1778 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.

1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.

 black321 wrote:

if only

 Red_Dragon wrote:
If those spineless bastards - mitch- had just done their duty then...

1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.

1907 – Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world's first synthetic plastic.

1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

2020 – United States President Donald Trump is acquitted by the United States Senate in his first impeachment trial.

1789 – George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.

1861 – 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.

2004 – Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin.

1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.

1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.

1933 – Adolf Hitler announces that the expansion of Lebensraum into Eastern Europe, and its ruthless Germanisation, are the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Nazi foreign policy.

1959 – Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as The Day the Music Died.

1966 – The Soviet Union's Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon, and the first spacecraft to take pictures from the surface of the Moon.

1984 – Doctor John Buster and a research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the United States announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.

1922 – Ulysses by James Joyce is published.

1896 – La bohème premieres in Turin at the Teatro Regio (Turin), conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini.

1964 – The Beatles have their first number one hit in the United States with "I Want to Hold Your Hand".

1982 – The Intel 80286 is released, which introduced protected mode memory. The IBM PC/AT and its clones used this CPU.

2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during the reentry of mission STS-107 into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

1915 – World War I: Germany is the first to make large-scale use of poison gas in warfare in the Battle of Bolimów against Russia.

2007 – Emergency officials in Boston mistakenly identify battery-powered LED placards depicting characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force as Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), causing a panic.

2020 – The United Kingdom's membership within the European Union ceases in accordance with Article 50, after 47 years of being a member state.

1930 – The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union orders the confiscation of lands belonging to the Kulaks in a campaign of Dekulakization, resulting in the executions and forced deportations of millions.

1933 – Adolf Hitler takes office as the Chancellor of Germany.

1939 – During a speech in the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler makes a prediction about the end of the Jewish race in Europe if another world war were to occur.

1956 – In the United States, Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery bus boycott.

1969 – The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.

1982 – Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner".

2020 – The World Health Organization declares the COVID-19 pandemic to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

1845 – "The Raven" is published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe.

1886 – Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.

1996 – President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear weapons testing.

1813 – Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is first published in the United Kingdom.

1915 – An act of the U.S. Congress creates the United States Coast Guard as a branch of the United States Armed Forces.

1935 – Iceland becomes the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.

1956 – Elvis Presley makes his first national television appearance.

1958 – The Lego company patents the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.

1986 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-L mission: Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Get your froth on

 R_P wrote:




Holocaust museum condemns Walz for comparing Minnesota children to Anne Frank

1825 – The U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory (in what is present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears".

1951 – Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger.

1967 – Cold War: The Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom sign the Outer Space Treaty in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting the usage of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes.

2003 – The first selections for the National Recording Registry are announced by the Library of Congress.

2010 – Apple announces the iPad.

1926 – The first demonstration of the television by John Logie Baird.

1960 – The National Association of Broadcasters in the United States reacts to the "payola" scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records.

1995 – The Norwegian rocket incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.

1961 – Goldsboro B-52 crash: A bomber carrying two H-bombs breaks up in mid-air over North Carolina. The uranium core of one weapon remains lost.

1978 – Soviet satellite Kosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered.

1984 – Apple Computer places the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States.

2003 – The United States Department of Homeland Security officially begins operation.