On This Day - 29th February

1504 - Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to frighten hostile Jamaican Indians
1692 - Sarah Good & Tituba, an Indian servant, accused of witchcraft, Salem
1696 - English ex-premier Earl Danby accused of corruption
1704 - French & Indians attack Deerfield, Mass, kill 50, abduct 100
1712 - February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Old style.
1720 - Queen Ulrica Eleonora of Sweden resigns
1780 - The Omicron Delta Omega fraternity was founded by Benjamin Franklin at James Madison University.
1784 - Marquis de Sade transferred from Vincennes fortress to the Bastille
1796 - Jay's Treaty proclaimed, settles some differences with England
1816 - Dutch (King) Willem II marries Russian grand-duchess Anna Paulowna
1832 - Charles Darwin visits jungle near Bahia Brazil
1836 - Giacomo Meyerbeers opera "Les Huguenots," premieres in Paris
1848 - Neufchatel declares independence of Switzerland
1856 - Hostilities in Russo-Turkish War cease
1868 - 1st British govt of Disraeli forms
1880 - Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland & Italy completed
1892 - Britian & US sign treaty on seal hunting in Bering Sea
1892 - St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated.
1904 - Theodore Roosevelt, appoints 7 man committee to study Panama Canal
1908 - Dutch scientists produce solid helium
1932 - Failed coup attempt by fascist Lapua Movement in Finland
1932 - TIME magazine features eccentric American politician William "Alfalfa" Murray on its cover after Murray stated his intention to run for President of the United States.
1936 - FDR signs 2nd neutrality act
1940 - 45 U boats sunk this month (170,000 ton)
1940 - Frederic from G & S "Pirates of Penzance" finally released by pirate
1940 - "Gone with the Wind," wins 8 Oscars
1940 - Hattie McDaniel becomes 1st black woman to win an Oscar
1940 - Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations
1944 - 5 leaders of Indonesia Communist Party sentenced to death
1944 - US troop land on Los Negros, Admirality Islands
1948 - Stern-group bomb Cairo-Haifa train, 27 British soldiers died
1952 - Ice Dance Championship at Paris France won by Westwood & Demmy GRB
1952 - Ice Pairs Championship at Paris won by Ria Falk & Paul Falk of GER
1952 - Ladies Figure Skating Champ in Paris won by Jacqueline du Bief of FRA
1952 - Men's Figure Skating Championship in Paris won by Richard Button USA
1952 - The island of Heligoland is restored to German authority.
1956 - The British Foreign Secretary, John Selwyn Lloyd, leaves London for a tour of the Middle East and Asia.
1956 - Islamic Republic forms in Pakistan
1956 - Pres Eisenhower announces he would seek a 2nd term
1960 - 1st Playboy Club, featuring bunnies, opens in Chicago

1960 - Earthquake kills 1/3 of Agadir Morocco population (12,000) in 15 sec
1960 - JFK makes "missile gap" the presidential campaign issue
1960 - KRET TV channel 23 in Richardson, TX (PBS) begins broadcasting
1964 - "Rugantino" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 28 performances
1964 - Frank Rugani sets badminton shuttlecock distance record, 24.3 m
1964 - LBJ reveals US secretly developed the A-11 jet fighter
1964 - The Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, gives birth to a son at her home in Surrey.
1964 - NC high school basketball teams play to 56-54 score in 13 overtime
1968 - 1st pulsar announced (CP 1919 by Jocelyn Burnell at Cambridge)
1968 - Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" wins Grammy
1968 - Howard Hanson's 6th Symphony, premieres
1968 - US end regular flights with nuclear bombs
1968 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1968 - National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Comm) reports against racism & demands aid given to blacks
1972 - Hank Aaron becomes 1st baseball player to sign for $200,000 a year
1972 - Jack Anderson discloses Dita Beard (ITT) memo indicating antitrust charges were dropped for $400,000 contribution to Republican Party
1980 - Gordie Howe becomes 1st NHL player to score 800 career goals
1980 - Michael Bracey ends 59 h 55 m trapped in an elevator, England

1984 - Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, announces he will step down after more than 15 years in office.
1988 - KWK-FM in St Louis Missouri changes call letters to WKBG
1988 - Mark Greatbatch scores 107* v England on Test Cricket debut
1988 - NYC Mayor Koch calls Reagan a "WIMP" in the war on drugs
1988 - Nazi document implicates Waldheim in WW II deportations
1992 - Dawn Coe wins LPGA Women's Kemper Golf Open
1992 - Professional Spring Football League begins

1996 - The siege of Sarajevo is officially over - four years to the day since Bosnian Muslims and Croats voted in a referendum to break away from Yugoslavia.
1996 - Kenya defeat West Indies (all out 93) in Cricket World Cup
1996 - Soyuz TM-23, lands
2000 - International aid agencies in Mozambique say they need extra helicopters to rescue thousands trapped by rising flood waters.
2004 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as President of Haiti following popular rebel uprising.

