This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1661 Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed after having been dead for two years

1911 The Canadian Naval Service becomes the Royal Canadian Navy.

1933 President Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor of Germany who forms a government with Franz von Papen.

1939 Adolf Hitler threatens Jews during his speech to the German Reichstag (Parliament)

1943 6 British Mosquitos bomb Berlin in daylight.

1943 Adolf Hitler promotes Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th Army, to Field Marshal in the hope that he will not surrender.

1943 USS Chicago sinks in Pacific Ocean.

1945 "Wilhelm Gustloff" torpedoed off Danzig by Soviet sub-c 9,400 die.

1965 State funeral for Winston Churchill at St Paul's Cathedral in London; at the time, the world's largest ever state funeral.

1972 Bloody Sunday: 27 unarmed civilians are shot (14 are killed) by the British Army during a civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland; this is the highest death toll from a single shooting incident during 'the Troubles'

[Jimbuna]

1915 1st (German) poison gas attack, against Russians.

1917 Germany notifies US that U-boats will attack neutral merchant ships.

1918 A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.

1943 Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to Soviet troops at Stalingrad.

1944 Operation-Overlord (D-Day) postponed until June.

1944 U-592 sunk off Ireland.

1950 US President Harry Truman publicly announces support for the development of a hydrogen bomb.

1961 USAF launches Samos spy satellite to replace U-2 flights.

1985 South African President P. W. Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence.

[Jimbuna]

1587 Queen Elizabeth I of England signs death warrant for her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots.

1917 German Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz announces unrestricted submarine warfare against allied shipping.

1968 Saigon police chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executes Viet Cong officer Nguyễn Văn Lém with a pistol shot to head. The execution is captured by photographer Eddie Adams and becomes an anti-war icon.

2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

[Jimbuna]

1653 New Amsterdam becomes a city (later renamed New York)

1887 First Groundhog Day observed at Gobbler's Knob, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

1901 Queen Victoria's funeral takes place in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, England.

1943 German 6th Army surrenders after Battle of Stalingrad in a major turning point in Europe during World War II

1954 President Eisenhower announces the detonation of the world's 1st hydrogen bomb (tested in 1952)

1974 The F-16 Fighting Falcon flies for the first time.

[Aktungbby]

1917: the U.S. breaks off relations with Germany, the same day as an American cargo ship, the SS Housatonic, was sunk by a U-boat after the crew boarded lifeboats. 1943: during WW II, the U.S. transport ship, SS Dorchester, carrying 900+ troops to Greenland, sank after being attacked by a U-boat. Only 230 persons survived.

[Aktungbby]

1918: during WW I, the Cunard liner SS Tuscania, transporting approx. 2,010 American troops, and 380 crewmembers was torpedoed by a U-boat, UB-77, in the Irish Sea with loss of 210 lives. One notable survivor was Harry Truman, who, steadfastly refusing to evacuate his secluded mountaintop abode, died in the 1988 Vesuvian-Scale level-5 eruption of Mt St Helen's in 1980...62 years later.

[Jimbuna]

1945 WWII: US troops under General Douglas MacArthur enter Manila, Philippines; month long battle ends 3 years of Japanese military occupation.

1972 Two IRA members are killed when a bomb they were planting exploded prematurely.

1981 Military jury in North Carolina convicts Robert Garwood of collaborating with the enemy during the Vietnam War.

1983 Former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie brought to trial.

1996 British supermarket chains stock genetically modified tomato puree - the first GM food to be sold in the country.

2009 The United States Navy guided missile cruiser Port Royal runs aground off Oahu, Hawaii, damaging the ship as well as a coral reef.

[Aktungbby]

Rule 3: always go to confession before handling munitions above yer IQ level...to avoid "being hoist with one's own petard" -Hamlet Act III Scene IV

[Red Devil]

Feb 6th 1958. A Ambassador aircraft crsahed on take off at Munich Airport killing 23 people which was a charter flight for Manchester United FC returning from Belgrade with journalists and players on board.

[Jimbuna]

1943 1st Spitfire in action above Darwin, Australia, Mu Ki-46 shot down.

1952 Queen Elizabeth II succeeds King George VI to the British throne and proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

1958 23 dead in air crash at Munich-Riem Airport; 8 players and 3 staff are from the Manchester United football team.

1964 France & Great-Britain sign accord over building channel tunnel.

1971 Bernard Watt (28), a Catholic civilian, is shot and killed by the British Army during street disturbances in Ardoyne, Belfast.

1971 James Saunders (22), a member of the IRA, is shot and killed by the British Army during a gun battle near the Oldpark Road, Belfast.

1971 The Irish Republican Army shoots and kills Gunner Robert Curtis, the first British soldier to die during the 'Troubles'

1983 Trial of former Gestapo commandant Klaus Barbie begins in France for war crimes during World War II

[Red Devil]

1971 Bernard Watt (28), a Catholic civilian, is shot and killed by the British Army during street disturbances in Ardoyne, Belfast.

Don't forget how many of my comrades were killed and blown up. I was there at the time and saw the horros.

[Jimbuna]

1945 General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.

1991 Provisional Irish Republican Army launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street during a cabinet meeting in an attempt to assassinate Prime Minister John Major, injuring four people.

1992 The Maastricht Treaty is signed by 12 countries from the European Community (EC) to create the European Union (EU)

[Jimbuna]

1587 Mary, Queen of Scots, is beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle aged 44 after being convicted of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I in the Babington Plot.

1807 Battle of Eylau ends inconclusively between Napoleon's forces and Russian Empire - 1st battle Napoleon isn't victorious.

1916 French cruiser "Admiral Charner" torpedoed off Syrian coast, kills 374

1942 Congress advises FDR that, Americans of Japanese descent should be locked up en masse so they wouldn't oppose the US war effort.

1944 U-762 sunk off Ireland.

1960 Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom issued an Order-in-Council, stating that she and her family would be known as the House of Windsor, and that her descendants will take the name "Mountbatten-Windsor".

[Jimbuna]

1916 Britain's military service act enforced (conscription)

1941 Nazi collaborators destroy pro-Jewish café Alcazar Amsterdam (Alcazar refused to hang "No Entry for Jews" signs in front of cafe)

1943 Japanese troops evacuate Guadalcanal, ending the epic World War II battle on the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.

1944 U-734/U-238 sunk off Ireland.

1945 The Battle of the Atlantic: HMS Venturer sinks U-Boat 864 off the coast of Norway.

1961 The Beatles first gig at Liverpool's Cavern Club; they would play there nearly 300 times over the next two years.

[Jimbuna]

1554 Queen of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is executed for treason.

1879 News about British loss at Battle of Isandlwana to Zulu attack (Anglo-Zulu War) reaches London.

1912 The last Qing Emperor of China, Puyi (age 6) abdicates after losing the support of the Chinese people and thus the "mandate of heaven"

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

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 1st US POWs in North Vietnam released; 116 of 456 flown to Philippines.

1988 US Navy frigate USS Yorktown bumped by Russian frigate Bezzavetny in the Black Sea in dispute over right of innocent passage.

1989 Loyalist paramilitary group kill Pat Finucane, a Belfast lawyer who represented republican hunger striker Bobby Sands, while he is having dinner with family.

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