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.