1 MARCH

1896 - The Supreme Council of the secret Philippine revolutionary society Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK) appoints Emilio Jacinto and three other committee members to negotiate the purchase of arms and ammunition from Japan; in about five months, the revolution against Spanish colonial rule will break out in the Southeast Asian archipelago.

293 - The Tetrachy is created in Rome as Diocletian picks as his subordinate Caesar, C. Galerius Valerius Maximianus; Galerius wil govern majority of the Balkan provinces while his future father-in-law Diocletian will govern the remaining territories in the east; Maximian chooses Flavus as his Caesa Valerius Constantius, who will become his son-in-law and who will govern Gaul.

1950 - One of Britain's top nuclear scientist, Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs, is jailed for 14 years following his plead of guilty on four counts of passing enemy secrets to the Soviet Union; Fuchs was a German who fled from Nazi prosecution in the 1930s but he was secretly a devoted communist who spied for the Soviets for most of the 1940s.

1973 - Palestinian gunmen belonging to the Black September group storm the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Sudan's capital city of Khartoum, taking hostage several diplomats, including American deputy ambassador George Curtis Moore; the gunmen will murder Moore and two others after their initial demands were refused but they will eventually release the remaining hostages and surrender to Sudanese authorities.

28 FEBRUARY

1903 - Philippine revolutionary Gen. Artemio Ricarte returns from exile in Guam but still refuses to take the oath of fealty to the United States; Ricarte, who was aboard USS Thomas with the ailing Apolinario Mabini, will be banned by the colonial American government and made to sail to Hong Kong where he will remain for ten months.

202 - Liu Bang is crowned Emperor Gaozu of China, initiating some 400 years of the reign of the Han Dynasty; one of the few Chinese rulers who rose from the peasant class, Gaozu's reign saw the reduction of taxes and emphasis on Confucianism.

1953 - The chemical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is discovered by James D. Watson and Frances H.C. Crick, scientists from the Cambridge University; discovered back in 1869, the DNA's crucial role in determining genetic inheritance wasn't demonstrated until 1943.

1986 - Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme is assassinated during a street ambush in central Stockholm; Palme, who's on his second term as PM, is a pro-Soviet Social Democrat who has championed non-violence, peace, and open government and  has refused tight security.

27 FEBRUARY

1870 - Filipino patriot and revolutionary Daniel B. Maramba is born in Santa Barbara, Pangasinan; he was inducted into the secret revolutionary society Katipunan in 1893 and in 1897, began protecting his town from from the Katipongos, a group that masqueraded as Katipuneros and engaged in looting during the interim between the revolution of 1896 and its renewal in 1898.

1963 - The arch enemy of French President Charles de Gaulle, Antoine Argoud, is charged with attempting to assassinate the former two years earlier; Argoud, member of the Algerian Secret Army that is opposed to granting Algerian independence, will be found guilty and sentenced to life in prison but will be granted amnesty in 1968.

1999 - Nigerians vote to elect  a civilian president and end 15 years of military rule; Olusegun Obasanjo, former military ruler in the 1970s, will win the elections and will go on to be re-elected in 2003.

2004 - Japanese millenarian cult leader Asahara Shoko is sentenced to death for having masterminded the Tokyo subway nerve gas attack that killed 12 people and injured around 5,5000 others in 1995; his group has likewise been linked to other violent crimes, including similar nerve-gas incidents.

26 FEBRUARY

1893 - Andres Bonifacio, founder of the Philippine revolutionary movement KKK, enjoins all the district heads of the secret revolutionary society Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK) to collect the required fees from all the members as soon as possible, the money then to be sent to the treasurer of the Association; Bonifacio was then the fiscal and comptroller of the KKK.

1815 - Abdicated French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from the island of Elba; the development will bring panic in Europe, culminating in the Battle of Waterloo which Napoleon will lose but will be won by the alliance of British, Dutch, and Belgian forces.

1987 - The General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women priests to be ordained; by 1998, there will be over 1,700 female priests in the Britain's officially established Church, although a survey will reveal that a significant number will experience bullying and even sexual harassment from male colleagues.

