This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1763 Treaty of Paris ends French-Indian War, surrendering Canada to Britain.

1906 British battleship HMS Dreadnought launches after only 100 days, renders all other capital ships obsolete with its revolutionary design.

1915 US President Woodrow Wilson warns Germany that the US will hold it 'to a strict accountability' for 'property endangered or lives lost'

1915 US President Woodrow Wilson protests to Britain on the use of US flags on British merchant ships to deceive the Germans.

1916 Military conscription begins in Britain.

1918 In Finland, General Carl G. Von Mannerheim gathers an army known as the 'White Guard' to mount a counter revolution against the Bolshevik 'Red Guard'

1944 U-666/U-545/U-283 sink off Ireland.

1954 Eisenhower warns against US intervention in Vietnam.

1962 USSR swaps spy Francis Gary Power to US for Rudolph Abel.

1964 Australian destroyer HMAS Voyager sinks after colliding with aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne, killing 82.

[Jimbuna]

1943 US General Eisenhower selected to command the allied armies in Europe; British General Montgomery not best pleased.

1944 U-424 sunk off Ireland.

1946 World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 116 of 156 captured U-boats.

[Jimbuna]

1915 Adolf Hitler receives the relatively common Iron Cross second class for bravery in World War I.

1935 First secret demonstration of radio signals detecting aircraft by Robert Watson-Watt at Daventry, England.

1938 The first 'Kindertransport' carrying Jewish refugee children from Nazi Germany arrives in Britain.

1942 German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen escape from Brest to Germany in a dash up the English Channel.

1973 First US POWs in N Vietnam released; 116 of 456 flown to Philippines.

2013 North Korea allegedly conducts its third nuclear test, saying it was a nuclear device that could be weaponized.

[Jimbuna]

1942 Hitler's Operation Sealion, the invasion of England, is cancelled.

1945 Allied planes begin bombing Dresden, Germany; a firestorm results and over 22,000 die.

1945 USSR captures Budapest, after a 49-day battle with Germany; 159,000 die.

[Jimbuna]

1797 The Battle of Cape St Vincent: British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. Captain Horatio Nelson distinguishes himself.

1929 St Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, 7 gangsters killed, allegedly on Al Capone's orders.

1940 British merchant vessel fleet is armed.

1942 The Polish resistance movement, the Home Army, is formed and will eventually become the largest resistance movement in occupied Europe.

1971 Richard Nixon installs secret taping system in the White House.

[Jimbuna]

1933 President-elect Franklin Roosevelt survives assassination attempt.

1936 Adolf Hitler announces construction of the Volkswagen Beetle (the People's Car, aka the Käfer/Beetle).

1939 German battleship Bismarck is launched.

1942 British ruled Singapore surrenders to the Japanese.

1944 891 British bombers attack Berlin in the largest raid by the RAF against the city.

1944 Allies begin attack on Axis held Monte Cassino monastery, Italy.

1952 King George VI is buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, England.

1989 Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan ends.

[Jimbuna]

1916 The US rejects the right of Germany and Austria-Hungary to sink armed merchant ships.

1916 The German ambassador in Washington announces that Germany will pay an indemnity for American lives lost on the Lusitania.

1923 Howard Carter opens the inner burial chamber of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb and finds the sarcophagus.

1940 British search plane finds German supply ship Altmark, used to accommodate aliied sailors from vessles sunk by the Graf Spee, off Norway.

1942 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery.

1942 Bangka Island massacre: Japanese soldiers machine-gun 22 Australian Army nurses and 60 Australian and British soldiers and crew members from two sunken ships. Only one nurse and two soldiers survive.

1960 US nuclear submarine USS Triton set off on underwater round-world trip.

[Jimbuna]

1940 Altmark Incident: Crew of the British destroyer "Cossack" board German "Altmark" in Jøssingfjord, Norway, releasing 299 British prisoners after hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets and the last recorded Royal Naval action with cutlass.

1972 British Parliament votes to join the European Common Market.

[Jimbuna]

1901 Winston Churchill makes his maiden speech in the British House of Commons.

1977 Space Shuttle above a Boeing 747 goes on its maiden flight.

1979 Snow falls in Sahara Desert.

2016 Pope Francis questions US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump's Christianity over his call to build a wall on the Mexican border.

[Jimbuna]

1915 British fleet opens fire on Dardanelles coast.

1942 About 150 Japanese warplanes attack the Australian city of Darwin.

1945 980 Japanese soldiers reportedly killed by crocodiles in 2 days on Ramree Island, Burma.

1945 US 5th Fleet launches invasion of Iwo Jima against the Japanese with 30,000 US Marines.

[Jimbuna]

1938 UK Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigns stating Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has appeased Nazi Germany.

1942 Lt E H O'Hare single-handedly shoots down five Japanese heavy bombers, becomes America's first World War II flying ace.

1959 The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.

2005 Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout.

[Aktungbby]

1907: President Theodore Roosevelt signed an immigration act which excluded "idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons" from being admitted to the United States.

[Mr Quatro]

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

In a highly controversial vote on February 20, 1985, the Irish government defies the powerful Catholic Church and approves the sale of contraceptives.

Up until 1979, Irish law prohibited the importation and sale of contraceptives. In a 1973 case, McGee v. The Attorney General, the Irish Supreme Court found that a constitutional right to marital privacy covered the use of contraceptives

[Jimbuna]

1916 World War I: Battle of Verdun begins, leads to an estimated 1 million casualties.

1917 British troopship SS Mendi sinks off Isle of Wight, 646 die.

1981 "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe, murderer of 13 women, captured.

1995 RAF-pilot Jo Salter is first woman to fly in a Tornado jet aircraft.

[Jimbuna]

1797 The Last Invasion of Britain by the French, begins near Fishguard, Wales.

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 Great White Fleet, first US fleet to circle the globe, returns to Virginia.

1915 Germany begins "unrestricted" submarine warfare.

1940 German air force sinks 2 German destroyers, killing 578.

1955 British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sets sail.

1967 25,000 US and South Vietnamese troops launch Operation Junction City against the Viet Cong. Largest US airborne assault since WWII.