1653 – New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.
1848 – California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese immigrants arrives in San Francisco.
1876 – The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.
1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed. (Saw his shadow TODAY, 2015)
1901 – Funeral of Queen Victoria.
1905 – Ayn Rand, Russian-American author and philosopher (d. 1982) was born.
1912 – Millvina Dean, English civil servant and cartographer, last surviving Titanic Survivor (d. 2009) was born.
1913 – Grand Central Terminal is opened in New York City.
1914 – Charlie Chaplin’s first film appearance, Making a Living premiered.
1916 – German zeppelins drop close to 400 bombs over the West Midlands the crew of a British fishing trawler later comes across the crashed remains of one of the giant airships floating in the North Sea.
1922 – Ulysses by James Joyce is published.
1925 – Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.
1933 – Buster Keaton was a slapstick comedy and silent film star who was fired from MGM as of this day. The reason that was given in one history report was that he was drinking excessively.
A possible reason for Buster Keaton’s failure to make it with MGM was the fact that it may have been hard for him to adjust working under the direction of someone else. Before this time, he had actually been able to have control over his own creativity. From the time that he had been fired until about 10 years later, Keaton had undergone more trials. For one, his wife had divorced him, and he had taken on smaller and smaller film roles.
1935 – Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine.
1936 – Babe Ruth was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame
1937 – Tom Smothers, American comedian, actor, and singer (Smothers Brothers) was born
1937 – On this day it was reported that the White House roof was leaking, and that further rain and snow was expected to fall. Believe it or not, while this was going on Congress was still debating whether or not to spend $400 to fix it.
1942 – Graham Nash, English-American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Hollies, Crosby & Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) was born.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to conclusion as Soviet troops accept the surrender of 91,000 remnants of the Axis forces.
1947 – Farrah Fawcett, American actress (d. 2009) was born.
1948 – Al McKay, American guitarist, songwriter, and producer (Earth, Wind & Fire) was born.
1949 – Brent Spiner, (Data in Star Trek) American actor was born.
1949 – Ross Valory, American bass player (Journey and The Storm) was born.
1949 – The first 45 RPM vinyl record was released. It would be one of the most popular ways for music lovers to enjoy their favorite song without buying an entire record. The cassette single during the 1980’s and 1990s was a comparable format.
1952 – Rick Dufay, American guitarist and songwriter (Aerosmith) was born.
1953 – Duane Chapman, American bounty hunter was born.
1964 – Following the success of the Barbie doll for girls Hasbro launch G.I. Joe an action figure for boys. G.I. Joe stood for “Government Issue Joe” , There were four originally four figures launched one for each branch of the Armed Forces.
1966 – Robert DeLeo, American bass player, songwriter, and producer (Stone Temple Pilots, Army of Anyone, and Talk Show) was born.
1971 – The international Ramsar Convention for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands is signed in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran.
1972 – The British embassy in Dublin is destroyed in protest at Bloody Sunday.
1976 – The Groundhog Day gale hits the north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada.
1979 – Sid Vicious had died on this day from a heroine overdose. His death occurred only one day after he was bailed out of jail. He was charged for the murder of his previous girlfriend (one the one he was with he had overdosed).
1980 – An FBI operation called ABSCAM was made known to the public on this day. This was a mission that was designed to uncover scandalous activity taking place within the government. As a result, a handful of members within Congress were found guilty of various crimes, such as bribery and corruption. c
1981 – Salem al-Hazmi, Saudi Arabian terrorist, hijacker of American Airlines Flight 77 (d. 2001) was birthed.
1982 – 1982 Hama Massacre: the government of Syria attacks the town of Hama.
1989 – Soviet war in Afghanistan: The last Soviet armoured column leaves Kabul.
1990 – Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress and promises to release Nelson Mandela.
2000 – First digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realized by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments.
2010 – The Lancet Medical Journal that published a 1998 paper linking Autism with the MMR vacine has issued a full retraction of the paper. The paper was discredited after findings that Dr Wakefield was in the pay of solicitors who were acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR and therefore not an indepepndent study.
2013 – Chris Kyle, American Navy Seal (b. 1974) Assassinated.
2014 – Academy award winning actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman died at his home in New York after overdosing on drugs. Hoffman had previously spoken about his problems with drug abuse. It was revealed later that he had overdosed on a combination of heroin, cocaine and amphetamines.