/year

February 4 in history

205 sourced entries recorded on February 4, from 211 CE to 2025 CE. Every line is quoted from the revision it came from.

Events

  • 266Sima Yan, regent of the Chinese state of Cao Wei, forces the last Cao Wei emperor Cao Huan to abdicate in his favour. The Cao Wei state's existence comes to an end. Sima Yan establishes the Jin Dynasty, and becomes its first emperor on 8 February, and is historically known as "Wu of Jin". He establishes his capital at Luoyang, and gives his male relatives independent military commands throughout his empire.source
  • 634Battle of Dathin: Rashidun forces under Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan defeat the Christian Arabs around Gaza. The Muslim victory is celebrated by the local Jews, who have been a persecuted minority within the Byzantine Empire.source
  • 744In the Third Tikal-Calakmul War in what is now Guatemala, the Mayan city-state of Tikal conquers the state of Naranjo and captures its king, Yax Mayuy Chan Chaak, who is subsequently sacrificed. The conquest by Tikal destroys Calakmul's once powerful and extensive network of allies, vassal states and trade networks.source
  • 784Itzamnaaj K'awiil, brother of Bat K'awiil (who reigned between 780 and 784) and the son of K'ahk' Ukalaw Chan Chaak (who ruled 755 to 780) becomes the new ruler of the Mayan city state of Naranjo in Guatemala and reigns until his death in 810.source
  • 900The 7-year-old Louis IV ("the Child") is proclaimed king of the East Frankish Kingdom at an assembly at Forchheim (Bavaria). Because of his young age, the reins of government are entirely in the hands of others – the Frankish nobles and bishops. The most influential of Louis' councillors are Hatto I, archbishop of Mainz, and Solomon III, bishop of Constance.source
  • 914The Belanjong pillar is established on Bali.source
  • 960The Song Dynasty is established at Kaifeng by the 33-year-old military leader Zhao Kuangyin. He begins to unify the empire by conquering other lands and becomes the first emperor, called as Taizu of Song. The Song Dynasty will rule northern China for over 300 years (until 1279).source
  • 1130Jin–Song Wars: Jin forces take Shaoxing.source
  • 11691169 Sicily earthquake: An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of around 7 strikes the eastern coast of Sicily, causing an estimated 15,000 deaths.source
  • 1194King Richard I of England ("the Lionheart") is ransomed for an amount of 150,000 marks (demanded by Emperor Henry VI), raised by his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine – who travels to Austria to gain his release. Henry will never receive the full amount he demanded.source
  • 1384Scottish forces make an attack against English occupation forces in Scotland and recapture Lochmaben Castle and Teviotdale.source
  • 1396(24 Rabi II 798 AH) Hasan ibn Ajlan becomes the Emir of Mecca as his brother Muhammad ibn Ajlan steps aside.source
  • 1442As part of his campaign to reunite the Christian churches of the world, Pope Eugene IV promulgates the Bull of Union with the Copts (officially, Cantate Domino), an attempted union with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt.source
  • 1454The cause of the Thirteen Years' War is set when the Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sends a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master, and the citizens of Toruń rebel against the Teutonic Knights, beginning the conflict.source
  • 1469Han Myŏnghoe is appointed by King Yejong of Korea as the new Chief State Councillor, replacing Pak Wŏnhyŏng.source
  • 1469(22 Rajab 873 AH) At the Battle of Qarabagh, in what is now Azerbaijan, troops led by Uzun Hasan, ruler of Aq Qoyunlu, decisively defeat the Timurids of Samrkand, ruled by Abu Sa'id Mirza. Mirza is taken a prisoner of war and is executed four days later on February 8.source
  • 1480Pedro de Vera is appointed as the colonial Governor of Gran Canaria by the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, and directed to carry out the conquest of the Canary Islands and to end the fighting between the conquistadors who had taken the island in 1478.source
  • 1488Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after his ships had been blown off course while sailing southeastward along Africa's coast in search of the Cape of Good Hope. After having turned northward, Dias realizes later that he had actually rounded the Cape and seen it from a distance as his ships were sailing westward to reach his prior position.source
  • 1499Hans, King of Denmark is formally crowned as King of Sweden and his wife Christina of Saxony crowned as Queen Consort.source
  • 1508Maximilian, King of the Romans, proclaims himself Holy Roman Emperor at the Italian city of Trento, after having been blocked by Venice from traveling to Rome to be crowned by Pope Julius II.source
  • 1533The Reformation Parliament is summoned into session by King Henry VIII of England, and meets until April 7.source
