Tag: February

Here are 29 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries in February 2024 (listed six months in advance so you have time to write about them)

Historical anniversaries are great for ‘On This Day in History’ features, articles, biographies and other anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with newspaper and magazine readers and radio stations, and editors, producers and presenters love them. They’re easy to research too. You can also turn them into movies, documentaries, novels, use them to plan events and exhibitions, and much more. (Find out more at the end of this article.)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2024, which lists more than 3,000 anniversaries.

1 Feb 1964 – 60 years ago
The Beatles’ song I Want to Hold Your Hand became their first #1 hit on the USA’s Billboard Hot 100 chart.

2 Feb 1964 – 60 years ago
The action figure G.I. Joe was launched in the USA. (It was launched in the UK in 1966 as Action Man.)

3 Feb 1924 – 100 years ago
Death of Woodrow Wilson, 28^th President of the United States (1913–21).

4 Feb 1974 – 50 years ago
The Patty Hearst kidnapping. The granddaughter of American newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. After two months as a hostage, she joined her captors and helped them further their cause, and served two years in prison for bank robbery. She was later pardoned by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

5 Feb 1924 – 100 years ago
BBC Radio broadcast the ‘six-pips’ Greenwich Time Signal for the first time.

6 Feb 1959 – 65 years ago
Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed the first U.S. patent for an integrated circuit. Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor had a similar idea and filed his patent in the spring. Noyce’s patent was granted first, in April 1961, while Kilby’s application was still being analysed. Both men are now jointly recognised as the inventors of the integrated circuit.

7 Feb 1964 – 60 years ago
Beatlemania: the British rock band the Beatles arrived in New York City for their first U.S. tour, and were met by thousands of screaming fans. On 9^th February they made their first live appearance on American television, on The Ed Sullivan Show, where they performed for an audience of 73 million people.

8 Feb 1924 – 100 years ago
The first coast-to-coast radio broadcast in the USA. General John Joseph Carty of Bell Telephone in Chicago, Illinois spoke to an estimated 50 million listeners.

9 Feb 1949 – 75 years ago
The world’s first Department of Space Medicine was established, at the U.S. Air Force School of Aviation Medicine in Texas. Hubertus Strughold became the first Professor of Space Medicine.

10 Feb 1824 – 200 years ago
Birth of Samuel Plimsoll, British politician and social reformer. Best known for creating the Plimsoll line which indicates a ship’s maximum safe draught. Plimsoll athletic shoes are so named because of their similar appearance to the Plimsoll lines on ships.

11 Feb 824 – 1200 years ago
Death of Pope Paschal I. Succeeded by Eugene II on 4^th June.

12 Feb 1924 – 100 years ago
George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was performed for the first time, in New York City, USA.

13 Feb 1849 – 175 years ago
Birth of Lord Randolph Churchill, British politician. Chancellor of the Exchequer (1886), Leader of the House of Commons (1886–87), Secretary of State for India (1885–86). Father of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

14 Feb 1924 – 100 years ago
The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was renamed the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

15 Feb 1874 – 150 years ago
Birth of Sir Ernest Shackleton, Irish-born British polar explorer. One of the leading explorers during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. He led three British expeditions to the Antarctic.

16 Feb 1824 – 200 years ago
The Athenaeum Club was founded in London.

17 – 22 Feb 1944 – 80 years ago
World War II – the Pacific Campaign – the Battle of Eniwetok Atoll.
U.S. victory.

18 Feb 1954 – 70 years ago
The Church of Scientology was founded in Los Angeles, California, USA.

19 Feb 1924 – 100 years ago
Birth of Lee Marvin, American film actor. Known for his tough-guy roles (The Big Heat, The Wild One, The Dirty Dozen, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Cat Ballou and more.) (Died 1987.)

20 Feb 1524 – 500 years ago
Death of Tecun Uman, Mayan ruler.
One of the last rulers of the K’iche’ people in what is now Guatemala.
Killed in battle by a Spanish conquistador.