2012 - 'The Monkees' singer Davy Jones dies of a heart attack aged 66.

On This Day - 28th February

1901 - Linus Pauling born
1907 - Earl Scheib born
1912 - The first parachute jump from a plane
1915 - Zero Mostel born
1916 - Author Henry James dies
1923 - Charles Durning born
1930 - Gavin MacLeod born
1939 - Tommy Tune born
1940 - Mario Andretti born
1942 - Brian Jones born
1948 - Bernadette Peters born
1955 - Gilbert Gottfried born
1973 - Eric Lindros born
1975 - A London Underground train crashes at Moorgate, killing the driver and at least 29 passengers.
1986 - Olof Palme, the prime minister of Sweden, is shot dead and his wife Lisbeth wounded in a street ambush in central Stockholm.

1991 - US President George Bush announces a ceasefire in the Gulf after Iraq accepts all 12 UN resolutions.
2000 - British Nuclear Fuels confirms its chief executive, John Taylor, has resigned over a safety scandal.

2001 - 10 people are killed and more than 70 injured when a high speed train is hit by a car which careered off the motorway at Selby, North Yorkshire.
2011 - Star of silver screen Jane Russell dies aged 89.

On This Day - 27th February

1807 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow born
1891 - David Sarnoff born
1897 - Marian Anderson born
1900 - The British Labour Party formed
1902 - John Steinbeck born
1928 - Ariel Sharon born
1930 - Joanne Woodward born
1932 - Elizabeth Taylor born
1934 - Ralph Nader born
1940 - Howard Hesseman born
1943 - Mary Frann born
1953 - A proposal to simplify English spelling has cleared its second hurdle in parliament.
1963 - Antoine Argoud, President De Gaulle's arch enemy and a former colonel in the French Army, is charged with an assassination attempt.
1971 - Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas born
1975 - Scotland Yard says the man who shot dead a police officer in London yesterday had been staying in a flat used as a "bomb factory" by the IRA.
1980 - Chelsea Clinton born
1981 - Josh Groban born
1999 - Voters flock to polling stations in Nigeria to elect a civilian president and end military rule that has lasted 15 years.
2002 - A fire on a train in India results in the deaths of 57 Hindu pilgrims returning from the disputed holy site of Ayodhya.
2010 - Colin Firth wins the Best Actor Oscar for The King's Speech and Christian Bale Best Supporting Actor for The Fighter, at the 83rd Academy Awards.

On This Day - 26th February

1802 - Victor Hugo born
1829 - Levi Strauss born
1846 - William "Buffalo Bill" Cody born
1887 - William Frawley born
1906 - Madeleine Carroll born
1916 - Jackie Gleason born
1920 - Tony Randall born
1921 - Betty Hutton born
1922 - Margaret Leighton born
1928 - Fats Domino born
1932 - Johnny Cash born
1953 - Michael Bolton born
1964 - Mark Dacascos born
1968 - Twenty-one female patients die in a fire which sweeps through a wing of the Shelton Mental Hospital near Shrewsbury.
1972 - Erykah Badu born
1984 - The last of the remaining American forces occupying Beirut have pulled out of the Lebanese capital.
1987 - The Church of England's General Synod votes by a huge majority in favour of the ordination of women priests.
1991 - The Kuwaiti capital is liberated by the Gulf War Allies after 208 days of Iraqi occupation.

1993 - A suspected car bomb explodes underneath the World Trade Center in New York killing at least five people.
2000 - Former British spy David Shayler is being sued by the government for breach of confidence and contract over information leaked to a newspaper.
2011 - Former Bradford, Wolves, Southampton and Tottenham defender Dean Richards dies age 36 after a long illness.

