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1959 the Barbie doll went on sale.
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1960 France exploded its first atomic bomb.
14 FEBRUARY (#ulink_c6d76633-a090-518e-924d-87e10fd0b8e3)
1477 John Paston received the first recorded valentine letter in English, from Margery Brews.
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1838 Margaret Knight, inventor of the square-bottom paper bag, was born in York, Maine.
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1852 the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, fitted with ten beds, admitted its first patient, George Parr, who was suffering from catarrh and diarrhoea.
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1895 Oscar Wilde’s final play, The Importance of Being Earnest, opened in London.
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1922 Marconi began regular broadcasting transmissions from Writtle in Essex.
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1939 the German battleship Bismarck was launched at Hamburg.
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2005 three PayPal workers started a video-sharing website, calling it YouTube.
15 FEBRUARY (#ulink_883b3814-fb45-5584-9d29-ba9e47ef450a)
1882 the first cargo of frozen meat left New Zealand for Britain on the SS Dunedin.
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1942 Singapore surrendered to Japanese forces.
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1944 the Allies bombed Monte Cassino monastery in Italy to prevent the Germans fortifying it.
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1965 Canada flew its newly adopted red maple leaf flag for the first time.
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1965 Nat King Cole, singer and jazz pianist who sold more than 50 million records, died of cancer aged 45.
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1971 Britain adopted decimal currency.
16 FEBRUARY (#ulink_24a8f60c-40c3-5eb5-b784-f758f46ea4bb)
1659 the first known British cheque (for £400) was written by Nicholas Vanacker.
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1824 the first meeting of the Athenaeum Club — for “Literary and Scientific men and followers of the Fine Arts” — took place in London.
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1923 the archaeologist Howard Carter entered the sealed burial chamber of Tutankhamun in Thebes, Egypt. (The ruins of Thebes are found within the modern city of Luxor.)
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1959 Fidel Castro became prime minister of Cuba, and would govern until 2008.
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1960 the US nuclear submarine Triton set off on the first underwater round-the-world voyage.
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1998 the Angel of the North, a sculpture by Antony Gormley, was unveiled in Gateshead.
17 FEBRUARY (#ulink_78cd1e3c-d425-55ed-99b5-f61c713b0d66)
1600 the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome for heresies including maintaining that Earth was not the only inhabited planet.
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1818 German inventor Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun patented the draisine, forerunner of the bicycle.
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1864 AB (Banjo) Paterson, poet (Waltzing Matilda), was born in Orange, New South Wales.
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1880 Tsar Alexander II of Russia survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded at the Winter Palace, St Petersburg.
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1909 Geronimo, Apache leader, died in captivity aged 79.
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1972 the House of Commons voted to join the European Common Market.
18 FEBRUARY (#ulink_6ae81293-faf2-5760-886d-592595b6bd23)
1478 George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III, was said to have been drowned in a butt of malmsey at the Tower of London.
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1678 John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was published, much of it having been composed while he was in prison for illegal preaching.
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1929 the winners of the first Academy Awards (known as Oscars from 1931) were announced, with the presentation being held later that year. (See 16 May.)
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1930 Pluto was discovered by the American astronomer Clyde W Tombaugh.
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1979 snow fell in the Sahara Desert.
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2005 a law banning hunting with dogs came into force in England and Wales.
19 FEBRUARY (#ulink_deee1fbb-d9df-5cde-8b47-edfec4e4f4d0)
1473 Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer who proposed that the sun not the Earth was the centre of the Universe, was born in Poland.
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1861 Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia.
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1878 the patent for Thomas Edison’s phonograph (the original gramophone) was issued.
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1897 the Women’s Institute was founded by Adelaide Hoodless in Ontario, Canada, and came to Britain during the First World War.
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1945 US marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima, whose capture created a forward air base in the war against Japan.
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1985 the BBC televised the first episode of EastEnders.
20 FEBRUARY (#ulink_7428fa37-30f3-509a-afd1-4d0cae6a93ab)
1632 Thomas Osborne (1st Duke of Leeds), statesman and leader of the Tories who was imprisoned twice on charges of bribery, was born.
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1811 Austria declared itself bankrupt because of the cost of fighting Napoleon.
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1816 the opening night of Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville was a fiasco, with one performer singing an aria with a bleeding nose after tripping on a trapdoor, and a cat attacking another during the finale to the first act.
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1947 Viscount Mountbatten of Burma was appointed last viceroy of India.
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1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
21 FEBRUARY (#ulink_470af273-b068-5cb8-9bb7-5ac2ff25b1f8)
1741 Jethro Tull, inventor of the more efficient horse-drawn seed-drill, died at Hungerford, Berks.
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1862 Nathaniel Gordon became the only American to be executed for slave trading, their shipping being illegal under the 1820 Piracy Act.
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1916 the ten-month-long Battle of Verdun began with nine hours of the heaviest artillery bombardment ever witnessed.
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1964 24,000 rolls of Beatles wallpaper were flown to America.
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1965 Malcolm X was assassinated in New York aged 39 by three members of the Nation of Islam.
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1972 President Nixon began his historic visit of rapprochement to China.
22 FEBRUARY (#ulink_134392c6-3049-53ef-b7f6-9ac1cb29ea63)