21 Feb 1849 – 175 years ago
Second Anglo–Sikh War – the Battle of Gujrat (now in Pakistan).
British victory over the Sikh Empire.
As a result, the British won the war (which ended on 30th March) and annexed the Punjab.

22 Feb 1924 – 100 years ago
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge gave the first Presidential radio address, to an audience of around 5 million people.

23 Feb 1954 – 70 years ago
The first field test of the polio vaccine began in Pittsburgh, USA.
The trial initially involved just two schools, but in April a year-long national trial began, involving 1.8 million children.

24 Feb 1874 – 150 years ago
Birth of Honus Wagner, American baseball player.

25 Feb 1964 – 60 years ago
American boxer Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) became world heavyweight champion after beating Sonny Liston.

26 Feb – 1 Apr 1924 – 100 years ago
Adolf Hitler went on trial in Germany for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923. He was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison, but served only nine months. While he was in prison, he dictated his autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf.

27 Feb 1999 – 25 years ago
The first pay-per-view football match was broadcast in the UK: Oxford United versus Sunderland.
Sky TV subscribers could watch the match live for £7.95.

28 Feb 1994 – 30 years ago
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (commonly known as the Brady Act or the Brady Bill) came into effect in the USA. It imposed a five-day waiting period and federal background checks on purchasers of firearms.
(The National Instant Criminal Background Check System was introduced in 1998 and the five-day waiting period was scrapped.)

29 Feb 2004 – 20 years ago
The President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was ousted in a coup after a three-week uprising. He was forced into exile in South Africa. He was succeeded by Boniface Alexandre who became the provisional president until May 2006.
(Aristide was allowed to return to Haiti in 2011.)

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2024. The 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The anniversaries are available as PDF ebooks, Excel spreadsheets, and printed paperback books.

How to use the anniversaries:

If you’d like to know more about how to turn the anniversaries listed here and in The Date-A-Base Books into articles for magazines and newspapers, take a look at our free 68-page guide, Ditch Your Day Job: the easiest way to make a living (or earn some extra cash) as a writer.

It has some terrific bonuses too, including a complete month of anniversaries from The Date-A-Base Book 2023, hundreds of article-writing tips and ideas, plus a 25 percent discount when you buy two or more editions of The Date-A-Base Book.

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Historical anniversaries are great for “On This Day in History” features and anniversary tie-ins. They’re popular with readers and viewers, editors and producers love them, they’re easy to research, and you can easily turn them into newspaper and magazine articles, films, TV/radio/theatre shows, and more.

Here are 29 newsworthy and notable historical anniversaries coming up in February 2023 (so you have time to write about them!)

We’ve randomly picked one anniversary for each day of the month from The Date-A-Base Book 2023. You’ll find hundreds more in the book. The 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The 2027 edition will be available from 8^th August 2022 and the 2028 edition from April 2023.

1 Feb 1948 – 75 years ago
The Federation of Malaya was established.

2 Feb 1923 – 100 years ago
Ethyl gasoline (leaded petrol) was first sold, in Dayton, Ohio, USA.

3 Feb 1943 – 80 years ago
World War II – the Four Chaplains incident (also known as the Immortal Chaplains). The U.S. Army transport ship SS Dorchester was hit by a German torpedo in the North Atlantic and began to sink. There were not enough life jackets for all on board. Four U.S. Army chaplains removed theirs, handed them to soldiers, and went down with the ship.

4 Feb 1983 – 40 years ago
Death of Karen Carpenter, American singer and drummer (The Carpenters). (Anorexia, aged 32.)

5 Feb 1953 – 70 years ago
Walt Disney’s animated movie Peter Pan was released in the USA. (UK première: 17^th April, released 27^th July.)

6 Feb 1958 – 65 years ago
The Munich air disaster, Germany. A plane carrying the Manchester United football team (the ‘Busby Babes’), plus support staff and journalists, crashed while attempting to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich–Riem Airport. 23 people were killed, including 8 players.

7 Feb 1823 – 200 years ago
Death of Ann Radcliffe, British novelist. A pioneer of Gothic fiction. The most popular British writer of her era.

