Today in History

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Today in History

By Correspondent

 
YEARDAYEVENT
60CEFeb 10St. Paul is believed to have been shipwrecked near Malta while enroute to Rome for trial for practicing Catholicism. The story is told in the Bible’s New Testament Acts of the Apostles, chapter 27. The event is marked in Malta every February 10.
1098Feb 10Crusaders defeated Prince Redwan of Aleppo at Antioch.
1258Feb 10Huegu (Hulega Khan), a Mongol leader and grandson of Genghis Khan, seized Baghdad following a 4-day assault. Mongol invaders from Central Asia took over Baghdad and ended the Abbasid-Seljuk Empire. They included Uzbeks, Kazaks, Georgians and other groups. Some 200 to 800 thousand people were killed and looting lasted 17 days.
1324Feb 10The pope officially chastised the Knights of the Cross for ill treatment of Catholics and for pushing pagans away from Christianity.
1535Feb 1012 nude Anabaptists ran through the streets of Amsterdam. [see 1534]
1609Feb 10John Suckling, English Cavalier poet, dramatist, courtier, was born.
1620Feb 10Supporters of Marie de Medici, the queen mother, who had been exiled to Blois, were defeated by the king’s troops at Ponts de Ce, France.
1670Feb 10William Congreve, English writer (Old Bachelor, Way of the World), was born.
1676Feb 10In King Philip’s War Narragansett and Nipmuck Indians raided Lancaster, Mass. Over 35 villagers were killed and 24 were taken captive including Mary Rowlandson (1637-1711) and her 3 children. Rowlandson was freed after 11 weeks and an account of her captivity was published posthumously in 1682.
1720Feb 10Edmund Halley was appointed 2nd Astronomer Royal of England.
1722Feb 10Black Bart (b.1682), Welsh pirate, died. He raided shipping off the Americas and West Africa between 1719 and 1722.
1728Feb 10Peter III Fyodorovich (d.1762), czar of Russia (1761-62), was born in Germany. He married Catherine, who succeeded him following a coup.
1763Feb 10Britain, Spain and France signed the Treaty of Paris ending the French-Indian War. France ceded Canada to England and gave up all her territories in the New World except New Orleans and a few scattered islands. France retained the sugar colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe.
1772Feb 10Louis Tocque (75), French painter, died.
1774Feb 10Andrew Becker demonstrated a diving suit.
1775Feb 10Charles Lamb (d.1834), critic, poet, essayist, was born in London, England. “No one ever regarded the first of January with indifference. It is the nativity of our common Adam.”
1779Feb 10A shootout at Carr’s Fort in Georgia turned back men sent to Wilkes County to recruit colonists loyal to the British army. In 2012 archeologists located the site.
1794Feb 10Joseph Haydn’s 99th Symphony in E, premiered.
1799Feb 10Napoleon Bonaparte left Cairo, Egypt, for Syria, at the head of 13,000 men.
1814Feb 10Napoleon personally directed lightning strikes against enemy columns advancing toward Paris, beginning with a victory over the Russians at Champaubert. During the Napoleonic Wars a British naval officer proposed the use of saturation bombing and chemical warfare to undermine the strength of Emperor Napoleon.
1824Feb 10Simon Bolivar was named President by the Congress of Peru.
1840Feb 10Britain’s Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
1841Feb 10Upper Canada and Lower Canada were proclaimed united under an Act of Union passed by the British Parliament.
1846Feb 10Led by religious leader Brigham Young, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, began an exodus from Nauvoo, Il., to Utah.
1846Feb 10British General Sir Hugh Gough decisively routed Tej Singh’s Sikhs in the Battle of Sobraon.
1855Feb 10US citizenship laws were amended to include all children of US parents born abroad.
   
