Portal:United States/Anniversaries/February

United States February anniversaries

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These are the selected anniversaries for February that appear on the United States portal.

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See also

• Yearly "...in the United States" articles, such as 2024 in the United States.
• United States history categories (Select [+] to view subcategories)

History of the United States

February 1

Portal:United States/Anniversaries/February/February 1

• 1790 – In New York City, the Supreme Court of the United States convenes for the first time.
• 1861 – Texas secedes from the United States as part of the American Civil War.
• 1865 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
• 1893 – Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.
• 1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States federal government, begins broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers.
• 2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

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February 2

Portal:United States/Anniversaries/February/February 2

Today is Groundhog Day in the United States and Canada.

• 1653 – New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.
• 1848 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (pictured) is signed. Its ratification by the Senate a month later would end the Mexican–American War.
• 1848 – The first ship with Chinese immigrants, lured to the United States by the California Gold Rush, arrives in San Francisco.
• 1861 – Solomon R. Guggenheim, American art collector and philanthropist, is born.
• 1980 – Reports surface that the FBI was targeting allegedly corrupt Congressmen in the Abscam operation.

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February 3

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• 1783 – Spain recognizes United States independence from Britain as part of the American Revolutionary War.
• 1809 – The Illinois Territory (pictured) is created.
• 1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
• 1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
• 1917 – The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany a day after the latter announced a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare during World War I.
• 1959 – In what would be termed The Day the Music Died, three American rock and roll musicians, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, were killed in a plane crash.

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February 4

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• 1789 – George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
• 1801 – John Marshall (pictured) is sworn in as the 4th Chief Justice of the United States.
• 1825 – The Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal.
• 1846 – The first Mormon pioneers make their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Utah Territory.
• 1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six break-away U.S. states meet and form the Confederate States of America.
• 1899 – The Philippine–American War begins.

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February 5

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• 1778 – South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
• 1900 – The United States and the United Kingdom sign a treaty for the Panama Canal
• 1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson's veto. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.
• 1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane. It is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.
• 1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
• 1971 – Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 (insignia pictured) mission.

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February 6

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• 1778 – The Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France in Paris. The two treaties served as official recognition of the new republic by France, and became a key turning point in the American Revolutionary War.
• 1788 – Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
• 1899 – The Treaty of Paris, a peace treaty between the United States and Spain, is ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Spanish–American War (signing ceremony pictured).
• 1933 – The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution, establishing the beginning and ending of the terms of the elected federal offices, goes into effect.

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February 7

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• 1894 – The Cripple Creek miner's strike, led by the Western Federation of Miners, begins in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
• 1904 – A fire in Baltimore, Maryland destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
• 1940 – The second full length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premieres.
• 1962 – The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports.
• 1984 – During the Space Shuttle program mission STS-41-B, Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (pictured).

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February 8

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• 1693 – The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II. It is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States after Harvard University.
• 1820 – William Tecumseh Sherman (pictured), the American Union Army general who was later recognized by military historians as "the first modern general", is born.
• 1837 – Richard Johnson becomes the first Vice President of the United States chosen by the United States Senate.
• 1910 – The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by William D. Boyce.
• 1922 – President Warren G. Harding introduces the first radio in the White House.
• 1960 – The first eight brass star plaques are installed in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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February 9

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• 1825 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States.
• 1870 – The U.S. Weather Bureau is established.
• 1889 – The United States Department of Agriculture (seal pictured) is established as a Cabinet-level agency.
• 1942 – Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss the American military strategy for World War II.
• 1950 – Senator Joseph McCarthy, a key actor in the Second Red Scare, accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.

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February 10

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• 1763 – The French and Indian War, which was partially fought in the American colonies, ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
• 1933 – The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company introduces the first singing telegram.
• 1954 – President Dwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.
• 1962 – Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
• 1967 – The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution (first page pictured) is ratified.
• 1996 – The IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov for the first time.

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February 11

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• 1752 – Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the United States, is opened by Benjamin Franklin.
• 1790 – The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions U.S. Congress for abolition of slavery.
• 1794 – The first session of the United States Senate open to the public is held.
• 1942 – The first gold record is presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo".
• 1943 – General Dwight Eisenhower (pictured) is selected to command the allied armies in Europe as part of World War II.
• 1997 – Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

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February 12

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• 1809 – Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, is born three miles south of Hodgenville, Kentucky.
• 1914 – In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial (pictured) is put into place.
• 1946 – African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the Civil Rights Movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil.
• 1999 – President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
• 2004 – The city of San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

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February 13

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• 1920 – The Negro National League is formed.
• 1960 – Black college students stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins (pictured) at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.
• 1935 – A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the infant son of Charles Lindbergh.
• 1954 – Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game.
• 1981 – A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
• 2000 – The last original "Peanuts" comic strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz dies.

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February 14

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• 1849 - In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
• 1854 - Texas linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
• 1859 - Oregon (seal pictured) admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
• 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.

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February 15

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• 1879 – American President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
• 1892 – James Forrestal, American civil servant, 47th United States Secretary of the Navy and 1st United States Secretary of Defense was born.
• 1898 – Spanish–American War: The USS Maine (pictured) explodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing more than 260. This event leads the United States to declare war on Spain.
• 1929 – James Schlesinger, American politician, 12th United States Secretary of Defense, 9th Director of Central Intelligence, and 1st Secretary of Energy was born.
• 1933 – In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead shoots Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds on March 6, 1933.

