranian soldiers moved into Iraq this day.
86. 15th Feb 1986: Following the move by News International to Wapping where print unions would not be able to wield power over the newspaper industry, they strike and picket the Wapping plant. 58 people were arrested in the worst outbreak of violence.
87. 15th Feb 1989: The Soviets started withdrawing from Afghanistan after nine years of their going into the country to support the struggling communist government.
88. 15th Feb 1996: The supertanker Sea Empress runs aground on the Welsh coast spilling 70,000 tons of crude oil which caused widespread damage to the environment.
89. 15th Feb 1996: The long-awaited report into the sale of arms to Iraq in 1980 was published on this day criticizing the ministers involved.
21st Century – February 15 This Day In History – The 2000s
90. 15th Feb 2002: President Georg Bush on this day approved Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the site for long-term disposal of highly radioactive nuclear waste.
91. 15th Feb 2003: A massive protest launched all over the world against the war with Iraq. About 6-11 million people take to the streets all over the world in protest.
92. 15th Feb 2005: Defrocked Priest Paul Shanley was found guilty of statutory rape of a male minor and was sentenced in Boston to 12 to 15 years in prison.
93. 15th Feb 2005: YouTube, an internet site on which videos can be shared and viewed by others was launched on this day in the United States.
94. 15th Feb 2006: Australian television has broadcast previously un-shown images of abuse of prisoners in Iraq’s Abu Gharib Jail.
95. 15th Feb 2008: The Federal Reserve chairman has said that the economy is continuing to deteriorate and told Congress that the Fed would keep lowering the interest rate to help the economy go through this difficult patch.
96. 15th Feb 2008: A black-clad gunman armed with a shotgun and two handguns opens fire on students at North Illinois University near Chicago, killing at least six people.
97. 15th Feb 2010: There was a train collision in Belgium. Two trains collided in the morning rush hour. The collision left 18 dead and 160 injured.
98. 15th Feb 2011: Shawna Forde, the leader of the Minutemen American Defense, an anti-immigration group was found guilty of the murder of Raul Flores and his nine-year-old daughter. Forde with his accomplices had entered Flores’ house to steal money. They encountered the family and started shooting in which Flore and his daughter died. His wife survived.
99. 15th Feb 2013: A meteor that crashed into the Ural Mountain in Russia caused an explosion. It damaged property and injured over 900 people.
100. 15th Feb 2014: A coalition government was formed in Lebanon after 10 months of negotiations and talks between parties. The coalition cabinet was formed to share equal power between two conflicting sides.
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