  • 1557Pope Paul IV creates the metropolitan archdiocese of Portuguese India (based in Goa) separating the Goan diocese from the ecclesiastical province of Lisbon.source
  • 1558(16th day of 1st month of Eiroku 1) Takeda Shingen becomes the shugo (military governor) of Shinano Province after his successful military campaign there.source
  • 1567Prince Zhu Zaiji, son of the Jiajing Emperor, ascends the throne of Ming dynasty China as the Longqing Emperor.source
  • 1571The Spanish Jesuit missionaries of the Ajacán Mission, established on the Virginia Peninsula of North America in 1570, are massacred by local Native Americans.source
  • 1579The Ghent Republic joins the Union of Utrecht.source
  • 1583Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, newly converted to Calvinism, formally marries Agnes von Mansfeld-Eisleben, a former canoness of Gerresheim, while retaining his position as Archbishop-Elector of Cologne.source
  • 1594City of Antwerp prohibits pigs foraging in the streetssource
  • 1597Battle of Logiebride, a skirmish between men of the Clan Mackenzie against those of the Clan Munro and the Bain family of Tulloch Castle.source
  • 1609The last day of Keichō 慶長 13 (according to the Japanese lunar calendar).source
  • 1620Prince Bethlen Gabor secures a peace treaty with Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor.source
  • 1623the Talbot Baronetcy, of Carton in the County of Kildare, is created in the Baronetage of Ireland for the lawyer and politician William Talbot.source
  • 1652At Edinburgh, the parliamentary commissioners of the Commonwealth of England proclaim the Tender of Union to be in force in Scotland, annexing the Scottish nation with the concession that Scotland would have 30 representatives in the parliament of the English Commonwealth.source
  • 1657Resettlement of the Jews in England: Oliver Cromwell gives Antonio Fernandez Carvajal the assurance of the right of Jews to remain in England.source
  • 1657resettlement of the Jews in England: Oliver Cromwell gives Antonio Fernandez Carvajal the assurance of the right of Jews to remain in England. This year the country's first Jewish cemetery in modern times is opened in London.source
  • 1658Oliver Cromwell dissolves the Second Protectorate Parliament.source
  • 1670The Battle of Sinhagad takes place in India (in the modern-day Maharashtra state) as the Maratha Empire army, led by Tanaji Malusare, leads an assault on the Kondhana Fortress that had been captured by the Mughal Empire. Tanaji, called "The Lion" by his followers, captures the fortress by guiding the successful scaling of the walls of the fortress with ladders created from rope, but is killed in the battle. The Maratha emperor Shivaji orders the fortress named Sinhagad, the Marathi language words for "Lion's Fort".source
  • 1675The Italian opera La divisione del mondo, by Giovanni Legrenzi, is performed for the first time, premiering in Venice at the Teatro San Luca. The new opera, telling the story of the "division of the world" after the battle between the Gods of Olympus and the Titans, becomes known for its elaborate and expensive sets, machinery, and special effects and is revived 325 years later in the year 2000.source
  • 1685A treaty is signed between Brandenburg-Prussia and the indigenous chiefs at Takoradi in what is now Ghana to permit the German colonists to build a third fort on the Brandenburger Gold Coast.source
  • 1713Tuscarora War: The Carolina militia under Colonel James Moore leaves Fort Reading, to continue the campaign against the Tuscarora.source
  • 1723The Kangxi Era ends in Qing dynasty China, and the Yongzheng Era begins, with the coronation of Yinzhen, the Yongzheng Emperor.source
  • 1728Thomas Sherlock is consecrated Bishop of Bangor.source
  • 1771First meeting of the Cymdeithas y Gwyneddigion is held; Owen Jones is its president.source
  • 1783American Revolutionary War: Great Britain formally declares that it will cease hostilities with the United States.source
  • 1787Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts fails.source
  • 1789George Washington is unanimously elected the first president of the United States, by the United States Electoral College.source
  • 1790King Louis XVI declares to the French National Assembly that he will maintain the constitutional laws.source
  • 1794French Revolution: The National Convention of the French First Republic abolishes slavery.source
  • 1797The Riobamba earthquake in Ecuador, estimated magnitude 8.3, causes up to 40,000 casualties.source
  • 1801William Pitt the Younger resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.source
  • 1804The Sokoto Caliphate is founded in West Africa.source
  • 1813Major Thomas Davey succeeds David Collins as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land.source
  • 1814The Court of Civil Jurisdiction is abolished by the Second Charter of Justice; it was replaced by the Supreme Court of Civil Judicature of New South Wales. The court had jurisdiction to deal with civil disputes where the amount in dispute in the colony was more than £50 sterling.source
