February 20......

February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 314 (315 in leap years) days remaining in the year on this date.

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

EVENTS

● 1472 - Orkney and Shetland are left by Norway to Scotland, due to a dowry payment.

● 1525 - Swiss & German mercenaries desert François I's army

● 1547 - Edward VI of England crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey following death of Henry VIII.

● 1613 - Gerard Reynst appointed Dutch Governor-General of East-Indies

● 1653 - Defeat of Dutch fleet under Admiral Van Tromp by Admiral Blake off Portsmouth

● 1673 - The first recorded wine auction took place in London.

● 1710 - Johan Willem Friso becomes viceroy of Groningen Netherlands

● 1725 - Ten sleeping Indians scalped by Capt. Lovewell and troops at Wakefield (in what will be New Hampshire) for £100 per scalp bounty. First recorded instance of white men scalping.

● 1732 - Estates of Holland ratifies Treaty of Vienna

● 1737 - French minister of Finance, Chauvelin, resigns

● 1743 - Colonial missionary to the American Indians David Brainerd wrote in his journal: 'Selfish religion loves Christ for his benefits, but not for himself.'

● 1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops occupy Fort August, Scotland

● 1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Castle of Inverness

● 1768 - 1st American chartered fire insurance company receives charter (Pennsylvania)

● 1790 –Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II died.

● 1792 - The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington. Postage is 6¢-12½¢, depending on distance.

● 1805 - Birth of American anti-slavery activist Angelina Grimke, Charleston, S.C.

● 1809 - Supreme Court rules federal government power greater than any state

● 1810 - Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean patriot and leader of rebellion against Napoleon's forces, was executed.

● 1811 - Austria declares bankruptcy

● 1815 - The USS Constitution, under Captain Charles Stewart fought the British ships Cyane and Levant. The Constitution captures both, but lost the Levant after encountering a British squadron. The Constitution and the Cyane returned to New York safely on May 15, 1815. The Cyane was purchased and became the USS Cyane.

● 1816 - Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville debuts at Teatro Argentina, with a fiasco.

● 1823 - English Captain James Weddell reaches 74º 15' S, 1520 km from South Pole

● 1831 - Polish revolutionaries defeat Russians in battle of Growchow

● 1832 - Charles Darwin visits Fernando Noronha in Atlantic Ocean

● 1834 - Oneida Community founded in upstate New York, as a communistic community in which work and life are to be shared. Friendly cooperation with the surrounding Indian tribes is actively sought and achieved.

● 1835 - Concepción, Chile is destroyed by an earthquake

● 1839 - Congress prohibits dueling in District of Columbia

● 1846 - British occupy Sikh citadel of Lahore

● 1856 - John Rutledge, Liverpool-New York steamer, hits iceberg; many die

● 1861 - Dept of Navy of Confederacy forms

● 1861 - Steeple of Chichester Cathedral blown down during a storm

● 1864 - Civil War Battle of Olustee, Florida

● 1865 - M I T establishes 1st US collegiate architectural school

● 1869 - Tennessee Governor W C Brownlow declares martial law in Ku Klux Klan crisis

● 1872 - Hydraulic electric elevator patented by Cyrus Baldwin

● 1872 - Luther Crowell patents a machine that manufactures paper bags

● 1872 - Silas Noble & JP Cooley patents toothpick manufacturing machine

● 1872 - In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.

● 1873 - The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco, California.

● 1877 - 1st cantilever bridge in US completed, Harrodsburg KY

● 1878 - Following the death of Pius IX, Italian cardinal Gioacchino Pecci, 67, was elected Pope Leo XIII. His papacy, possibly the century's most productive, was best known for his teaching encyclicals and for establishing in 1902 the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

● 1880 - The American Bell Company was incorporated.

● 1887 - Germany, Austria-Hungary & France end Triple Alliance

● 1890 - In Genoa, a group of Italian anarchists embarks on a boat to Brazil, to found the experimental Cecilia Colony.

● 1890 - Amsterdam Theater destroyed by fire

● 1895 - Frederick Douglass, black abolitionist, dies at 78.

● 1895 - Congress authorizes a US mint at Denver CO

● 1898 - Birth of Anton Ciliga, philosopher, activist, anarchist. Active in the Russian Revolution.

