Events Pre–1600 211 – Following the death of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus at Eboracum (modern York, England) while preparing to lead a campaign against the Caledonians, the empire is left in the control of his two quarrelling sons, Caracalla and Geta, whom he had instructed to make peace. 960 – Zhao Kuangyin declares himself Emperor Taizu of Song, ending the Later Zhou and beginning the Song dynasty. 1169 – A strong earthquake strikes the Ionian coast of Sicily, causing tens of thousands of injuries and deaths, especially in Catania. 1454 – Thirteen Years' War: The Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sends a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, sparking the Thirteen Years' War.; 1555 – John Rogers is burned at the stake, becoming the first English Protestant martyr under Queen Mary I.
1601–1900 1703 – In Edo (now Tokyo), all but one of the Forty-seven Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master's death. 1758 – The city of Macapá in Brazil is founded by Sebastião Veiga Cabral. 1789 – George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College. 1794 – The French legislature abolishes slavery throughout all territories of the French First Republic. It would be reestablished in the French West Indies in 1802. 1797 – The Riobamba earthquake strikes Ecuador, causing up to 40,000 casualties. 1801 – John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States. 1810 – Napoleonic Wars: Britain seizes Guadeloupe. 1820 – The Chilean Navy under the command of Lord Cochrane completes the two-day long Capture of Valdivia with just 300 men and two ships. 1825 – The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal. 1846 – The first Mormon pioneers make their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Salt Lake Valley. 1859 – The Codex Sinaiticus is discovered in Egypt. 1861 – American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six breakaway U.S. states meet and initiate the process that would form the Confederate States of America on February 8. 1899 – The Philippine–American War begins when four Filipino soldiers enter the "American Zone" in Manila, igniting the Battle of Manila.
1901–present 1932 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Harbin, Manchuria, falls to Japan. 1938 – Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Armed Forces High Command. 1941 – The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops. 1945 – World War II: Santo Tomas Internment Camp is liberated from Japanese authority. 1945 – World War II: The Yalta Conference between the "Big Three" (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea. 1945 – World War II: The British Indian Army and Imperial Japanese Army begin a series of battles known as the Battle of Pokoku and Irrawaddy River operations. 1948 – Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth. 1961 – The Angolan War of Independence and the greater Portuguese Colonial War begin. 1966 – All Nippon Airways Flight 60 plunges into Tokyo Bay, killing 133. 1967 – Lunar Orbiter program: Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft. 1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California. 1974 – M62 coach bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb on a bus carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel in Yorkshire, England. Nine soldiers and three civilians are killed. 1975 – Haicheng earthquake (magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale) occurs in Haicheng, Liaoning, China. 1976 – In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000. 1977 – A Chicago Transit Authority elevated train rear-ends another and derails, killing 11 and injuring 180, the worst accident in the agency's history. 1992 – A coup d'état is led by Hugo Chávez against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez. 1997 – En route to Lebanon, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 troop-transport helicopters collide in mid-air over northern Galilee, Israel, killing 73. 1997 – The Bojnurd earthquake measuring 6.5 strikes Iran. With a Mercalli intensity of VIII, it kills at least 88 and damages 173 villages.National Geophysical Data Center / World Data Service (NGDC/WDS): NCEI/WDS Global Significant Earthquake Database. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. doi:10.7289/V5TD9V7K 1998 – The 5.9 Afghanistan earthquake shakes the Takhar Province with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). With 2,323 killed, and 818 injured, damage is considered extreme. 1999 – Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot 19 times by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city. 2000 – The World Summit Against Cancer for the New Millennium, Charter of Paris is signed by the President of France, Jacques Chirac and the Director General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, initiating World Cancer Day which is held on February 4 every year. 2003 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia adopts a new constitution, becoming a loose confederacy between Montenegro and Serbia. 2004 – Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin. 2008 – Civic mobilizations in Colombia against FARC, under the name A million voices against the FARC. 2015 – TransAsia Airways Flight 235, with 58 people on board, en route from the Taiwanese capital Taipei to Kinmen, crashes into the Keelung River just after takeoff, killing 43 people. 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic causes all casinos in Macau to be closed down for 15 days. 2025 – Ten people are killed in a mass shooting at an adult education centre in Örebro, Sweden.