  • 1814The Governors Court is established by Letters Patent dated 4 February 1814 issued by King George III. The court had jurisdiction over civil claims in New South Wales.source
  • 1818Writer Walter Scott finds the Honours of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle.source
  • 1826James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans is first printed, by a publisher in Philadelphia.source
  • 1837Seminoles attack Fort Foster in Florida.source
  • 1838The AmaZulu King, Dingane signs a deed of cession to cede land to the voortrekkers led by Piet Retiefsource
  • 1841The first known reference is made to Groundhog Day, celebrated in North America, in the diary of a James Morris.source
  • 1846Led by Brigham Young, many Mormons in the U.S. begin their migration west from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Great Salt Lake in what becomes Utah.source
  • 1853Johann Jakob Speiser, Achilles Bischoff, and Karl Geigy establish the Swiss Central Railwaysource
  • 1856The sailing ship Grand Duke is wrecked off St. Govan's Head in Pembrokeshire with the loss of 29 lives.source
  • 1859German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf rediscovers the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century uncial manuscript of the Greek Bible, in Saint Catherine's Monastery on the foot of Mount Sinai, in the Khedivate of Egypt and arranges for its presentation to his patron, Tsar Alexander II of Russia at Saint Petersburg.source
  • 1859German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf rediscovers the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century uncial manuscript of the Greek Bible, in Saint Catherine's Monastery on the foot of Mount Sinai, in the Khedivate of Egypt.source
  • 1861In Montgomery, Alabama, the Provisional Confederate States Congress is formed by representatives from the first seven break-away states.source
  • 1868the first Uruguayan Mining Code is passed, approved by Law No. 920 of 4 February 1868.source
  • 1872A great solar flare, and associated geomagnetic storm, makes northern lights visible as far south as Cuba.source
  • 1875Princess Louise of Belgium marries Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gothasource
  • 1879Prince Edward Island election: William Wilfred Sullivan's Conservatives win a third consecutive majority.source
  • 1880The Black Donnelly Massacre takes the lives of five members of one family in Biddulph Township, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada.source
  • 1882Charles J. Guiteau, the murderer of President James A. Garfield, is sentenced to death (found guilty on January 25), despite an insanity defense raised by his lawyer.source
  • 1887The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, passed by the 49th United States Congress, is signed into law by President Grover Cleveland.source
  • 18931893 Brisbane flood devastates Queensland.source
  • 1894Hamar IF were the local technical organisers of the first official national championships of skating at Åkersvika, Mjøsa in Hamar in Norwegian Allround Championships (first champion: Einar Halvorsen) and Norwegian Figure Skating Championships (first champion: Johan Lefstad).source
  • 1899A new coercive Public Safety bill is introduced by the government of Luigi Pelloux and adopted by Parliament. The law made strikes by state employees illegal; gave the executive wider powers to ban public meetings and dissolve subversive organisations; revived the penalties of banishment; and preventive arrest for political offences, and; tightened control of the press by making authors responsible for their articles and declaring incitement to violence a crime. The Radicals and Socialist start an obstructionist campaign using the filibuster: points of order, endless speeches and other procedural delaying tactics.source
  • 1905A simultaneous uprising begins at six cities in Argentina against the government of President Manuel Quintana.source
  • 1905February 4–8: Argentine Revolution of 1905source
  • 1907Angus & Robertson booksellers is incorporated as a public company.source
  • 1919New Zealand Rifle Brigade (Earl of Liverpool's Own) disbanded.source
  • 1924Nordal Wille, botanist (born 1858)source
  • 1928Romania enacts legislation to limit the trafficking and use of cannabis and narcotic drugs.source
  • 1931Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gives a speech calling for rapid industrialization, arguing that only strong industrialized countries will win wars, while "weak" nations are "beaten". Stalin states: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." The first five-year plan in the Soviet Union is intensified, for the industrialization and collectivization of agriculture.source
  • 1932The 1932 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York.source
  • 1936Radium E (bismuth-210) becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.source