● 1899 - Illinois Tel & Tel granted franchise for Chicago freight tunnel system

● 1901 - The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.

● 1902 - Heavy surf breaks over Seal Rocks & damages Sutro Baths, San Francisco

● 1902 –Ansel Adams, the photographer noted for his landscapes of the American West, was born.

● 1909 - Publication of the Futurist Manifesto in the French journal Le Figaro

● 1913 - King O'Malley drives in the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of Canberra.

● 1915 - Panamá-Pacific International Exposition opens in San Francisco

● 1917 - Ammunitions ship explodes in Archangelsk harbor, about 1,500 die

● 1919 - French premier Clemenceau injured during assassination attempt

● 1921 - Riza Khan Pahlevi seizes control of Iran

● 1921 - The film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, starring Rudolph Valentino, premieres.

● 1922 - Vilnius, Lithuania, agrees to separate from Poland

● 1926 - Jules Gustave Durand (1880-1926) dies. Anarchist, revolutionary trade unionist, secretary of the trade union of the coalmen of Le Havre. Initiator of the general strike of August 1910, Durand fell victim to a politico-legal machination following the death of a "jaune" in a brawl, for which he was wrongly blamed. The corruption of several witnesses and a ignominious press campaign led to a death sentence in November 1910. A protest strike was called in Le Havre, which spread internationally to English and American docks. A further protest, initiated by the League of the Human Rights, finally lead to his release three months later. Unfortunately, Durand, forcibly subdued in a strait jacket for 40 days, had become insane and spent the rest of his life in an asylum. A reopening of his case cleared his name, and Durand was declared innocent in June 1918.

● 1929 - American Samoa organized as a territory of US

● 1929 - Birth of Sidney Poitier, groundbreaking African-American actor/director.

● 1931 - California gets the go-ahead by the U.S. Congress to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

● 1932 - Japanese troops occupy Tunhua China

● 1933 - House of Representatives completes congressional action to repeal Prohibition

● 1933 - Curom, Curaçaose Broadcast System starts Princess Juliana's speech

● 1934 - Utopian Society in Los Angeles starts chain-letter campaign informing U.S. citizens that "Profit is the root of all evil."

● 1935 - Karoline Mikkelson is 1st woman on Antarctica

● 1937 - 1st automobile/airplane combination tested, Santa Monica CA

● 1938 - UK Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigns, says PM Chamberlain appeased Germany

● 1941 - Nazis order Polish Jews barred from using public transportation

● 1941 - 1st transport of Jews to concentration camps leave Plotsk Poland

● 1941 - Romania breaks relations with Netherlands

● 1941 - Birth of radical Native American folk singer ("Now That the Buffalo Are Gone") Buffy Sainte-Marie, folksinger, Maine.

● 1942 - Norweigan teachers begin successful nonviolent strike against Nazification of schools.

● 1942 - Lieutenant Edward O'Hare single-handedly shoots down 5 Japanese heavy bombers and becomes America's first World War II flying ace.

● 1943 - American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.

● 1943 - New volcano Paracutin erupts in farmer's corn patch, Mexico.

● 1943 - Allied troops occupy Kasserine pass in Tunisia

● 1944 - World War II: "Big Week" ended with American bomber raids on Nazi aircraft manufacturing centers.

● 1944 - World War II: The United States takes Eniwetok Island.

● 1947 - State of Prussia ceases to exist

● 1947 - Fifteen killed and 100 injured as an explosion levels a Los Angeles, California, electroplating plant where a chemical mixing error occurred. Damages several nearby buildings.

● 1947 - Lord Mountbatten appointed as last viceroy of India

● 1948 - Czechoslovakia's non-communist minister resigns

● 1950 - When a U.S. Air Force B-36 bomber carrying an H-bomb develops engine trouble over the Pacific off Vancouver Island, crew members detontate the bomb (with its plutonium core removed), scattering 45 kg of highly enriched uranium into the atmosphere. Five crew members are killed.

● 1950 - American missionary and martyr Jim Elliot wrote in his journal: 'One may know God's work for his soul without understanding it all... Let the heart be warm, at all costs to the head, in the getting of Christianity.'

● 1950 - Dylan Thomas arrives in New York NY for his 1st US poetry reading tour

● 1952 - Emmett L. Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League.