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February 16

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• 1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton (pictured) begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.
• 1961 – The DuSable Museum of African American History is chartered.
• 2005 – The National Hockey League cancels the entire 2004-2005 regular season and playoffs, becoming the first major sports league in North America to do so over a labor dispute.
• 2006 – The last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.

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February 17

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• 1819 – The United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise (illustration pictured).
• 1933 – The magazine Newsweek is published for the first time.
• 1933 – The Blaine Act ends Prohibition in the United States.
• 1963 – Michael Jordan, considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, is born.
• 1965 – The Ranger 8 probe, part of Project Ranger, launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
• 1992 – A court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin sentences serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to life in prison.

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February 18

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• 1841 – The first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins and lasts until March 11.
• 1856 – The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
• 1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
• 1878 – The Lincoln County War begins in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
• 1885 – Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published for the first time.
• 1929 – First Academy Awards are announced.
• 1930 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.
• 2001 – NASCAR legend Ralph Dale Earnhardt is killed in a crash during the last lap of the Daytona 500.

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February 19

Portal:United States/Anniversaries/February/February 19

• 1846 – In Austin, Texas, the newly-formed Texas state government is officially installed. The Republic of Texas government officially transfers power to the State of Texas (seal pictured) government following Texas' annexation by the United States.
• 1878 – Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.
• 1881 – Kansas became the first U.S. state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.
• 1945 – The Battle of Iwo Jima begins with the landing of about 30,000 United States Marines.
• 1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese-Americans to Japanese internment camps.
• 1976 – President Gerald R. Ford's Proclamation 4417 rescinds Executive Order 9066.

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February 20

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• 1792 – The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington.
• 1872 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City.
• 1901 – The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.
• 1962 – While aboard Friendship 7, part of the Mercury program, John Glenn orbits the Earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth.
• 1992 – Ross Perot (pictured) announces his intention to run in the 1992 U.S. presidential election on CNN's Larry King Live.
• 2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 15 years.

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February 21

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• 1885 – The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
• 1925 – The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
• 1948 – NASCAR is incorporated.
• 1953 – Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of the DNA molecule.
• 1965 – Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.
• 1972 – President Richard Nixon visits the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations (pictured).

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February 22

Portal:United States/Anniversaries/February/February 22

• 1732 – George Washington (pictured), who would become one of the founding fathers and the first President of the United States, is born on his family estate in Westmoreland County, Virginia.
• 1856 – The Republican Party opens its first national meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• 1862 – 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 February 18, 1861.
• 1872 – The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.
• 1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.
• 1974 – Samuel Byck tries and fails to assassinate U.S. President Richard Nixon.
• 1980 – In what would be called the Miracle on Ice, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3 at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.

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February 23

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• 1904 – The United States purchases control of the Panama Canal Zone for $10 million.
• 1905 – Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club (logo pictured), the world's first service club.
• 1927 – The Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.
• 1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.
• 1991 – Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the first Gulf War.

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February 24

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• 1863 – Arizona is organized as a United States territory.
• 1868 – Andrew Johnson (pictured) becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. He is later acquitted in the Senate.
• 1917 – The U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom is given the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if that country declares war on the United States as part of World War I.
• 1942 – The Voice of America begins broadcasting.
• 1980 – The United States Olympic Hockey team completes their Miracle on Ice by defeating Finland 4-2 to win the gold medal at the 1980 Olympic Winter Games.
• 1983 – A special commission of the U.S. Congress releases a report that condemns the practice of Japanese internment during World War II.

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February 25

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• 1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels (pictured), a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.
• 1888 – John Foster Dulles, American politician, former United States Senator from New York, and 52nd United States Secretary of State, is born.
• 1919 – Oregon places a 1 cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.
• 1928 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, DC becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.
• 1933 – The USS Ranger is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be built solely as an aircraft carrier.

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February 26

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• 1870 – In New York City, the first pneumatic subway opens.
• 1919 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes most of the Grand Canyon (pictured) as a United States National Park (see Grand Canyon National Park).
• 1966 – NASA's Apollo Program launches AS-201 (pictured), the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket.
• 1984 – US troops withdraw from Beirut. President Ronald Reagan had sent the troops in as a peacekeeping force in August 1982.
• 1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center goes off, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand.

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February 27

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• 1801 - Washington, DC (pictured) is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
• 1922 - A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett.
• 1951 - The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.
• 1973 - The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
• 1974 - People magazine is published for the first time.
• 1991 - Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated."

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February 28

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• 1827 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in the United States offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.
• 1854 – The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
• 1861 – Colorado is organized as a United States territory.
• 1940 – Basketball is televised for the first time, broadcasting a game between Fordham University and the University of Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden.
• 1972 – The United States and People's Republic of China sign the Shanghai Communiqué in Shanghai, China (signing hall pictured), a key early step in the renormalization of Sino-American relations.
• 1993 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

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February 29

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• 1864 – The American Civil War] Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid, a plan to free 15,000 Union soldiers being held near Richmond, Virginia, fails.
• 1904 – Jazz clarinetist and Big Band leader Jimmy Dorsey is born.
• 1920 – Two-time Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner Howard Nemerov is born.
• 1940 – For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel (pictured) becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
• 1972 – Hank Aaron becomes the first player in the history of Major League Baseball to sign a $200,000 contract.

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