1863Feb 10P.T. Barnum’s star midgets, Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, were married.
1864Feb 10Konstanty Kalinowski, the last Lithuanian provincial rebel leader, was captured. He was hanged a month later.
1878Feb 10Peter Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony in F, premiered.)
1878Feb 10Cuba’s 10 year war with Spain ended with the signing of the pact of Zanjon. The nationalist uprising failed.
1879Feb 10The 1st electric arc light was used in a California Theater. The first electric arc lights were installed in Cleveland in this year. Some women complained that the white light blanched their complexions in a most ghastly manner.
1890Feb 10Boris Pasternak (d.1960), Russian novelist and author, was born. His greatest novel, Dr. Zhivago, was rejected for publication in the USSR “No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing.”
1890Feb 10Around 11 million acres, ceded to US by Sioux Indians, opened for settlement.
1893Feb 10Jimmy Durante, ”˜Schnozzel,’ American comedian and film actor, was born in NYC. “Be nice to people on the way up. They’re the same people you’ll pass on the way down.”
1894Feb 10Harold MacMillan, British prime minister from 1957 to 1963, was born.
1897Feb 10John F. Enders, virologist, was born.
1898Feb 10Bertolt Brecht, German poet and dramatist, was born. He is best remembered for his plays “Three Penny Opera” and “Mother Courage. “
1901Feb 10Stella Adler, actress and teacher, was born.
1902Feb 10Walter Brattain, physicist, was born. He became one of the inventors of the transistor.
1904Feb 10Russia and Japan declared war on each other.
1906Feb 10Britain’s 1st modern and largest battleship, the “HMS Dreadnought,” was launched.
1910Feb 10Dominique Georges Pire, Belgian cleric and educator, was born.
1912Feb 10Dr. Joseph Lister, founder of sterile technique in surgical practice, died at age 85. In 1917 Sir Rickman John Godlee authored “Lord Lister.”
1914Feb 10Larry Adler, harmonica virtuoso, was born.
1915Feb 10President Wilson blasted the British for using the U.S. flag on merchant ships to deceive the Germans. He also warned the Kaiser that he would hold Germany “to a strict accountability” for U.S. lives and property endangered. In Europe [Lithuania], the Germans encircled and captured 100,000 Russians near Nieman River. When the United States entered World War I, propagandist George Creel set out to stifle anti-war sentiment.
1920Feb 10Alex Comfort, English physician and author, was born. His books included “Joy of Sex.”
1922Feb 10Harold Hughes, Governor of New Jersey, was born.
1923Feb 10Cesare Siepi, basso (NY Metropolitan Opera), was born in Milan, Italy.
1923Feb 10Wilhelm Konrad von Röntgen (77), physicist (Nobel 1901), died. In 1971 Robert W. Nitske authored “The Life of Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen: Discoverer of the X Ray.”
1925Feb 10Poland made an accord with the Vatican and the archdiocese of Vilnius was revived as one of 5 Polish dioceses.
   