On This Day - 25th February

1841 - Pierre Auguste Renoir born
1868 - Benjamin Disraeli becomes British Prime Miinster
1901 - Zeppo Marx born
1904 - Adelle Davis born
1931 - Hitler is granted German citizenship
1935 - Sally Jessy Raphael born
1937 - Tom Courtenay born
1943 - George Harrison born
1956 - In a sensational speech to the Communist Party, the Soviet President denounces Joseph Stalin as a brutal despot.
1964 - Cassius Clay, 22, is crowned heavyweight boxing world champion after a shock win over Sonny Liston.
1971 - Sean Astin born
1972 - Miners vote overwhelmingly in favour of a pay settlement after a seven-week strike that has seriously affected power supply.
1973 - Justin Jeffre born
1982 - The European Court of Human Rights rules corporal punishment in Britain's schools is a violation of the Human Rights Convention.
1986 - The new Philippines president Corazon Aquino is sworn in today, bringing to an end 20 years of dictatorship under Ferdinand Marcos.
1991 - After 17 years in prison, the Birmingham Six may soon be released after government law officers say their convictions cannot be considered safe.
1994 - A Jewish doctor opens fire on Palestinians praying at a mosque in Hebron, killing up to 30 people.

On This Day - 24th February

1873 - Enrico Caruso born
1885 - Chester W. Nimitz born
1921 - Abe Vigoda born
1932 - Michel Legrand born
1938 - James Farentino born
1942 - Joe Lieberman born
1947 - Edward James Olmos born
1950 - Clement Attlee returns as prime minister of Britain but with a single-figure majority.
1955 - Alain Prost and Steven Jobs born, also deep snow and freezing temperatures continue to cause havoc across much of Britain.
1956 - Eddie Murray born
1965 - Kristin Davis born
1966 - Billy Zane born
1968 - The South Vietnamese celebrate the recapture of the country's third city, Hue, after a battle lasting three weeks.
1971 - Commonwealth citizens lose their automatic right to remain in the UK under the government's new Immigration Bill.
1981 - The Prince of Wales and the Lady Diana Spencer end months of speculation by announcing they are to wed this summer.
1999 - London's police force is "institutionally racist" says a report on the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
2011 - The space shuttle Discovery, the world's most travelled spaceship, has thunders into orbit for the final time, four months behind schedule.

On This Day - 23rd February

1685 - George Frederic Handel born
1821 - Poet John Keats dies
1868 - W.E.B. DuBois born
1933 - Donna J. Stone born
1934 - Edward Elgar dies
1939 - Peter Fonda born
1944 - Johnny Winter and Sandford born
1945 - The 28th Regiment of the 5th Marines take Mount Suribachi as the battle for control of Japanese-held Iwo Jima rages on.
1951 - Patricia Richardson born
1955 - Howard Jones born
1959 - On his ten-day visit to the Soviet Union, the British Prime Minister forges cultural and trade links between East and West.
1963 - Peter Hicks, a farmer who electrified his car to ward off traffic wardens in London's Covent Garden may be able to evade the law.
1972 - Palestinian hijackers who took over a Lufthansa jet two days ago release the crew at an airfield in the Yemen.
1980 - Tommy McCarthy born
1981 - Soldiers and members of the Civil Guard storm the Spanish Parliament threatening the fledgling democracy, once ruled by dictator General Franco.

On This Day - 22nd February

1732 - George Washington born
1810 - Frederic Chopin born
1857 - Lord Baden-Powell born
1889 - Lady Baden-Powell born
1900 - Luis Buñuel born
1907 - Sheldon Leonard and Robert Young born
1908 - John Mills born
1918 - Robert Wadlow born
1932 - Edward M. Kennedy born
1946 - Dan Millman born
1950 - Julius "Dr. J" Erving born
1955 - Maureen Connolly 'Little Mo', one of America's greatest tennis players, is to retire from the sport after a horse-riding accident.
1962 - Steve Irwin born
1963 - Vijay Singh born
1968 - Brad Nowell and Jeri Ryan born
1971 - Lea Salonga born
1972 - Five women and an army priest are killed in an IRA bomb attack on army premises at the Aldershot Barracks in Hampshire and Michael Chang born
1974 - Fighting breaks out around food distribution points in California as newspaper tycoon Randolph Hearst pays a $2 million ransom for his kidnapped daughter Patty.
1975 - Drew Barrymore born
1978 - Jen Frost born
1986 - Two senior members of the government take refuge in the defence ministry building after demanding President Marcos step down following controversial elections.
1991 - The US President, George Bush, gives Iraq until 1700 GMT tomorrow to pull out of Kuwait or face the full force of the allies.
1997 - A sheep named Dolly is cloned by scientists in Edinburgh and is being hailed as one of the most significant breakthroughs of the decade.