  • 1938Adolf Hitler abolishes the War Ministry and creates the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), giving him direct control of the German military. In addition, he dismisses political and military leaders considered unsympathetic to his philosophy or policies. General Werner von Fritsch is forced to resign as Commander of Chief of the German Army following accusations of homosexuality, and replaced by General Walther von Brauchitsch. Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath is dismissed, and replaced by Joachim von Ribbentrop.source
  • 1938Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first cel-animated feature in motion picture history, is released in the United States, following a premiere on December 21 of the previous year.source
  • 1940February 2–11 – Scheduled dates for the 1940 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, cancelled in November 1939 due to WWII (originally allocated to Sapporo, Japan).source
  • 1945February 4–11 – WWII: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin hold the Yalta Conference.source
  • 1948Ceylon (later known as Sri Lanka) becomes an independent country, within the British Commonwealth adopting King George VI as the King of Ceylon.source
  • 1957France prohibits U.N. involvement in Algeria.source
  • 1957A coal gas explosion at the giant Bishop Coal Mine in Bishop, Virginia, United States, kills 37 men.source
  • 1957The first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. It is decommissioned on March 3, 1980.source
  • 1961The Portuguese Colonial War begins in Angola.source
  • 1962First successful winter ascent of the Matterhorn's north face, by Hilti von Allmen and Paul Etter, is completed.source
  • 1962February 4–5 – During a new moon and solar eclipse, an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical planets occurs (it includes all five of the naked-eye planets plus the Sun and Moon), all of them within 16° of one another on the ecliptic. The total solar eclipse of February 5, 1962 is visible in Asia, Australia and the Pacific Ocean, and is the 49th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 130.source
  • 1964The Government of the United States authorizes the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, outlawing the poll tax.source
  • 1964January 29 – February 9 – The 1964 Winter Olympics are held in Innsbruck, Austria.source
  • 1965Trofim Lysenko is removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences in the Soviet Union. Lysenkoist theories are now treated as pseudoscience.source
  • 1969In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is elected Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.source
  • 1971The Nasdaq stock exchange is founded in New York City.source
  • 1971In Britain, Rolls-Royce goes bankrupt and is nationalised.source
  • 1972Mariner 9 sends pictures as it orbits Mars.source
  • 1972February 3–13 – The 1972 Winter Olympics are held in Sapporo, Japan.source
  • 1973The details of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement are announcedsource
  • 1974The Federal Minister for Labour, Mr Cameron, meets officials of the Australian Bank Officials Association in Melbourne in an effort to break the deadlock in the bank dispute. The association decides to lift is week-old ban on handling commercial cheques.source
  • 1975The Haicheng earthquake in Haicheng, Liaoning, China, kills 2,041 and injures 27,538, but much of the city has been evacuated in a claimed example of earthquake prediction.source
  • 1976The 7.5 Mw Guatemala earthquake affects Guatemala and Honduras with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), leaving 23,000 dead and 76,000 injured.source
  • 1976The 1976 Winter Olympics begin in Innsbruck, Austria.source
  • 1980Abolhassan Banisadr is sworn in as the first President of Iran after winning the January 25 presidential election.source
  • 1981Gro Harlem Brundtland becomes Prime Minister of Norway.source
  • 1985The border between Gibraltar and Spain reopens for the first time since Francisco Franco closed it in 1969.source
  • 1988Cardinal Sin announces the closure of the National Secretariat for Social Action for the claims of infiltration by communists.source
  • 1988UMNO was declared an illegal organisation by the High Court.source
  • 1992In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez leads an unsuccessful coup attempt against President of Venezuela Carlos Andrés Pérez.source
  • 1993Members of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party of Austria split to form the Liberal Forum in protest against the increasing nationalistic bent of the party.source
  • 1996LAC Colombia Flight 028: A flight from Líneas Aéreas del Caribe (LAC), a Colombian airline, crashes near a soccer field in Mariano Roque Alonso, Paraguay, killing 4 people on board and 18 people on the ground, mostly children.source
  • 1997Five UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda (HRFOR) workers are ambushed and killed in southwest Cyangugu Province. The victims included a Briton, Cambodian, and three Rwandans, all of whom were human rights observers of the OHCHR.source
  • 1997On their way to Lebanon, two Israeli troop-transport helicopters collide, killing all 73 on board.source
