FEB 04
- 211 - Emperor of Rome Lucius Septimius Severus (193-211) died at 64.
- 1783 - Italy: An earthquake killed 50,000+ people in Calabria.
- 1789 - US: 1st electoral college elected George Washington as President and John Adams as Vice President.
- 1797 - Ecuador: An earthquake killed 41,000+ people in Quito.
- 1902 - Birthday: Charles Lindbergh, American aviator (1st to fly solo across the Atlantic) born in Detroit, Michigan.
- 1913 - Birthday: Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (She refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger) born in Tuskegee, Alabama.
- 1933 - German President Paul von Hindenburg imposed limitation on freedom of the press
- 1938 - Adolf Hitler seized control of German army and granted key posts to Nazis.
- 1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met at Yalta (Crimea) to discuss the final phase of World War II.
- 1948 - Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) declared independence from UK.
- 1966 - Japan: All-Nippon Airways 727 crashed off Haneda Airport, killed 133.
- 1967 - US launched Lunar Orbiter 3.
- 1971 - The NASDAQ stock exchange founded in New York City.
- 1976 - Guatemala & Honduras: 7.5 magnitude earthquake killed 22,500+ people.
- 1985 - 20 countries (not including US) signed a UN treaty to outlaw torture.
- 1990 - Richard Hadlee took his 400th Test Cricket wicket (bowled out Sanjay Manjrekar) in Christchurch, New Zealand.
- 1991 - Martin Crowe & Andrew Jones (New Zealand) make a world record 467 runs stand against Sri Lanka (in Wellington).
- 1998 - Afghanistan: 6.1 magnitude earthquake in northeast region killed 5,000+ people.
- 2004 - Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room.
- 2013 - Syria
: 20 people were killed after an apartment building was struck by a rocket in Aleppo.
- 2013 - Iraq
: 22 people were killed due to a suicide bombing in Taji.
- 2013 - California
: 8 people were killed after a bus collided with two vehicles and flips in Yucaipa
- 2013 - UAE: 22 people were killed after a bus and a truck collided in Al Ain.
- 2013 - Paris: France annulled 213 year old law banning women from wearing trousers.
- 2014 - Scotland: Same-sex marriage was legalized.
- 2014 - Satya Nadella succeeded Steve Ballmer to become 3rd CEO of Microsoft.