2011 - At least 100 people are killed when an earthquake hits the city of Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island

On This Day - 21st February

1893 - Andres Segovia born
1903 - Anans Nin born
1925 - Sam Peckinpah born
1927 - Erma Bombeck born
1929 - Roberto Gomez Bolaños born
1933 - Nina Simone born
1935 - Rue McClanahan born
1936 - Barbara Jordan born
1943 - David Geffen born
1946 - Tyne Daly and Alan Rickman born
1955 - Kelsey Grammer born
1958 - Alan Trammell born

1965 - Controversial black leader Malcolm X, who once called for a "blacks-only" state in the US, has been assassinated.
1972 - US President Richard Nixon arrives in China at the start of a week-long summit aimed at ending 20 years of frosty relations between the two countries.
1979 - Jennifer Love Hewitt born
1986 - Charlotte Church born
1988 - Jimmy Swaggart, America's leading television evangelist, resigns from his ministry after revelations he had been consorting with a prostitute.
1997 - Three men jailed 18 years ago for the murder of 13-year-old paper boy Carl Bridgewater are released after their convictions are ruled unsafe.
2001 - The European Commission bans all British milk, meat and livestock exports following the UK's first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease for two decades.

On This Day - 20th February

1902 - Ansel Adams born
1924 - Sidney Poitier and Gloria Vanderbilt born
1925 - Robert Altman born
1934 - Bobby Unser born
1937 - Nancy Wilson born
1941 - Buffy Sainte-Marie born
1946 - Sandy Duncan born
1948 - Jennifer O'Neill born
1949 - Ivana Trump born
1954 - Patty Hearst born
1958 - The government announces one the oldest naval dockyards in the UK will be shut down.
1962 - John Glenn becomes the first American astornaut to orbit the earth
1963 - Charles Barkley born
1964 - French Stewart born
1966 - Cindy Crawford born
1967 - Kurt Cobain and Andrew Shue born
1975 - Brian Littrell born
1983 - Hundreds of people are reported to have died in Assam as fierce fighting rages in the run-up to Indian elections.
1986 - The Soviets open a new phase in space exploration with the launch of the world's biggest space station, Mir.
1989 - Police are hunting two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire.
1993 - Two 10-year-old boys are charged with the abduction and murder of two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool.

On This Day - 19th February

1473 - Nicolas Copernicus born
1924 - Lee Marvin born
1940 - Smokey Robinson born
1948 - Tony Iommi born
1955 - Margaux Hemingway and Jeff Daniels born
1961 - Police battle with supporters of the murdered Congolese premier outside the Belgian embassy in London.
1963 - Seal born
1966 - Justine Bateman born
1968 - The High Court awards compensation to 62 children born with thalidomide-induced deformities.
1978 - At least ten Egyptian commandos are killed in a gun battle with Greek Cypriot soldiers at Larnaca airport.
1997 - China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping has died at the age of 92 after suffering from failing health for several years.
2001 - A five-mile exclusion zone is placed around an abbatoir in Essex after a suspected case of foot-and-mouth disease is detected.

On This Day - 18th February

1848 - Louis Comfort Tiffany born
1859 - Sholem Aleichem born
1920 - Bill Cullen and Jack Palance born
1921 - The worlds first Helicopter flies
1922 - Helen Gurley Brown born
1925 - George Kennedy born
1930 - Planet Neptune is discovered and Gahan Wilson born
1931 - Toni Morrison born
1932 - Milos Forman born
1933 - Yoko Ono born
1949 - Keith Rule born
1950 - Cybill Shepherd and John Hughes born
1954 - The Secretary of the US army orders two generals subpoenaed by anti-Communist senator Joseph McCarthy to ignore the summons and John Travolta born
1957 - Vanna White born
1964 - Matt Dillon born
1965 - Dr. Dre born
1968 - Molly Ringwald born
1969 - Hundreds of people clamour to see the marriage of popstars Lulu and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees in a Buckinghamshire church.
1978 - Police in Northern Ireland arrest at least 20 people in connection with the La Mon restaurant bomb.
1981 - Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Government withdraws plans to close 23 pits in its first major U-turn since coming to power two years ago.
1996 - Three people are feared dead after a bomb explodes on a London bus, nine days after the IRA ended its ceasefire.
2005 - Hunting with dogs in England and Wales becomes illegal as the ban on the activity passes into law.

