February 18 - Events

Events

• 3102 BC – Epoch (origin) of the Kali Yuga.
• 1229 – The Sixth Crusade: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor signs a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from thepapacy.
• 1268 – The Livonian Brothers of the Sword are defeated by Dovmont of Pskov in the Battle of Rakvere.
• 1332 – Amda Seyon I, Emperor of Ethiopia begins his campaigns in the southern Muslim provinces.
• 1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, isexecuted in private at the Tower of London.
• 1685 – Fort St. Louis is established by a Frenchman at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.
• 1745 – The city of Surakarta, Central Java is founded on the banks of Bengawan Solo River, and becomes the capital of the Kingdom of Surakarta.
• 1797 – Trinidad is surrendered to a British fleet under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby.
• 1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Montereau.
• 1841 – The first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins and lasts until March 11.
• 1846 – Beginning of the Galician peasant revolt.
• 1856 – The Know-Nothings convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidentialcandidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
• 1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
• 1861 – With the Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumes the title of King of Italy.
• 1865 – Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia.
• 1873 – Bulgarian revolutionary leader Vasil Levski is executed by hanging in Sofia by the Ottoman authorities.
• 1878 – John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jessie Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
• 1885 – Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published for the first time.
• 1901 – Winston Churchill makes his maiden speech in the House of Commons.
• 1906 – Edouard de Laveleye forms the Belgian Olympic Committee in Brussels.
• 1911 – The first official flight with air mail takes place in Allahabad, British India, when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivers 6,500 letters to Naini, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) away.
• 1913 – Raymond Poincaré becomes President of France.
• 1929 – The first Academy Awards are announced.
• 1930 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.
• 1930 – Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.
• 1932 – The Empire of Japan declares Manzhouguo (the obsolete Chinese name for Manchuria) independent from the Republic of China.
• 1943 – The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
• 1943 – Joseph Goebbels delivers his Sportpalast speech.
• 1948 – Eamon de Valera resigns as Taoiseach of Ireland.
• 1954 – The first Church of Scientology is established in Los Angeles, California.
• 1955 – Operation Teapot: Teapot test shot "Wasp" is successfully detonated at the Nevada Test Site with a yield of 1.2 kilotons. Wasp is the first of fourteen shots of the Teapot series.
• 1957 – Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is executed by the British colonial government.
• 1965 – The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
• 1969 – Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 crashes into Mount Whitney killing all on board.
• 1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
• 1972 – The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, 6 Cal.3d 628 invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment.
• 1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747.
• 1979 – Snow falls in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the only time in recorded history.
• 1983 – Thirteen people die and one is seriously injured in the Wah Mee Massacre in Seattle, Washington. It is said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in U.S. history.
• 1991 – The IRA explodes bombs in the early morning at Paddington station and Victoria station in London.
• 1998 – Two white separatists are arrested in Nevada and accused of plotting a biological attack on New York City subways.
• 2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
• 2001 – Dale Earnhardt dies in an accident in the final turn of the final lap of the Daytona 500.
• 2003 – Nearly 200 people die in the Daegu subway fire in South Korea.
• 2003 – Comet C/2002 V1 (NEAT) makes perihelion, seen by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.
• 2004 – Up to 295 people, including nearly 200 rescue workers, die near Neyshabur in Iran when a run-away freight train carrying sulfur,petrol and fertilizer catches fire and explodes.
• 2007 – Terrorist bombs explode on the Samjhauta Express in Panipat, Haryana, India, killing 68 people.