  • 19971997 Israeli helicopter disaster: Two IAF troop-transport CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters collide in darkness near the remote She'ar Yashuv kibbutz, in northern Israel, killing 77 IDF soldiers.source
  • 1997A magnitude 6.5 earthquake strikes North Khorasan province, Iran, killing 88 people and injuring 1,948.source
  • 1998Western Pacific, a low-cost airline with headquarters at Colorado Springs Airport, ceases operations.source
  • 1998The 5.9 Mw Afghanistan earthquake shakes the Takhar Province with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). With up to 4,000 killed, and 818 injured, damage is considered extreme.source
  • 2003The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is renamed to "Serbia and Montenegro" (after its two constituent states) after its leaders reconstitute the country into a loose state-union between Montenegro and Serbia, marking an end to the 73-year-long use of the name "Yugoslavia" by a sovereign state.source
  • 2004Mark Zuckerberg launches "TheFacebook", later renamed to Facebook, a social networking website for Harvard University students.source
  • 2006Egyptian passenger ferry, MS al-Salam Boccaccio 98, sinks in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia, killing over 1,000 people.source
  • 2008Civic mobilizations in Colombia against FARC, under the name One million voices against FARC.source
  • 2010Debt-ridden emirate of Dubai confirms the discovery of a new oilfield.source
  • 2011President Nursultan Nazarbayev calls an early election for April 3, rejecting a plan for a referendum intended to allow him to rule for another decade.source
  • 2011A new centre to help rape victims in the Democratic Republic of the Congo opens in the eastern city of Bukavu.source
  • 2012February 3–4: Malta Eurovision Song Contest is held at the MFCC in Ta' Qali.source
  • 2014Archaeologists working near the ancient settlement of Edfu in southern Egypt discover the remains of a 4,600-year-old step pyramid.source
  • 2016Tonga declares a Zika virus epidemic with two confirmed cases and 265 suspected cases.source
  • 2018The second round of voting of the 2018 Cypriot presidential election is held and incumbent president Nicos Anastasiades is reelected.source
  • 201925-year-old Australian footballer and refugee from Bahrain, Hakeem al-Araibi, is ordered to defend an extradition order back to Bahrain in a Bangkok court, after being detained upon arrival in Thailand for his honeymoon with his wife in November 2018. International community is treating it as a human rights issue; a campaign to free al-Araibi and return him to Australia is growing.source
  • 2021US President Joe Biden announces that the United States will cease providing weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for use in the Yemeni Civil War.source
  • 2021Burundi Airlines is established.source
  • 2021Pal Ahluwalia, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific and his wife are deported to Australia.source
  • 2022China and Russia issue a joint statement opposing further NATO expansion, expressing "serious concerns" about the AUKUS security pact, and pledging to cooperate with each other on a range of issues.source
  • 2022February 20 – The 2022 Winter Olympics are held in Beijing, China, making it the first city ever to host both the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics.source
  • 2023Cyclone Freddy forms in the Indian Ocean. It would become the longest lasting tropical cyclone in history and cause over 1,400 deaths and countless injuries and property damage across southeastern Africa.source
  • 2023February 1 – February 11: 2022 FIFA Club World Cup in Morocco.source
  • 20242024 Salvadoran presidential election: Incumbent President Nayib Bukele wins the election with over 80% of the vote, becoming the first president to be reelected in El Salvador since 1944.source
  • 2025China–United States trade war: China announces export controls and increased tariffs on certain American imports in retaliation for Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods.source

Births

  • 1175Nadaungmya, king of Burma (died 1235)source
  • 1447Lodovico Lazzarelli, Italian poet (died 1500)source
  • 1465Frans van Brederode, Dutch rebel (died 1490)source
  • 1495Francesco II Sforza, Duke of Milan (died 1535)source
  • 1495Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller (died 1568)source
  • 1498George I of Württemberg-Mömpelgard (died 1558)source
  • 1505Mikołaj Rej, Polish poet and prose writer, politician and musician of the Renaissance (died 1569)source
  • 1515Mikołaj "the Black" Radziwiłł, Polish magnate (died 1565)source
  • 1575Pierre de Bérulle, French cardinal and statesman (died 1629)source
  • 1601Shi Kefa, Chinese Ming Dynasty official (died 1645)source
  • 1620Gustaf Bonde (1620–1667), statesman (died 1667)source
  • 1663Edward Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield, English peer (died 1716)source
  • 1677Johann Ludwig Bach, German composer (died 1731)source