● 1952 - The film The African Queen opens at the Capitol Theatre in New York City.

● 1954 - General Zahedi wins election in Persia

● 1954 - Birth of Patty "Tanya" Hearst. Doctors at the time failed in their attempt to surgically remove the enormous silver spoon inserted in mouth; it was up to Cinque to do the job.

● 1956 - U.S. rejects Soviet proposal to ban nuclear weapons tests and deployment.

● 1958 - Historic Sheerness docks to close; The government announces one the oldest naval dockyards in the UK will be shut down.

● 1959 - The Avro Arrow programme to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.

● 1960 - Death of Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, 80, a British archaeologist who spent more than 40 years in the field. Woolley is remembered for having excavated Ur of the Chaldees, and for discovering the ancient Sumerian civilization.

● 1962 - Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn orbits the earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes, becoming the first American to orbit the earth.

● 1962 - Wethersfield 6 convicted, sentenced to 12 or 18 months in prison. Old Bailey, London, England.

● 1963 - SNCC voter registration headquarters and four Negro businesses burned in Greenwood, Mississippi.

● 1965 - Ranger 8 crashes into the moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.

● 1965 - Turkish government of Uergüplü forms

● 1966 - Author Valery Tarsis banished in USSR

● 1968 - State troopers used tear gas to stop demonstration at Alcorn A & M

● 1969 - The date that Michel Collin had predicted as the coming of a world wide catastrophe.

● 1971 - National Emergency Center erroneously orders US radio & TV stations to go off the air; The mistake wasn't resolved for 30 minutes

● 1971 - Major General Idi Amin Dada appoints himself President of Uganda

● 1972 - Sicco Mansholt becomes chairman of European Committee

● 1975 - Margaret Thatcher elected leader of British Conservative Party

● 1975 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR

● 1976 - The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands. {It was rendered useless with the fall of South Vietnam.}

● 1976 - Death of Kathryn Kuhlman, 69, popular American radio and TV evangelist. A member of the American Baptist Convention, Kuhlman's preaching emphasized the healing power of the Holy Spirit.

● 1978 - Egypt announces it is pulling its diplomats out of Cyprus

● 1981 - Flight readiness firing of Columbia's main engines; 20 seconds

● 1983 - Japan launches Tenma satellite to study x-rays (450/570 km)

● 1983 - Hundreds die in Assam poll violence; Hundreds of people are reported to have died in Assam as fierce fighting rages in the run-up to Indian elections.

● 1984 - Supreme Court upholds ruling that 12 acres taken by Port of Tacoma, worth $112 million, belong to the Puyallup Indians.

● 1984 - Faroes Islands' Parliament declares country a nuclear-free zone.

● 1985 - Salvadoran prisoners go on a hunger strike to protest prison conditions.

● 1986 - Soviets launch space station Mir; The Soviets open a new phase in space exploration with the launch of the world's biggest space station, Mir.

● 1987 - Unabomber: In Salt Lake City, in the USA, a bomb explodes in a computer store.

● 1988 - 500 die in heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro Brazil

● 1988 - Peter Kalikow purchases New York Post from Rupert Murdoch for $37.6 million

● 1989 - Total eclipse of the Moon

● 1989 - IRA bombs Tern Hill barracks; Police are hunting two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire.

● 1991 - A gigantic statue of Albania's long-time dictator, Enver Hoxha, is brought down in the Albanian capital, Tirana, by mobs of angry protesters.

● 1992 - Ross Perot announces his intention to run in the 1992 U.S. presidential election on CNN's Larry King Live.

● 1992 - The FA Premier League is formed and takes over as the professional league in England from season 1992–93.

● 1992 - Orthodox patriarch Shenouda III visits Netherlands

● 1993 - Two ten-year-old boys were charged by police in Liverpool, England, in the abduction and death of a toddler. The two boys were later convicted.

● 1994 - 3 Afghans take 70 Pakistani children hostage

● 1994 - Pope John Paul II demands juristic discrimination of homosexuals

● 1998 - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan lands in Baghdad, for peace negotiations

● 1998 - American figure skater Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold-medalist at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

● 1998 - The Nashville Banner daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee, USA publishes its last edition.

● 1999 –Film critic Gene Siskel died at age 53.