On This Day - 17th February

1908 - Red Barber born
1914 - Arthur Kennedy born
1925 - Hal Holbrook born
1934 - Alan Bates born
1936 - Jim Brown born
1954 - Rene Russo born
1959 - Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes survives an air crash near London that killed 12 people.
1963 - Michael Jordan born
1965 - The Duke and Duchess of Kent celebrate the end of 300 years of colonial rule in Gambia with 35 chiefs.
1972 - Denise Richards and Billie Joe Armstrong born
1974 - Bryan White and Jerry O'Connell born
1979 - China sends hundreds of troops into Vietnam after weeks of tension and a military build-up along the border.
1981 - Paris Hilton and Joseph Gordon-Levitt born
1987 - A group of Tamils seeking asylum in Britain protest at Heathrow airport by removing their clothes as they are about to be deported.
1992 - Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is jailed for life in the US for murdering and dismembering 15 young men and boys.

On This Day - 16th February

1903 - Edgar Bergen born
1909 - Hugh Beaumont born
1920 - Patty Andrews born
1935 - Sonny Bono born
1957 - LeVar Burton born
1958 - Ice-T born
1959 - Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro becomes the country's youngest ever premier and John McEnroe born
1965 - A second report from British Railways Board chairman Dr Richard Beeching outlines transport needs for the next 25 years.
1972 - Many homes and businesses will be without electricity for up to nine hours a day from today due to the miner's strike, the Central Electricity Generating Board has announced.
1985 - Ministry of Defence assistant secretary Clive Ponting resigns from his post over the Belgrano affair.
2001 - At least seven Serbs are killed in a bomb attack on a bus making its way to a religious ceremony in Kosovo.
2005 - The Kyoto Protocol that aims to slow down global warming takes effect but the US remains outside it.

On This Day - 15th February

1564 - Galileo Galilei born
1820 - Susan B. Anthony born
1882 - John Barrymore born
1902 - The Berlin Underground opens
1907 - Cesar Romero born
1927 - Harvey Korman born
1931 - Claire Bloom born
1942 - British forces in Singapore surrender to the Japanese, seven days after enemy troops first stormed the island.
1951 - Jane Seymour and Melissa Manchester born
1952 - King George is buried at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle after a solemn procession through London.
1954 - Matt Groening born
1961 - At least 73 people are killed when a Boeing 707 jet airliner crashes at Berg, near Brussels airport.
1964 - Chris Farley born
1967 - Jane Child born
1971 - The British Government launches a new decimal currency across the country. and Renee O'Connor born
1976 - Brandon Boyd born
1986 - Eight police officers are injured in the worst outbreak of violence yet outside the News International printing plant in Wapping, east London.
1989 - Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan, nine years after they invaded the country.
1996 - The long-awaited report into the sale of arms-to-Iraq in the 1980s is published and contains strong criticisms of the ministers involved.

On This Day - 14th February

1859 - Oregon becomes the 33rd state of the US
1894 - Jack Benny born
1912 - Arizona becomes the 48th State of the US
1913 - Jimmy Hoffa and Mel Allen born
1921 - Hugh Downs born
1929 - St Valentines Day massacre in Chicago
1932 - Vic Morrow born
1934 - Florence Henderson born
1944 - Carl Bernstein born
1945 - British and US bombers pound the ancient German city of Dresden with high explosives and incendiaries.
1946 - Gregory Hines born
1960 - Meg Tilly born
1972 - Drew Bledsoe born
1974 - Soviet authorities formally charge Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn with treason a day after forcing him to leave the USSR.
1984 - British figure skating couple Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skate off with a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo after dancing to Ravel's Bolero.1989 - Iranian Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini issues a death threat against British author Salman Rushdie and his publishers over the book Satanic Verses.
1993 - Police confirm a body found on a railway embankment in Merseyside is that of missing toddler James Bulger.
1997 - Jurors at the inquest into the death of Stephen Lawrence have decided the black teenager was unlawfully killed "in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths".
2005 - Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is killed by a car bomb explosion in Beirut.