1993 - The World Trade Center in New York City is bombed, killing six people and injuring over a thousand others; Extremist Muslims Mohammed Salameh, Ahmad Ajaj, Nidal Ayyad, and Mahmoud Abouhalima will later be convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

25 FEBRUARY

1986 - Corazon Cojuangco Aquino is sworn in as the new President of the Philippines, putting and end to nearly 14 years of dictatorship under Ferdinand Marcos who is flown by a United States helicopter to Hawaii; "Cory" is the widow of opposition leader Benigno "Ninoy"Aquino whose assasination in 1983 is widely blamed on the administration of the ailing strongman.

1933 - The League of Nations adopts the Lytton Report amidst protest from the Japanese government; the report, which found that the Japanese occupation of Manchuria was not an act of self-defense and that the creation of an independence Manchukuo ... was not a case of genluine self-determination, will prompt Japan to withdraw from the organization.

1942 - The United States Navy will inform Japanese-Americans in Terminal Island located near the Los Angeles Harbor to leave within 48 hours; they will be form the first  community to be subjected to en masse removal as part of the US policy of exluding anyone from anywhere without trial or hearings in US territory during World War II.

1964 - Cassius Clay becomes the world's heavyweight champion as he defeats strong favorite Sonny Liston in the sixth round (7th round technical); Clay, who was an Olympic gold medalist, would later convert to Islam, adopt the name Muhammad Ali, and also become one of the world's greatest boxers.

24 FEBRUARY

1862 - Filipino revolutionary General Edilberto T. Evangelista, is born in Santa Cruz, Manila; a civil engineering graduate from Belgium's University of Ghent, he was responsible for ably directing all the entrenchment and defense works of the revolutionaries, thus giving the Spanish colonial forces considerable trouble in the many battles during the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

1918 - Estonia proclaims independence from the new Soviet Union, with the protection of Germany that has earlier occupied the northern European country; Konstantin Pats forms a provisional government and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk will force the Soviets to recognize Estonian independence.

1981 - Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of Britain's Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, the daughter of Earl Spencer and Mrs. Shand Kydd;  a kindergarten teacher, Lady Di describes her reaction to the prince's proposal as being "delighted and thrilled, blissfully happy."

1987 - Astronomer Ian Shelton discovers the brightest observable supernova since the one Kepler had witnessed in 1604 after taking an image of the Large Magellanic Cloud; his discovery will lead astronomers to the in-depth study of neutrinos,ephemeral radiation particles emitted by exploding stars.

23 FEBRUARY

1947 - Philippine President Manuel A. Roxas and Archbishop Michael O’Doherty formally agree to the government's acquisition of eight estates owned by the Church for the price of P5,630,000, such estates to be sold later in small lots and at reasonable prices to the tenants.

1945 - The United States army raises its country's flag on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima after a fierce battle with Japanese troops during the ending months of World War II; by March 3, US trooops will take control of the islands' three airfields and by March 26, will eliminate the enemy troops.

1866 - Prince Cuza of Moldavia is kidnapped and forced to abdicated by a conspiracy of Conservatives and Liberals who prefer a foreign ruler; over a year earlier, Cuza, who was recognized by Napoleon, implemented a great land reform.   


1981 - A paramilitary rebel army group takes control of Spain's Parliament; the siege led by by Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero Molina is part of a coup plot that will be soon foiled by the Spanish Armed Forces.

22 FEBRUARY

1889 - In a correspondence between Philippine patriots Jose Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar, the former writes a long message in Tagalog to the young women of Malolos; the lasses from Malolos, Bulakan had earlier dared ask the colonial Governor-General to authorize them to open a night school to educate them in the Spanish language.  

1951 - Soviet Union press announces that the Stalinist bloc emerged victorious in the elections for the Supreme Soviet Council, the communist country's two-chamber parliamentary body; the pro-Stalin bloc supposedly garnered a popular majority of  99.6% .

1991 - United States President George Bush the elder threatens his Iraqi counterpart Saddam Hussein with a full-scale land war unless the latter pulls his troops out of Kuwait; six weeks earlier, US warships and US, British and Saudi Arabian fighter planes, bombers and helicopters had launched a month of intensive aerial bombardment of Iraq under Operation Desert Storm.

1997 - Scientists in Scotland successfully clone a sheep named Dolly; following advances in cloning science, including the production of clones from embryos of sheep, the team of Ian Wilmut used the DNA from the mammary gland cells of an adult sheep to create Dolly.