● 2001 - FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 15 years.

● 2002 - In Reqa Al-Gharbiya, Egypt, a fire on a train injures over 65 and kills at least 370.

● 2003 - In West Warwick, RI, 99 people were killed when fire destroyed the nightclub The Station. The fire started with sparks from a pyrotechnic display being used by Great White. Ty Longley, guitarist for Great White, was one of the victims in the fire.

● 2005 – Journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson shot himself to death at age 67.

● 2005 - Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout.

BIRTHS

● 1563 - John Dowland, English composer, singer, and lutenist (d. 1626)

● 1631 - Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, English statesman (d. 1712)

● 1745 - Henry James Pye, English poet (d. 1813)

● 1751 - Johann Heinrich Voß, German poet (d. 1826)

● 1753 - Louis Alexandre Berthier, French marshal (d. 1815)

● 1757 - John 'Mad Jack' Fuller, English philanthropist (d. 1834)

● 1794 - William Carleton, Irish novelist (d. 1869)

● 1802 - Charles de Bériot, Belgian violinist (d. 1870)

● 1808 – Honore Daumier, French caricaturist, painter and sculptor (d. 1879)

● 1819 - Alfred Escher, Swiss politician, railroad entrepreneur (d. 1882)

● 1839 - Benjamin Waugh, American minister and founder of the NSPCC (d. 1908)

● 1844 - Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist (d. 1906)

● 1844 - Joshua Slocum, Canadian seaman and adventurer (d. 1909)

● 1848 - Edward Henry Harriman, American railroad executive (d. 1909)

● 1866 - Carl Westman, Swedish architect and designer (d. 1936)

● 1874 – Mary Garden, Scottish-bn. American opera singer (d. 1967)

● 1887 - Vincent Massey, Governor-General of Canada (d. 1967)

● 1888 - Georges Bernanos, French writer (d. 1948)

● 1893 - Russel Crouse, American playwright (d. 1966)

● 1898 – Jimmy Yancey, American blues pianist (d. 1951)

● 1899 - Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, American businessman and heir (d. 1992)

● 1901 – Rene Dubos, French-born American microbiologist, environmentalist and author (d. 1982)

● 1901 - Cecil Harmsworth King, was owner of Mirror Group Newspapers (d. 1987)

● 1901 - Muhammad Naguib, President of Egypt (d. 1984)

● 1901 – Louis Kahn, American architect (d. 1974)

● 1902 - Ansel Adams, American photographer (d. 1984)

● 1904 - Alexei Kosygin, Premier of the Soviet Union (1964-80) (d. 1980)

● 1910 – Konstantin Sergeyev, Russian ballet dancer, director, and choreographer (d. 1992)

● 1912 - Pierre Boulle, French author (d. 1994)

● 1914 - John Daly, South African-born broadcaster (d. 2001)

● 1923 - Forbes Burnham, President of Guyana (d. 1985)

● 1924 - Gloria Vanderbilt, American clothing designer and entrepreneur

● 1925 - Robert Altman, American film director (d. 2006)

● 1925 - Heinz Kluncker, German labor union leader

● 1926 - Richard Matheson, American author

● 1927 - Roy Cohn, American lawyer, and anti-Communist (d. 1986)

● 1927 - Ibrahim Ferrer, Cuban musician (Buena Vista Social Club) (d. 2005)

● 1927 - Sidney Poitier, American actor

● 1931 - Amanda Blake, American actress (d. 1989)

● 1934 - Bobby Unser, American race car driver

● 1936 - Marj Dusay, American actress

● 1936 - Larry Hovis, American actor (d. 2003)

● 1937 - Robert Huber, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

● 1937 - Roger Penske, American race car driver

● 1937 - Nancy Wilson, American singer

● 1938 - Richard Beymer, American actor

● 1939 - Frank Arundel, English footballer

● 1941 - Buffy Sainte-Marie, American singer

● 1942 – Mitch McConnell, U.S. senator, R-Ky.