On This Day - 13th February

1826 - The American Temperence Society is formed
1873 - L.L. Bean born
1882 - Composer Richard Wagner dies
1885 - Bess Truman born
1892 - Grant Wood born
1919 - Tennessee Ernie Ford born
1920 - Eileen Farrell born
1923 - Chuck Yeager born
1933 - Kim Novak born
1934 - George Segal born
1942 - Peter Tork born
1944 - Stockard Channing and Jerry Springer born
1950 - Peter Gabriel born
1961 - Officials in the Congolese province of Katanga declare former Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba dead.
1968 - Kelly Hu born
1974 - Robbie Williams born
1975 - British mineworkers' leaders agree to accept the coal board's latest pay offer of up to 35%.
1978 - Tomorrow's World presenter Anna Ford has been officially announced as ITN's first female newsreader.
1991 - Hundreds of Iraqi civilians are killed and wounded in Baghdad by American bombers.
2001 - A man goes on trial in Glasgow for knowingly infecting a woman with the HIV virus in a case believed to be the first of its kind in Scotland.

On This Day - 12th February

1809 - Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin born
1904 - Ted Mack born
1906 - Keir Hardie becomes Labour Party leader
1915 - Lorne Greene born
1917 - Dom DiMaggio born
1923 - Franco Zeffirelli born
1926 - Joe Garagiola born
1934 - Bill Russell born
1938 - Judy Blume born
1939 - Ray Manzarek born
1954 - A new body is established (Atomic Energy Authority) to control the production and development of atomic energy in the UK.
1955 - Arsenio Hall born
1964 - Fighting between ethnic Turks and Greeks in the disputed island of Cyprus has left at least 16 people dead.
1974 - Naseem Hamed born
1980 - Christina Ricci born
1989 - Leading solicitor Pat Finucane is shot dead at his home in north Belfast in front of his wife and children.
1994 - One of the world's best-known paintings, The Scream by Edvard Munch, is stolen from a museum in Norway.
1999 - A group of international scientists reinforces warnings that genetically modified food may be damaging to health.

On This Day - 11th February

1815 - The Anglo American war ends
1847 - Thomas Alva Edison born
1917 - Sidney Sheldon born
1921 - Eva Gabor born
1926 - Leslie Nielsen born
1929 - The Vatican becomes a state
1934 - Tina Louise born
1936 - Burt Reynolds born
1940 - Author John Buchan dies and Bobby "Boris" Pickett born
1941 - Segio Mendes born
1956 - Two British diplomats, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, who vanished in mysterious circumstances five years ago re-appear in the Soviet Union.
1963 - Sheryl Crow born
1969 - Jennifer Aniston born
1975 - Margeret Thatcher elected first female leader of the Tory party
1976 - Figure skater John Curry wins Britain's first Olympic gold in the sport - and the country's first medal at the winter games for 12 years.
1977 - Mike Shinoda born
1979 - Supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini appear to be in control of the Iranian capital, Tehran tonight
1980 - Matt Lawrence born
1981 - Kelly Rowland born
1987 - Party planner Cynthia Payne is acquitted of nine charges of controlling prostitutes at her home in south-west London.
1990 - Leading anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela has been freed from prison in South Africa after 27 years.
2010 - President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak steps down after 30 years in power following 18 days of protests in the capitol Cairo.

On This Day - 10th February

1840 - Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert
1890 - Boris Pasternak born
1893 - Jimmy Durante born
1898 - Bertolt Brecht born
1905 - Lon Chaney born
1912 - Joseph Lister dies
1913 - Scott of the Antarctic found dead
1927 - Leontyne Price born
1930 - Robert Wagner born
1939 - Pope Pius XI dies and Roberta Flack born
1950 - Mark Spitz born
1952 - Independent India's first general elections pass off peacefully, and return Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to power.
1955 - The American Navy has moved thousands of people from the Chinese Nationalist Tachen Islands and Greg Norman born
1961 - George Stephanopoulos born
1962 - American spy plane pilot Captain Francis "Gary" Powers is freed from prison in the Soviet Union in exchange for a Russian spy jailed in the US.
1967 - Laura Dern born
1976 - Lance Berkman born
1983 - Police launch a mass murder investigation in London after discovering human remains in drains.
1996 - The IRA admit planting the bomb that exploded in the Docklands area of London last night.
2005 - The Prince of Wales and long-term partner Camilla Parker Bowles are engaged, Clarence House announces.