8 Feb 1983 – 40 years ago
The champion racehorse Shergar was kidnapped in Ireland and a £2 million ($2.75 million) ransom demanded. The horse’s fate remains unknown.

9 Feb 1773 – 250 years ago
Birth of William Henry Harrison, 9^th President of the United States (for one month in 1841). He died 31 days into his term and remains the shortest-serving U.S. President. He was also the first U.S. President to die in office.

10 Feb 1923 – 100 years ago
Death of Wilhelm Röntgen, German physicist. Winner of the first Nobel Prize in Physics (1901) for discovering X-rays.

11 Feb 1963 – 60 years ago
Death of Sylvia Plath, American poet, novelist and short story writer who wrote about alienation, death and self-destruction. Wife of the British poet Ted Hughes. (Suicide, aged 30.)

12 Feb 1993 – 30 years ago
Two 10-year-old boys abducted two-year-old James Bulger from a shopping centre in Liverpool, UK. His mutilated body was found on a nearby railway line two days later. They were charged with his abduction and murder on 20^th February.

13 Feb 1923 – 100 years ago
Birth of Chuck Yeager, U.S. Air Force test pilot. The first pilot to break the sound barrier. (Died 2020.)

14 Feb 1933 – 90 years ago
The world’s first automated telephone speaking clock service was launched in France.

15 Feb 1898 – 125 years ago
The U.S. battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor, Cuba during a mission to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban War of Independence. 260 people were killed. Her sinking led to the Spanish–American War, which began on 21^st April 1898. The cause of the explosion is unknown. Initially a mine was suspected, but some believe gases in the coal bunker may have spontaneously ignited.

16 Feb 1923 – 100 years ago
British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the sealed doorway to Tutankhamen’s tomb in Thebes, Egypt. The following day he entered the burial chamber and discovered a wealth of treasures.

17 Feb 2003 – 20 years ago
London’s Congestion Charge scheme began.

18 Feb 1848 – 175 years ago
Birth of Louis Comfort Tiffany, American stained glass artist and designer.

19 Feb 1973 – 50 years ago
The pop song Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree by Dawn featuring Tony Orlando was released. It became a worldwide hit.

20 Feb 1898 – 125 years ago
Birth of Enzo Ferrari, Italian racing driver and businessman. Founder of Ferrari.

21 Feb 1948 – 75 years ago
NASCAR was founded at Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.

22 Feb 1848 to 2 Dec – 175 years ago
The French Revolution of 1848, Paris, France. King Louis-Philippe was overthrown and the monarchy was abolished. The French Second Republic was established, but it collapsed in 1851.

23 Feb 1998 – 25 years ago
Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa against all Jews and Crusaders.

24 Feb 2008 – 15 years ago
The President of Cuba, Fidel Castro, resigned. He had ruled Cuba as Prime Minister (1959–76) and President (1976–2008). He was succeeded by his brother Raúl.

25 Feb 1963 – 60 years ago
British rock group the Beatles released their first single in the USA: Please Please Me.

26 Feb 1943 – 80 years ago
Death of Theodor Eicke, German Nazi SS general. One of the key figures in the establishment of concentration camps in Germany.
(Plane shot down during the Third Battle of Kharkov in WWII.)

27 Feb 1933 – 90 years ago
The German Reichstag (parliament building) in Berlin was destroyed by fire. The Nazis blamed the communists and used the opportunity to suspend civil liberties and freedom of expression (under the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28^th February 1933).
Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch communist, claimed responsibility, but the fire was almost certainly started by the Nazis themselves.

28 Feb 1953 – 70 years ago
British scientists Francis Crick and James D. Watson announced that they had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.
(The official announcement was published in Nature magazine on 25^th April.)

29 Feb 2008 – 15 years ago
Prince Harry of the United Kingdom was immediately withdrawn from active service in Afghanistan after the media revealed he was secretly serving a tour of duty with British troops there.

More anniversaries:

You’ll find hundreds more anniversaries for this month in The Date-A-Base Book 2023. The 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions are also available if you work further ahead. The 2027 edition will be available from 8^th August 2022. Find out more at ideas4writers.com.

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