● 1942 - Phil Esposito, Canadian hockey player

● 1942 - Charlie Gillett, British radio DJ

● 1943 - Mike Leigh, British film director

● 1943 - Antonio Inoki, Japanese professional wrestler

● 1944 - Martina Newberry, American poet, writer

● 1944 - Willem van Hanegem, Dutch footballer and coach

● 1945 - Brion James, American actor (d. 1999)

● 1946 - Brenda Blethyn, English actress

● 1946 - Sandy Duncan, American singer and actress

● 1946 - John Geils, Jr., American guitarist (J. Geils Band)

● 1947 - Peter Osgood, English footballer (d. 2006)

● 1947 - Peter Strauss, American actor

● 1947 - Eggert Magnusson, Chairman of West Ham United FC

● 1948 - Jennifer O'Neill, Brazilian-born actress

● 1949 - Ivana Trump, Czech skier, model and socialite

● 1950 - Ken Shimura, Japanese television performer and actor

● 1950 - Walter Becker, American jazz-rock guitarist (Steely Dan)

● 1951 - Edward Albert, American actor

● 1951 - Gordon Brown, British politician

● 1951 – Kathie Baillie, Country singer

● 1951 - Randy California, guitarist (Spirit) (d. 1997)

● 1953 - Riccardo Chailly, Italian conductor

● 1954 - Anthony Stewart Head, English actor (''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'')

● 1954 - Patty Hearst, American socialite and kidnapping victim

● 1954 - Jon Brant, American musician (Cheap Trick)

● 1957 – Leland Martin, Country singer

● 1958 – James Wilby, Actor

● 1959 – Sebastian Steinberg, Rock musician

● 1960 - Joel Hodgson, American comedian, creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000

● 1963 - Charles Barkley, American basketball player

● 1963 - Ian Brown, British singer (Stone Roses)

● 1964 – French Stewart, Actor (''3rd Rock from the Sun'')

● 1965 – Ron Eldard, Actor

● 1966 - Cindy Crawford, American model

● 1967 – Andrew Shue, Actor (''Melrose Place'')

● 1967 - Kurt Cobain, American musician (Nirvana) (d. 1994)

● 1967 - Lili Taylor, American actress

● 1969 - Gedo, Japanese professional wrestler

● 1971 - Jari Litmanen, Finnish footballer

● 1972 - Brent Gretzky, Canadian hockey player; brother of Wayne Gretzky

● 1972 - K-OS, Canadian musician/rapper

● 1975 - Gail Kim, wrestler

● 1975 - Brian Littrell, American musician (Backstreet Boys)

● 1975 - Liván Hernández, baseball player

● 1976 - Ed Graham, British drummer (The Darkness)

● 1977 - Stephon Marbury, American basketball player

● 1977 - T.J. Slaughter, American football player

● 1978 - Julia Jentsch, German actress

● 1978 - Lauren Ambrose, American actress (''Six Feet Under'')

● 1978 - Jay Hernandez, American actor

● 1980 - Imanol Harinordoquy, French rugby player

● 1980 - Artur Boruc, Polish football (soccer) goalkeeper

● 1981 - Tony Hibbert, English footballer

● 1981 – Majandra Delfino, Actress

● 1981 - Chris Thile, American mandolinist (Nickel Creek)

● 1985 – Jake Richardson, Actor

● 1985 - Yulia Volkova, Russian musician (t.A.T.u.)

● 1988(87? NYT) - Rihanna, Barbadian musician

DEATHS

● 702 - Chan Bahlum II, king of the Maya state of Palenque (b. 635)

● 1154 - Saint Wulfric of Haselbury Plucknett

● 1171 - Conan IV, Duke of Brittany (b. 1138)

● 1194 - King Tancred of Sicily

● 1258 - Al-Musta'sim, last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad

● 1408 - Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, English statesman (b. 1342)

● 1431 - Pope Martin V (b. 1368)

● 1513 - King Christian II of Denmark (b. 1455)

● 1524 - Tecún Umán, last leader of the Quiché-Maya in the northern highlands of Guatemala.