  • 1688Pierre de Marivaux, French playwright (died 1763)source
  • 1697James Franklin, American colonial author (died 1735)source
  • 1698Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué, Prussian Lieutenant general and General der Infanterie and a confidant of King Frederick the Great (died 1774)source
  • 1740Carl Michael Bellman, Swedish poet, composer (died 1795)source
  • 1746Tadeusz Kościuszko, Polish general and nationalist (died 1817)source
  • 1785Frédéric-Auguste Quesnel, politician, lawyer, and businessman (d.1866)source
  • 1790John Bachman, American minister, social activist and naturalist (died 1874)source
  • 1799Almeida Garrett, Portuguese writer (died 1854)source
  • 1818Emperor Norton, San Francisco eccentric and visionary (died 1880)source
  • 1868Constance Markievicz, née Gore-Booth, Irish politician (died 1927)source
  • 1871Friedrich Ebert, President of Germany (died 1925)source
  • 1877Eddie Cochems, father of the forward pass in American football (died 1953)source
  • 1902Charles Lindbergh, American aviator (died 1974)source
  • 1906Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German religious, resistance leader (executed 1945)source
  • 1913Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (died 2005)source
  • 1948Alice Cooper, American hard rock singer and musician (School's Out)source
  • 1970Hunter Biden, American attorney and son of U.S. president Joe Bidensource
  • 1987Gayas Christopher, cricketersource
  • 1994Alexia Putellas, Spanish footballersource

Deaths

  • 211Emperor Septimius Severus, having fallen ill, dies in Eboracum (modern-day York) while on campaign in Britain after an 18-year reign. He is later deified by the Senate. His sons Caracalla and Geta succeed him as joint Roman emperors.source
  • 211Septimius Severus, Roman emperor (born 145)source
  • 345Abraham of Arbela, Persian bishop and martyr (approximate date)source
  • 708Sisinnius, pope of the Catholic Churchsource
  • 856Rabanus Maurus, archbishop of Mainzsource
  • 870Ceolnoth, archbishop of Canterburysource
  • 1041Fujiwara no Kintō, Japanese poet (born 966)source
  • 1169John of Ajello, Italian bishop of Cataniasource
  • 1189Gilbert of Sempringham, English priest (born 1085)source
  • 1206Theobald Walter, Norman High Sheriff (born 1165)source
  • 1498Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Italian painter (born c. 1432)source
  • 1505Jeanne de Valois, French princess, Roman Catholic nun and saint (born 1464)source
  • 1505Joan of France, Catholic saint, Duchess of Berry and briefly Queen of France before her marriage to King Charles VIII was annulled. (b.1464)source
  • 1508Conrad Celtes, German humanist (born 1459)source
  • 1529Ludwig Haetzer, German Protestant reformer (executed) (born 1500)source
  • 1555John Rogers is burned at the stake at Smithfield, London, becoming the first of the 284 Protestant martyrs of the English Reformation to be killed during the five and one-half year reign of Queen Mary I of England. His death is followed within the week by that of Laurence Saunders on February 8 in Coventry, and Rowland Taylor, Rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk, and John Hooper, deposed Bishop of Gloucester on February 9.source
  • 1555John Rogers, English clergyman (burned at the stake) (born c. 1505)source
  • 1615Giambattista della Porta, Italian scholar, polymath, playwright (born 1535)source
  • 1699A group of 350 rebels in the Streltsy Uprising are executed in Moscow.source
  • 1707Great Northern War: Eighteen months after losing the Battle of Warsaw, while leading a cavalry charge for Saxony against the army of Sweden, General Otto von Paykull of Swedish Livonia is beheaded outside of Stockholm, following his conviction for treason.source
  • 1713Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, English politician and philosopher (born 1671)source
  • 1713Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, politician and philosopher (born 1671)source
  • 1738Court Jew Joseph Süß Oppenheimer is executed in Württemberg.source
  • 1787Pompeo Batoni, Italian painter (born 1708)source
  • 1852Martiniano Chilavert, former Unitarian turned Rosas loyalist, executed by firing squadsource
  • 1853Princess Maria Amélia of Brazil, daughter of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (born 1831)source
  • 1891Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos, Roman Catholic prelate and politician (born 1816)source
  • 1954Capitalist district commissioner Pilo Peristeri is executed by firing squad after there were allegations circulating about him being an "American-paid conspirator".source
  • 1977Eleven CTA commuters are killed when an elevated train derails from the Loop in central Chicago, United States.source
  • 1985Israeli soldier Aharon Avidar is assassinated in Ramallah by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the first Israeli soldier to be killed while on duty in the West Bank in over a year. In the aftermath, the Israeli government pledges to take a harsher line on Palestinian violence.source