21 FEBRUARY

1896 - The Supreme Council of the revolutionary organization, Kataastaasang, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK), holds elections for the various positions of secretary, warden, guard and patroller, writer or recorder, and assistant writers or recorders; the KKK was founded by Andres Bonifacio in 1892 with the aim of liberating the Philippines from the yoke of Spanish colonial rule, and within around six months after this meeting, the Revolution against colonial Spain will break out in Manila.

1849 - The combined forces of Afghans and their Sikh allies are crushed by the British forces during the Battle of Gujrat; the Afghans had hoped to gain the district of Peshawar in the event of victory but as the aftermath of the battle, British India will annex both Peshawar and Punjab.

1965 - African-American nationalist and Muslim religious leader Malcolm X is assassinated by members of his former but now rival group, the Nation of Islam; born Malcolm Little, he held a radical civil rights consciousness but later founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity that espoused black identity while holding the more moderate view that racism, instead of the white race, is the greatest enemy of Afro-Americans.

1972 - United States Pesident Richard Nixon and First Lady Thelma "Pat" Ryan-Nixon arrive in China in a ground-breaking state visit aimed at the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries; the visit will produce the Shanghai joint communiqué that will declare Taiwan to be part of China, although various US administrations will try to go about the agreement by selling arms to Taiwan.

20 FEBRUARY

1899 - The town of Manduriao, Iloilo, in the Philippines falls to the colonizing American forces despite the valiant resistance of Ilongo soldiers under General Martin Delgado; following the occupation of Iloilo by the imperialist forces, Delgado as  politico-military governor of the province and army's general-in-chief will engage in efforts aimed at harassing the invaders with the support of combatants and non-combatants alike.

1472 - Orkney and Shetland, Old Norse holdovers, are annexed to Scotland as its security for the dowry of Danish Princess Margaret who married Scottish King James III in 1469.

1943 - The initial formation of Mt. Paricutin in Mexico is witnessed by a Mexican boy who saw smoke rising up from a newly plowed field [and soon] hot ashes had pushed the earth away around a hole 80 feet long, spewing ash and hot rocks; in one year's time, it rose from a mound to a hill to a volcano rising 1,353 feet high.

1986 - The Soviet Union launches the space station Mir, opening a new era in space exploration; Mir will considerably contribute in the science of making astronauts survive longer in space.

19 FEBRUARY

1898 - Filipina revolutionary and patriot Delfina Herbosa marries fellow Katipunero Jose Salvador Natividad; she is the niece of national hero Jose Rizal and, together with her future revolutionary general husband, fought various battles against the Spaniards during the Philippine Revolution.

1473 - Nicolaus Coopernicus, dubbed the "Father of Modern Astronomy, is born; he is believed to be the first person to propose that the planets, including the Earth, revolve around the sun amidst the context of how most ancient philosophers, European astronomers, the Catholic Church and biblical authors have argued that the center of the Universe is the Earth.

1956 - Premier Constantine Karamanlis and his National Radical Union party narrowly wins in the parliamentary elections in Greece; it will mark the first time that women are allowed to vote in national elections in the Southeast European nation.

1968 - The British High Court grants the settlement reached in connection with the deformities suffered by 62 children born of mothers who took the drug thalidomide while in their pregnancies; there were over 400 British "thalidomiders" and 8,0000 worldwide, brought about by the erroneous marketing of the drug as safe sedative and cure for morning sickness in pregnant women.

18 FEBRUARY

1903 - Tiburcio T. Hilario, patriot during the Philippine Revolution and the Filipino-American War, dies from scarlet fever, a rare disease in the Southeast Asian country; elected revolutionary governor of his province and known as the "Brains of the Revolution in Pampanga," Hilario is a cousin of the "Great Propagandist," Marcelo H. del Pilar.

1856 - The Imperial Rescript proclamation that emphasizes the principle of the equality of both Muslims and non-Muslims is issued by the Ottoman Empire; the proclamation has been worked out by English, French, Austrian ambassadors, Sultan Abdülmecid I's allies against Russia during the Crimean War.

1930 - Planet Pluto is discovered orbiting the edge of our Solar System by famed astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh; dubbed then as "Planet X," Pluto will be considered the 9th planet for some six decades until its controversial reclassification as dwarf planet in 2006.

