• 60 - Paul of Tarsus journeys to Rome, but is shipwrecked at Malta. He stays on Malta for three months and converts the Roman governor Publius. The exact date isn't known, however, the feast is celebrated on this day.
• 1355 - The St. Scholastica's Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.
• 1542 - Queen Catherine Howard of England is confined in the Tower of London to be executed three days later for treason (adultery).
• 1567 - An explosion destroys the Kirk o' Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland. The second husband of Mary Queen of Scots, Lord Darnley is found strangled, in what many believe to be an assassination.
• 1763 - French and Indian War: The 1763 Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.
• 1798 - Louis Alexandre Berthier invaded Rome, on February 15 proclaimed a Roman Republic and then on February 20 take Pope Pius VI as a prisoner.
• 1814 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Champaubert
• 1840 - Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
• 1846 - First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon - British defeat Sikhs in final battle of the war
• 1863 - The world-famous dwarfs General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren get married in New York City.
• 1870 - The YWCA is founded (New York City).
• 1904 - The Russo-Japanese War over Korea and Manchuria begins after the Battle of Port Arthur.
• 1906 - HMS Dreadnought (1906) is launched
• 1920 - Jozef Haller de Hallenburg performs symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.
• 1923- Texas Tech University was founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas.
• 1929 - Msgr. Stephen Alencastre, SS.CC., dedicates the beautiful Romanesque church of Saint Patrick in Honolulu.
• 1931 - New Delhi becomes the capital of India.
• 1933 - The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company introduces the first singing telegram.
• 1933 - In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City's Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf, killing him.
• 1933 - Adolf Hitler takes a speech in Sportpalast, Berlin - 10 days after he became 'Reichskanzler' on January 30th.
• 1947 - Italy cedes most of Venezia Giulia to Yugoslavia.
• 1954 - President Dwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.
• 1962 - Captured American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
• 1964 - Melbourne-Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia.
• 1967 - The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution ratified.
• 1981 - A fire at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino kills eight and injures 198.
• 1989 - Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.
• 1996 - The IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov for the first time.
• 1998 - Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997 becoming the first U.S. state to abandon that law.
• 2003 - France and Belgium break the NATO procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq.
• 2007 - Barack Obama announces his candidacy in the 2008 United States Presidential Election
• 2008 - The 2008 Namdaemun fire severely damages Namdaemun, the first National Treasure of South Korea.

Births