Events

• 649 – Conquest of Kucha: The forces of Kucha surrender after a forty-day siege led by Tang dynasty general Ashina She’er, establishing Tang control over the northern Tarim Basin in Xinjiang.
• 1419 – Hundred Years’ War: Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England, completing his reconquest of Normandy.
• 1511 – The Italian Duchy of Mirandola surrenders to the Pope.
• 1520 – Sten Sture the Younger, the Regent of Sweden, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Bogesund and dies on 03 February.
• 1764 – John Wilkes is expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.
• 1788 – The second group of ships of the First Fleet arrive at Botany Bay.
• 1795 – The Batavian Republic is proclaimed in the Netherlands, replacing the Dutch Republic.
• 1817 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, crosses the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru.
• 1839 – The British East India Company captures Aden.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in declaring secession from the United States.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Mill Springs: The Confederacy suffers its first significant defeat in the conflict.
• 1871 – Franco-Prussian War: In the Siege of Paris, Prussia wins the Battle of St. Quentin.
  • Meanwhile, the French attempt to break the siege in the Battle of Buzenval will end unsuccessfully the following day.
• 1899 – Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is formed.
• 1901 – Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom, stricken with paralysis.
  • She dies three days later at the age of 81.
• 1915 – Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube for use in advertising.
• 1915 – German strategic bombing during World War I: German zeppelins bomb the towns of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in the UK killing at least 20 people, in the first major aerial bombardment of a civilian target.
• 1917 – Silvertown explosion: A blast at a munitions factory in London kills 73 and injures over 400.
  • The resulting fire causes over £2,000,000 worth of damage.
• 1920 – The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.
• 1941 – World War II: HMS Greyhound and other escorts of convoy AS-12 sink Italian submarine Neghelli with all hands 64 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of Falkonera.
• 1942 – World War II: The Japanese conquest of Burma begins.
• 1945 – World War II: Soviet forces liberate the Łódź Ghetto. Of more than 200,000 inhabitants in 1940, less than 900 had survived the Nazi occupation.
• 1946 – General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals.
• 1960 – Japan and the United States sign the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty.
• 1969 – Student Jan Palach dies after setting himself on fire three days earlier in Prague’s Wenceslas Square to protest about the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union in 1968.
  • His funeral turns into another major protest.
• 1977 – President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D’Aquino (aka “Tokyo Rose“).
• 1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.
• 1990 – Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley in Indian-administered Kashmir due to an insurgency.
• 1991 – Gulf War: Iraq fires a second Scud missile into Israel, causing 15 injuries.
• 1999 – British Aerospace agrees to acquire the defence subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc, forming BAE Systems in November 1999.
• 2014 – A bomb attack on an army convoy in the city of Bannu kills at least 26 Pakistani soldiers and injures 38 others.
• Confederate Heroes Day (Texas), and its related observance:
  • Robert E. Lee Day (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi).

People (Births)

• 1752 – James Morris III, American captain (d. 1820).
• 1788 – Pavel Kiselyov, Russian general and politician (d. 1874).
• 1848 – Matthew Webb, English swimmer and diver (d. 1883).
• 1871 – Dame Gruev, Bulgarian educator and activist, co-founded the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (d. 1906).
• 1879 – Boris Savinkov, Russian soldier and author (d. 1925).
• 1936 – Ziaur Rahman, Bangladeshi general and politician, seventh President of Bangladesh (d. 1981).
• 1962 – Hans Daams, Dutch cyclist.
• 1970 – Kathleen Smet, Belgian triathlete.
• 1973 – Yevgeny Sadovyi, Russian swimmer and coach.
• 1985 – Pascal Behrenbruch, German decathlete.

People (Deaths)

• 1661 – Thomas Venner, English rebel leader.
• 1847 – Charles Bent, American soldier and politician, first Governor of New Mexico (b. 1799).
• 1945 – Gustave Mesny, French general (b. 1886).
• 1964 – Firmin Lambot, Belgian cyclist (b. 1886).
• 2014 – Christopher Chataway, English runner, journalist, and politician (b. 1931).