1943 - Germany's auxiliary cruiser Schiffe 28 lands in Singapore and the commander will turn over the captured American merchant and Armed Guard sailors to the Japanese, their fellow Axis power during World War II; the US sailors are survivors from the SS Sawokla freighter that the Germans sank earlier on November 29, 1942.

17 February

1945 - The eastern side of the Spanish wall of Intramuros in Manila, Philippines is bombed as the American forces continue to take over the Japanese positions in the Battle for Manila during World War II; the battle will end by March 3, with the American forces routing the Japanese and reclaiming the capital city of its Southeast Asian colony.

1942 - Some 6,000 Royal Air Force men, British soldiers, Dutch soldiers, and civilian refugees escape the island  of Sumatra during World War II by embarking on a dozen differently-sized vessels.

1965 - The countdown to the independence of Gambia begins, with the Duke and Duchess of Kent celebrating the end of three centuries of British rule; when the clock strikes 12, the small African country will become the last of the West African colonies to attain independence from Great Britain.

1979 - China invades a number of the border towns of the reunited Vietnam following the latter's invasion of Chinese-supported Cambodia during the short-lived Third Indo-Chinese War; Vietnam, which became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam after South Vietnam collapsed, will continue to occupy Cambodia until 1989 while China will pull out by March 16, 1979 after suffering heavy losses.

16 FEBRUARY

1945 - United States troops land on the Bataan Peninsula, Philippines in the bid to recapture the former American colony during World War II; the  Southeast Asian country, colonized by America at the turn of the 19th century, was invaded by Japan in 1941.

1964 - Gen. Emilio F. Aguinaldo, President of the first Philippine Republic, dies of coronary thrombosis  at the very old age of 94; a controversial figure, Aguinaldo figured in the second phase of the Philippine Revolution against Spain, declared Philippine Independence on June 12, 1898, and led the Filipinos during the Philippine-American War (1899-1914) until his capture and prompt pledge of allegiance  to the enemy imperialist United States in 1901; Aguinaldo's death falls nearly 43  years after the birthday of Supremo Andres Bonifacio, whom he had ordered killed after having wrested the revolutionary leadership, was declared a national holiday (Araw  ni Bonifacio) under Act . No. 2964.

1923 - The tomb of Egyptian pharaoh, King Tutankhamen, is opened by English archaeologist Howard Carter; the team of Carter had discovered the steps leading to the ancient tomb in November the previous year and which would lead to the sealed chamber containing great riches, including Tut's solid gold coffin, golden shrines and the mummified body of the boy pharaoh.

1959 - Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader of Cuba, is sworn in as prime minister after the sudden, unexplained  resignation of PM Jose Miro Cordoba and his cabinet; Castro has led the guerilla force that toppled the military rule of United States-supported President Fulgeneio Batista.

2005 - The Kyoto Protocol that aims to lower the levels of air pollution in the bid to address global warming takes effect; however, the United States, which is ironically the top polluter of the world,  has refused to join the 141 countries that had earlier ratified the treaty.

15 FEBRUARY

1872 - The "GOMBURZA" Filipino priest-martyrs are tried by the colonial Spanish military tribunal at the Fort Santiago on charges of instigating the Cavite Mutiny; Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, who have advocated the secularization of the clergy in the Philippines, will be found guilty and sentenced to death.

399 B.C. - Greek philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death (by drinking the poison hemlock) on false charges of the "neglect of the gods" and "corruption of the youth;" known for his philosophical method of what is now referred to as the Socratic dialogue, he responds to the judges with: “The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.”

1942 - British Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival surrenders Singapore to Japan during World War II in what is dubbed as the worst ever military defeat of Great Britain; an estimated 130,000 soldiers are held captive, majority of whom will not survive, in the fall of Singapore that has formed an important British military base and stronghold of the Allied Forces.

1989 - The Soviet Union withdraws its troops from Afghanistan, nine years after then-Premier Leonid Brezhnev sent military support to help propel the communist Afghan government; the withdrawal comes amidst the raging civil war staged by the United States-backed mujaheddin and in three years, the Afghan communist government of President Najibullah will fall and the extremist Sunni Islamic Taliban will eventually  rule the South Central Asian country for several years.