● 1579 - Nicholas Bacon, English politician (b. 1509)

● 1618 - Philip William, Prince of Orange (b. 1554)

● 1626 - John Dowland, English composer and lutenist (b. 1563)

● 1762 - Tobias Mayer, German astronomer (b. 1723)

● 1771 - Jean Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist (b. 1678)

● 1773 - King Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia (b. 1701)

● 1778 - Laura Bassi, Italian scholar (b. 1711)

● 1790 - Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1741)

● 1803 - Marie Dumesnil, French actress (b. 1713)

● 1806 - Lachlan McIntosh, Scottish-born American military and political leader (b. 1725)

● 1810 - Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean national hero (executed) (b. 1767)

● 1871 - Paul Kane, Irish-born painter (b. 1810)

● 1893 - P.G.T. Beauregard, American Confederate general (b. 1818)

● 1895 - Frederick Douglass, American abolitionist writer (b. 1818)

● 1907 - Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)

● 1916 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1844)

● 1920 - Robert Peary, American explorer (b. 1856)

● 1961 - Percy Grainger, Australian composer (b. 1882)

● 1963 - Ferenc Fricsay, Hungarian conductor (b. 1914)

● 1966 - Chester Nimitz, American admiral (b. 1885)

● 1968 - Anthony Asquith, British film director and writer (b. 1902)

● 1969 - Ernest Ansermet, Swiss conductor (b. 1883)

● 1970 - Sophie Treadwell, American playwright and journalist (b. 1885)

● 1972 - Maria Goeppert-Mayer, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)

● 1972 - Walter Winchell, American journalist (b. 1897)

● 1975 - Robert Strauss, American politician and diplomat (b. 1918)

● 1976 - René Cassin, French judge, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1887)

● 1976 - Kathryn Kuhlman, American evangelist (b. 1907)

● 1980 - J.B. Rhine, American parapsychologist (b. 1895)

● 1981 - Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, magazine editor, socialite (b. 1904)

● 1983 - Fritz Köberle, Austrian-Brazilian physician (b. 1910)

● 1985 - Clarence Nash, American voice actor (b. 1904)

● 1992 - Roberto D'Aubuisson, Salvadoran politician (b. 1944)

● 1992 - Dick York, American actor (b. 1928)

● 1993 - Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian automobile manufacturer (b. 1916)

● 1996 - Solomon Asch, American psychologist (b. 1907)

● 1996 - Tōru Takemitsu, Japanese composer (b. 1930)

● 1999 - Sarah Kane, English playwright (b. 1971)

● 1999 - Gene Siskel, American film critic (b. 1946)

● 2000 - Anatoly Sobchak, Russian politician (b. 1937)

● 2001 - Rosemary DeCamp, American actress (b. 1910)

● 2003 - Maurice Blanchot, French author (b. 1907)

● 2003 - Orville Freeman, American politician (b. 1918)

● 2003 - Harry Jacunski, American football player

● 2003 - Ty Longley, American guitarist (Great White) (b. 1971)

● 2003 - Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistan Chief of the Air Staff (b. 1947)

● 2005 - Pam Bricker, jazz singer and Thievery Corporation vocalist (b. 1954)

● 2005 - Sandra Dee, American actress (b. 1944)

● 2005 - John Raitt, American actor (b. 1917)

● 2005 - Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and author (b. 1937)

● 2005 - Tom Willmore, English gemoeter (b. 1919)

● 2006 - Curt Gowdy, American sportscaster (b. 1919)

● 2006 - Lucjan Wolanowski, Polish journalist, writer and traveller (b. 1920)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Amata
● St. Bolcan
● St. Colgan
● St. Eleutherius of Tournai
● St. Eucherius
● St. Leo of Catania
● Marytrs of Tyre
● St. Sadoth
● Sts. Tyrannio & Silvanus
● St. Valerius
● St. Wulfric

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for February 7 (Civil Date: February 20)
● St. Parthenius, Bishop of Lampasacus on the Hellespont.
● St. Luke of Hellas.
● The 1,003 Martyrs of Nicomedia.

● Greek Calendar:
● Six Martyrs of Phrygia.
● St. Peter of Monovatia, monk.
● Martyr Theopemptus and Synodia.
● St. Aprionus, Bishop of Cyprus.
● New-Martyr George of Crete.
● Repose of Archimandrite Gennadius, ascetic of Roslavl forests (1826).

● Christian:
● Feast of the Chair of St Peter at Antioch

● Lutheran:
● Rasmus Jensen, pastor

● US : John Glenn Day (1962)

● Note: These Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
● World : Brotherhood Day (1934) - ( Sunday )
● US : Presidents' Day (formerly Washington's Birthday)-legal holiday - ( Monday )


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Permanent Backlink to Post