Births
Pre–1600 1447 – Lodovico Lazzarelli, Italian poet (died 1500) 1495 – Francesco II Sforza, Duke of Milan (died 1535) 1495 – Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller (died 1568) 1505 – Mikołaj Rej, Polish poet and author (died 1580) 1575 – Pierre de Bérulle, French cardinal and theologian, founded the French school of spirituality (died 1629)
1601–1900 1646 – Hans Erasmus Aßmann, German poet and politician (died 1699)Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie - online version at Wikisource 1677 – Johann Ludwig Bach, German violinist and composer (died 1731) 1688 – Pierre de Marivaux, French author and playwright (died 1763) 1725 – Dru Drury, English entomologist and author (died 1804) 1740 – Carl Michael Bellman, Swedish poet and composer (died 1795) 1778 – Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, Swiss botanist, mycologist, and academic (died 1841) 1799 – Almeida Garrett, Portuguese journalist and author (died 1854) 1803 – Antonija Höffern, Slovenian noblewoman (died 1871) 1818 – Emperor Norton, San Francisco eccentric and visionary (died 1880) 1831 – Oliver Ames, American financier and politician, 35th Governor of Massachusetts (died 1895) 1848 – Jean Aicard, French poet, author, and playwright (died 1921) 1849 – Jean Richepin, French poet, author, and playwright (died 1926) 1862 – Édouard Estaunié, French novelist (died 1942) 1865 – Abe Isoo, Japanese minister and politician (died 1949) 1868 – Constance Markievicz, Irish revolutionary and first woman elected to the UK House of Commons (died 1927) 1869 – Bill Haywood, American labor organizer (died 1928) 1871 – Friedrich Ebert, German lawyer and politician, first President of Germany (died 1925) 1872 – Gotse Delchev, Bulgarian and Macedonian revolutionary activist (died 1903) 1873 – Étienne Desmarteau, Canadian shot putter and discus thrower (died 1905) 1875 – Ludwig Prandtl, German physicist and engineer (died 1953) 1877 – Eddie Cochems, American football player and coach (died 1953) 1879 – Varia Kipiani, Georgian scientist 1881 – Eulalio Gutiérrez, Mexican general and politician, President of Mexico (died 1939) 1881 – Fernand Léger, French painter and sculptor (died 1955) 1881 – Kliment Voroshilov, Soviet politician and Marshal of the Soviet Union, People's Commissar for Defence (died 1969) 1883 – Reinhold Rudenberg, German-American inventor and a pioneer of electron microscopy (died 1961) 1891 – M. A. Ayyangar, Indian lawyer and politician, second Speaker of the Lok Sabha (died 1978) 1892 – E. J. Pratt, Canadian poet and academic (died 1964) 1893 – Raymond Dart, Australian paleoanthropologist (died 1988) 1895 – Nigel Bruce, English actor (died 1953) 1896 – Friedrich Glauser, Austrian-Swiss author (died 1938) 1896 – Friedrich Hund, German physicist and academic (died 1997) 1897 – Ludwig Erhard, German soldier and politician, second Chancellor of West Germany (died 1977) 1899 – Virginia M. Alexander, American physician and founder of the Aspiranto Health Home (died 1949) 1900 – Jacques Prévert, French poet and screenwriter (died 1977)
1901–present 1902 – Charles Lindbergh, American pilot and explorer (died 1974) 1902 – Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, German-English lawyer and politician, Attorney General for England and Wales (died 2003) 1903 – Alexander Imich, Polish-American chemist, parapsychologist, and academic (died 2014) 1904 – MacKinlay Kantor, American author and screenwriter (died 1977) 1904 – Deng Yingchao, Chinese politician, Chairwoman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (died 1968) 1905 – Hylda Baker, English comedian, actress and music hall performer (died 1986) 1906 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian (died 1945) 1906 – Letitia Dunbar-Harrison, Irish librarian (died 1994) 1906 – Clyde Tombaugh, American astronomer and academic, discovered Pluto (died 1997) 1908 – Julian Bell, English poet and academic (died 1937) 1912 – Ola Skjåk Bræk, Norwegian banker and politician, Norwegian Minister of Industry (died 1999) 1912 – Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian-American conductor (died 1993) 1912 – Byron Nelson, American golfer and sportscaster (died 2006) 1913 – Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (died 2005) 1914 – Alfred Andersch, German-Swiss author and publisher (died 1980) 1915 – William Talman, American actor and screenwriter (died 1968) 1915 – Norman Wisdom, English comedian, actor and singer-songwriter (died 2010) 1917 – Yahya Khan, Pakistan general and politician, third President of Pakistan (died 1980) 1918 – Ida Lupino, English-American actress and director (died 1995) 1918 – Luigi Pareyson, Italian philosopher and author (died 1991) 1920 – Janet Waldo, American actress and voice artist (died 2016) 1921 – Betty Friedan, American author and feminist (died 2006) 1921 – Lotfi Zadeh, Iranian-American mathematician and computer scientist and founder of fuzzy logic (died 2017) 1922 – Bhimsen Joshi, Indian vocalist of the Hindustani classical music tradition (died 2011) 1923 – Conrad Bain, Canadian-American actor (died 2013) 1925 – Russell Hoban, American author and illustrator (died 2011) 1925 – Stanley Karnow, American journalist and historian (died 2013) 1925 – Christopher Zeeman, English mathematician and academic (died 2016) 1926 – Gyula Grosics, Hungarian footballer and manager (died 2014) 1927 – Rolf Landauer, German-American physicist and academic (died 1999) 1928 – Oscar Cabalén, Argentinian racing driver (died 1967) 1928 – Osmo Antero Wiio, Finnish journalist, academic, and politician (died 2013) 1929 – Jerry Adler, American actor, director, and producer (died 2025) 1929 – Paul Burlison, American musician (died 2003) 1929 – Neil Johnston, American basketball player (died 1978) 1930 – Tibor Antalpéter, Hungarian volleyball player and diplomat, Hungarian Ambassador to the United Kingdom (died 2012) 1930 – Arthur E. Chase, American businessman and politician (died 2015) 1930 – Jim Loscutoff, American basketball player and coach (died 2015) 1931 – Isabel Perón, Argentinian dancer and politician, 41st President of Argentina