14 FEBRUARY

1952 - Filipino revolutionary leader from Albay, Simeon A. Ola, dies at a ripe old age of 86; Ola was a fervent revolutionary leader who persisted in fighting despite the imperialists' superior firepower and combat training--thus inspiring more patriots to join his army during the Filipino-American War for several years.

1920 - The League of Women Voters is born in the United States; the non-partisan organization is  founded by Carrie Chapman Catt  "during the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association... held just six months before the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified" to finally give women the right to vote.

1956 - The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union begins, at the end of which Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev will make his so-called "secret speech" criticizing former dictator Joseph Stalin for his "cult of personality" and dictatorship (Feb. 25).

1989 - Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's Muslim leader, issues a fatwa (Islamic ruling) of death sentence on British writer Salman Rushdie, along with the publishers of his book "Satanic Verses;" speaking on broadcast radio, Khomeini describes Rushdie book as being "against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran."

13 FEBRUARY

1897 - Patriotic Filipino journalist Isabelo de los Reyes, known for his stirring and pungent articles critical of the Spanish colonial friars, is jailed at the Bilibid Prison for supposed complicity in the Philippine Revolution that broke out in 1896; while in prison, he will write his Sensecional Memoria addressed to the Governor and wherein he points out that the friars are the ones responsible for sowing the seeds of discontent and revolution in the Philippines.

1663 - Italian mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Galileo Galilei arrives in the Holy See to face charges of heresy in connection with his advocacy of the Copernican theory; he will face the Roman Inquisition court within about two months, pleading guilty in exchange for house arrest.

1991 - United States bomber air strikes kill over 300 civilians in Baghdad during the First Gulf War (2 August 1990 - 28 February 1991); the spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar will issue a statement expressing dismay at the big civilian casualties.

2001 - A landmark case on AIDS starts in Scotland; 33-year-old Stephen Kelly is charged with infecting an ex-girlfriend through sexual relations despite being aware that he was HIV-positive; Kelly, who contracted the AIDS virus while sharing heroin needles in prison, would later be sentenced to five years imprisonment for conduct the jury deemed "culpable and reckless."

12 FEBRUARY

1901 -  Apolinario Mabini, Gen. Artemio Ricarte and other defiant revolutionary leaders who have been deported from the Philippines begin their exile in Guam; refusing to swear fealty to imperialist America, they form part of the handful of proud survivors of the Philippine Revolution and the Filipino-American War who stand out against the many who have given up the cause of independence for their native country.

1554 - Lady Jane Grey, "The Nine Days' Queen," is executed privately inside the Tower of London upon orders of her Catholic cousin, Queen Mary I in a battle for royal succession;  amidst Mary I's violent attempts to enforce Catholicism, Lady Jane will come to be viewed as a Protestant martyr for centuries and her tale will be romanticized  in popular culture.

1912 - The last Manchu emperor, six-year-old PuYi (Xuantong Emperor), renounces his throne through Empress Dowager Longyu who signs the "Act of Abdication of the Emperor of the Great Qing" following the 1911 Chinese Revolution (Xinhai Revolution).

1999 - A group of independent international scientists hightlight the health dangers of genetically modified food; the 20 scientists have signed a memorandum supporting Dr. Arpad PUsztai who had earlier warned that with regards the additional gene present in transgenic potatoes,  "It may be that in GM food a drug-delivery system has been created, delivering something you didn't want to."

11 FEBRUARY

1860 - Vicente Lucban, Filipino revolutionary leader and patriot, is born in Labo, Camarines Norte; Lucban will become the military governor of Samar during the Revolution against Spain and the Philippine-American War, and be responsible for organizing the natives to resist the invading imperialist American forces in the province.

1925 - The Irish Free State, precursor of the entirely sovereign Republic of Ireland, effectively bans divorce.

1956 - Two British diplomats, part of the spy ring of five Cambridge University graduates who supplied information to the Soviet Union, appear in Moscow after mysteriously disappearing for five years. 

1990 - Nelson Mandela, nationalist leader of the anti-apartheid African National Congress, is released from prison after serving 27 years of his life sentence; he would later become the first South African black President following the ANC's electoral majority in the African country's first free elections.

