Events

• 1316 – The Battle of Picotin, between Ferdinand of Majorca and the forces of Matilda of Hainaut, ends in victory for Ferdinand.
• 1371 – Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty.
• 1495 – King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city’s throne.
• 1744 – War of the Austrian Succession: The Battle of Toulon causes several Royal Navy captains to be court-martialed, and the Articles of War to be amended.
• 1797 – The last Invasion of Britain begins near Fishguard, Wales.
• 1819 – By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million US dollars.
• 1847 – Mexican-American War: The Battle of Buena Vista: Five thousand American troops defeat 15,000 Mexican troops.
• 1848 – The French Revolution of 1848, which would lead to the establishment of the French Second Republic, begins.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia.
  • He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on 18 February 1861.
• 1899 – Filipino forces led by General Antonio Luna launch counterattacks for the first time against the American forces during the Philippine-American War.
  • The Filipinos fail to regain Manila from the Americans.
• 1904 – The United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina; the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.
• 1909 – The sixteen battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by USS Connecticut, return to the US after a voyage around the world.
• 1921 – After Russian forces under Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg drive the Chinese out, the Bogd Khan is reinstalled as the emperor of Mongolia.
• 1942 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable.
• 1943 – World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Nazi Germany.
• 1944 – World War II: American aircraft mistakenly bomb the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.
• 1944 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army recaptures Krivoi Rog.
• 1946 – The “Long Telegram”, proposing how the United States should deal with the Soviet Union, arrives from the US embassy in Moscow.
• 1958 – Following a plebiscite in both countries the previous day, Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic.
• 1972 – The Troubles: The Official Irish Republican Army detonates a car bomb at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others.
• 1979 – Saint Lucia gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1986 – Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
• 1995 – The Corona reconnaissance satellite programme, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified.
• 2002 – Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.
• 2006 – At approximately 6:44 am local Iraqi time, explosions occurred at the al-Askari Shrine in Samara, Iraq.
  • The attack on the shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, caused the escalation of sectarian tensions in Iraq into a full-scale civil war.
• 2011 – Bahraini uprising: Tens of thousands of people march in protest against the deaths of seven victims killed by police and army forces during previous protests.
• 2014 – President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine is impeached by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by a vote of 328–0, fulfilling a major goal of the Euromaidan rebellion.
• George Washington’s Birthday, federal holiday in the United States. A holiday on February 22 as well as the third Monday in February.

People (Births)

• 1732 – George Washington, American general and politician, 1st President of the United States (d. 1799)
• 1857 – Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, English general, co-founded The Scout Association (d. 1941)
• 1880 – Eric Lemming, Swedish athlete (d. 1930)
• 1897 – Karol Świerczewski, Polish general (d. 1947)
• 1921 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Central African general and politician, 2nd President of the Central African Republic (d. 1996)
• 1932 – Ted Kennedy, American soldier, lawyer, and politician (d. 2009)
• 1973 – Philippe Gaumont, French cyclist (d. 2013)
• 1988 – Jonathan Borlée, Belgian sprinter

People (Deaths)

• 1627 – Olivier van Noort, Dutch explorer (b. 1558)
• 1944 – Fritz Schmenkel, anti-Nazi German who joined Soviet partisans (b.1916)
• 1973 – Winthrop Rockefeller, American colonel and politician, 37th Governor of Arkansas (b. 1912)
• 1983 – Romain Maes, Belgian cyclist (b. 1913)
• 1992 – Markos Vafiadis, Greek general and politician (b. 1906)
• 2002 – Jonas Savimbi, Angolan general, founded UNITA (b. 1934)