10 FEBRUARY

1945 - Manuel C. Colayco, Filipino "liberation hero" dies after a hand grenade explodes in front of the University of Santo Tomas' main gate where he was pointing out to his fellow guerrilla soldiers the strategic spots and important buildings in the campus; Colayco's group was leading the rescue operations to free Filipino and Americans being held captive by the Japanese in UST during World War II.

1763 - The French and Indian War between France and Britain ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris; France cedes almost all of its North American colonies to Britain, including most of today's Canada and territory between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic seaboard although the Native Americans will remain defiant against the British colonies.

1962 - The Soviet union releases American spy Francis Gary Powers in exchange for the release of Col. Rudolf Abel who was convicted of espionage by the United States in 1957; Powers had survived the crash of the U-2 aircraft he flew over the USSR two years earlier.

1996 - The ceasefire between the Irish Republican Army and the British government is broken with IRA's admission that it planted the bomb that killed 39 people in Docklands area in London; peace will eventually be reached two years later with the Good Friday Agreement voted upon in a plebiscite in Northern Ireland and Ireland.

9 FEBRUARY

1926 -Teodoro M. Kalaw, nationalist scholar, legislator, and historian, composes his report on the Philippine Independence campaign in the United States, which he will present to the Commission on Independence; Kalaw was "part of the staff of Senator Sergio Osmeña who had been chosen the country’s special envoy to the US."

1950 - United States Sen. Joe McCarthy begins the "Red Scare" when he accuses over 200 personnel of the State Department as being communists; his accusations will never be substantiated but many will lose their reputations or jobs.

1955 - New Soviet Premier Nikolay Aleksandrovich Bulganin makes his inaugural address, emphasizing Sino-Soviet relations; Bulgarin, who used to be chief of the secret police and was defense minister during Joseph's Stalin's time, will soon be expelled from his post by Nikita Khrushchev.

1991 - Lithuania overwhelmingly votes in favor of independence from the Soviet Union; the plebiscite is held after the chairman of the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet proclaimed the restoration of the state's independence a year earlier amidst the politico-economic crisis in the U.S.S.R.

8 FEBRUARY

1890 - Claro M. Recto, Filipino nationalist statesman and president of the 1934 Constitutional Convention is born; Recto will be one of the most vocal critics of American colonial rule, advocating Philippine autonomy and removal of the US military bases and the controversial parity rights considered unfair to the Filipinos.

1904 - The Russo-Japanese War breaks out after Czarist Russia penetrated Manchuria and northern Korea, regions in Asia that Japan has controlled or has began to control.

1974 - Three American astronauts return to Earth after a record-breaking stay in orbit at the Skylab space station; they have spent 85 days in Earth's orbit at a height of around 270 miles during Skylab's third and last mission.

1983 - Israel's defense minister Ariel Sharon resigns following an inquiry that accuses him of having committed  a "grave mistake" in not preventing the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in two Lebanese refugee caps under his control.

7 FEBRUARY

1986 - Philippine snap elections for the presidency and vice-presidency are held after months of unrest following the assassination of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983; incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos will officially win but the opposition will claim massive cheating and the EDSA I "People Power" revolution will install Aquino's widow, Corazon Cojuanco Aquino, as president two weeks later.

1964 - The popular British hit band Beatles arrives in the United States for their first tour of the country, marking the start of the American "Beatlemania"; over 3,000 screaming teenage fans welcome John Lennon, Paul McCartney,  George Harrison, and Ringo Starr at the Kennedy Airport.

1990 - The WARSAW Pact meets in Moscow primarily to discuss transformation of the pact following the collapse of communism in Europe.

1996 - Rene Preval is elected president of Haiti, a development considered the first peaceful democratic transition since the Caribbean country gained independence from France in 1804.

6 FEBRUARY

1964 - Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the First Philippine Republic, dies from a heart attack at an old age of 95; Aguinaldo has been a controversial figure during the revolutionary era, being held responsible for the deaths of two revolutionary heroes, Gat Andres Bonifacio and Gen. Antonio Luna, and for his swift allegiance of fealty to the American imperialists soon after capture.

1952 - Princess Elizabeth becomes Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland when her father, King George VI dies during his sleep; she will be 27 years old by the time of her coronation as Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953.

1997 - The Ecuadorian Congress votes to oust incumbent President Abdala Bucaram Ortiz on grounds of his supposed mental incapacity to handle the presidency; Bucaram is said to have exhibited a number of episodes of queer public behavior.

2001 - Ariel Sharon wins as Israel's new prime minister in a landslide victory during an electoral contest marked by a historic low turnout; Sharon was a former defense minister found in 1983 to hold indirect responsibility for the massacre of several hundred Palestinians by Lebanese Christians inside Beirut refugee camps controlled by Israel.

5 FEBRUARY

1899 - Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo sends General Torres to U.S. General Elwell Otis to try to bring about the end to hostilities began the day before when an American sentry shoots and kills a Filipino soldier crossing the San Jose del Monte bridge; the Philippine-American will last for years when Otis refuses, saying the "fighting having begun, it must go on to the grim end." 

1917 - President Venustiano Carranza proclaims Mexico's modern constitution; Carranza is a staunch nationalist who has opposed American intervention in Mexico's affairs even if such meddling are poised to benefit him.

1964 - The foreign ministers of Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia begin a conference on the question of the formation of the Federation of Malaysia; Indonesia will oppose the new federation for a time and Singapore will later withdraw from the federation.


1994 - A mortar bomb explodes in Sarajevo's primary market square on the 22th month of the civil war among Bosnia' Serbs, Croats, and Muslim groups; the bomb kills 68 people and wounds some 200 others.

4 FEBRUARY

1899 - The Philippine-American War is begun by a United States sentry who shoots and kills a Filipino soldier who makes an attempt to cross the bridge in Sta. Mesa; "the first Filipino fatality of the war is Corporal Anastacio Felix of the 4th Company, Morong Battalion under Captain Serapio Narvaez. The battalion commander is Col. Luciano San Miguel."

1969 - Yasser Arafat is named chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which was formed in 1964 as an umbrella organization meant to centralize leadership of various scattered Palestinian groups that had formerly existed as clandestine resistance entities; Arafat organized the PLO and began launching guerrilla attacks against Israeli targets, initially from its Jordan bases.

1973 - International peace inspection teams are sent into the Vietnam countryside to observe the implementation and progress of the truce signed days earlier by the Vietcong, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States in Paris, France; fighting will actually continue, although in decreased intensity until the time Saigon falls, signaling the end of the Vietnam War.

1998 - A strong earthquake hits Afghanistan, killing at least 4,000 people; despite the calamity, fighting in the ongoing civil war will continue between forces of the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban government and Northern Alliance rebels.


Photo source:  http://philippine-history.blogspot.com/2008_02_25_archive.html

3 FEBRUARY

1902 - Sen. Edward W. Carmack of Tennessee delivers a speech at the American Senate  that attacks U.S. imperialist policies in the Philippines; Carmack has held that if U.S. rule in the Philippine was not 10,000 better than carpet-bag white rule of the Negroes in the Southern states, then “may the Lord God have mercy upon the Philippine Islands.”

1960 - British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan makes his famous "wind of change" speech wherein he refers to the "political fact" of the growth of national consciousness in South Africa; the landmark speech will help bring international opposition to apartheid in the former British colony out into the open.

1966 - The Soviets make history by landing its Luna 9 space probe on the moon, marking the first time that the Earth's satellite is seen at surface level; after its 'soft' landing, the probe immediately start taking pictures of the lunar surroundings although U.S.S.R. will initially delay release of the photographs.

1993 - The Supreme Soviet removes the bans against the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of Belarus; this came months after the collapse of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics.

2 FEBRUARY

1763 - Natives in Ilagan (in what is now Isabela province) in the Philippines revolt against colonial Spanish abuses; leaders Dabo and Marayag rally against  unbearable tribute collections, tobacco monopoly and other abuses committed by the Spanish friars.

1897 - Cretan insurrection breaks out, with support from groups fueled by Greek aspirations in the island of Macedonia; it will lead to the Greek-Ottoman War to be won by the Ottomans but with Prince George of Greece ultimately being named governor of Crete.

1933 - The meeting of the Disarmament Conference begins at Geneva, Switzerland; some 60 countries attend the conference called following the December 1932 No Force Declaration signed by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy.

1943 - The German forces in Stalingrad capitulate as their 22 divisions have been reduced to 80,000 soldiers; the Russians had earlier recaptured Velikiye and Leningrad and the German surrender would prove to be a pivotal development during World War II.