1927Feb 10(Mary Violet) Leontyne Price, opera singer, was born.
1931Feb 10New Delhi became the capital of India.
1933Feb 10The first singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegram Company in New York.
1934Feb 10An Admiral Byrd souvenir stamp sheet was issued, NYC. It was the 1st unperforated ungummed US stamp.
1934Feb 10A Jewish immigrant ship 1st broke the English blockade in Palestine.
1935Feb 10Pennsylvania RR began passenger service with new electric locomotive.
1939Feb 10Pope Pius XI died in Rome. He was born in Desio, Italy, as Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti. In 2014 David I. Kertzer authored The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe.”
1939Feb 10Japan occupied the Chinese island of Hainan located off the coast of  French Indochina (modern day Vietnam).
1940Feb 10“In The Mood” by Glenn Miller hit #1.
1941Feb 10London severed diplomatic relations with Romania. Romania’s indigenous fighter, the IAR 80, saw service in defense of its homeland and against the Soviets.
1941Feb 10Iceland was attacked by German planes.
1942Feb 10RCA Victor presented Glenn Miller and his Orchestra with a “gold record” for their recording of “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” which had sold more than 1 million copies.
1942Feb 10The war halted civilian car production at Ford. Henry Ford opposed America’s entry into World War II until the attack on Pearl Harbor, which inspired him to begin an all-out effort to manufacture planes and vehicles for the war effort.
1942Feb 10The former French liner Normandie capsized in New York Harbor a day after it caught fire while being refitted for the U.S. Navy.
1945Feb 10“Rum & Coca Cola” by the Andrews Sisters hit #1.
1945Feb 10B-29s hit the Tokyo area. It was a B-29 that dropped the bomb that ended World War II.
1949Feb 10Arthur Miller’s play “Death of a Salesman” opened at Broadway’s Morosco Theater with Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman. The play depicting the false dreams of Willy Loman won a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
1949Feb 10Elections in Northern Ireland showed that at least 2/3 of the population favored continued union with Great Britain.
1950Feb 10Mark Spitz, Modesto Calif, swimmer (Oly-9 gold/silver/bronze-68,72), was born.
1951Feb 10“John & Marsha” by Stan Freberg peaked at #21.
1954Feb 10Eisenhower warned against US intervention in Vietnam.
1955Feb 10Bell Aircraft displayed a fixed-wing vertical takeoff plane. An ingenious blend of airplane and helicopter features, the Fairey Rotodyne was a case of almost–but not quite enough.
1960Feb 10“Unsinkable Molly Brown” ended at Winter Garden, NYC, after 532 performances.
1960Feb 10Adolph Coors, the beer brewer, was kidnapped in Golden, Colo.
1961Feb 10Niagara Falls hydroelectric project began producing power.
1962Feb 10The Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.
1966Feb 10Protester David Miller was convicted of burning his draft card.
1967Feb 10The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, went into effect as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it.
1968Feb 10Peggy Fleming of the United States won the gold medal in women’s figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.
1971Feb 10The play “The House of Blue Leaves” by John Guare (b.1938), American playwright, opened off Broadway.
1971Feb 10Combat photographers Henri Huet of AP, Kent Potter of UPI, Larry Burrows (b.1926) of Life Magazine and Keisaburo Shimamato of Newsweek were killed in a helicopter crash over Laos. In 2003 Richard Pyle and Horst Faas authored “Lost Over Laos: A True Story of Tragedy, Mystery and Friendship.”
1979Feb 10The Metropolitan Museum announced the first major theft in 110-year history, $150,000 Greek marble head.
1981Feb 10Eight people were killed, 198 injured, when fire broke out at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino.
1984Feb 10Kevin Andrew Collins (9) was abducted from a SF street corner. The child’s picture was among the 1st to appear on milk cartons across the country. By 2007 Kevin’s whereabouts were still unknown, and there were no new leads in the 23 year-old case. The strain of Kevin’s disappearance and the search for their son eventually led Kevin’s parents, David and Ann Collins, to divorce. Suspect Dan Therrien (51) died in 2008.
1986Feb 10In Darien, Conn., Alex Kelly (18) raped 16-year-old Adrienne Bak Ortolano. Four days later he raped another girl. While preparing for trial after he was arrested and out on bail, Kelly fled the country and eluded charges for 8 years. Kelly stayed in Europe for nearly 10 years, presumably financed by his parents. In 1995, he was captured in Switzerland and extradited back to the United States to face trial. He faced two criminal trials in 1997. The first trial resulted in a mistrial. In the second trial he was convicted of the first rape and sentenced to 18 years in jail. He pleaded no contest to the second rape charge. His next parole hearing is scheduled in 2008, conditional on good behavior.
1986Feb 10The largest Mafia trial in history, with 474 defendants, opened in Palermo, Italy. The trial ended on December 16, 1987, almost two years after it commenced. Of the 474 defendants, both those present and those tried in absentia, 360 were convicted. 2,665 years of prison sentences were shared out between the guilty, not including the life sentences. A total of 114 defendants were acquitted.
1986Feb 10In Haiti a provisional government, headed by Namphy, named a 19-member Cabinet. It dissolved the Assembly and Tonton Macoutes, reopened schools, freed political prisoners, and sought to recover Duvaliers’ assets. US aid resumed after being halted because of Duvalier abuses.
1988Feb 10A 3-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down the Army’s ban on homosexuals, saying gays were entitled to the same protection against discrimination as racial minorities. The ruling was later set aside by the full appeals court.
1989Feb 10Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first black to head a major U.S. political party.
1990Feb 10In Indonesia Mount Kelud erupted. Some 33 post eruption lahars took place from Feb 15-mar28 and more than 30 people were killed with hundreds injured.
1990Feb 10South African President F.W. de Klerk announced that black activist Nelson Mandela would be released the next day after 27 years in captivity.
1991Feb 10In a broadcast on Baghdad Radio, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein praised his countrymen for withstanding attacks by allied warplanes and rockets.
1992Feb 10Bonnie Blair of the United States won the women’s 500-meter speed skating competition at the Albertville Olympics.
1992Feb 10Alex Haley, author of “Roots” and co-writer of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” died in Seattle at age 70. Much of his work was donated to the Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville.
1993Feb 10The Clinton administration said U.S. troops could be sent to enforce peace in former Yugoslavia provided warring factions there negotiated a settlement.
1994Feb 10The US Senate approved $8.6 billion in relief for victims of the Jan 17 Los Angeles earthquake. The House approved the measure the next day, and President Clinton signed it the day after that.
1994Feb 10Jeannie Flynn (b.1966)), the first female combat pilot in the US Air Force, finished flight training in the F-15.
1995Feb 10The House passed a GOP crime bill boosting funding for state prisons but requiring states to get tougher on violent criminals before they could receive any money.
1996Feb 10President Clinton signed a $265 billion defense bill, but said he would battle for repeal of a section forcing the discharge of service members with the AIDS virus.
1996Feb 10World chess champion Garry Kasparov lost the first game of a match in Philadelphia against an I-B-M computer dubbed “Deep Blue.”
1996Feb 10In Algeria two car bombs killed 17 and wounded 93 in the capital.
1996Feb 10A slab of mountainside crushed a highway tunnel on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, killing 20 people.
1997Feb 10The 5th annual ESPY Awards were held at Radio City Music Hall, NYC. The Awards were created by ESPN in 1993 and are given for Excellence in Sports Performance.
1997Feb 10A civil jury in Santa Monica heaped $25 million in punitive damages on O.J. Simpson for the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, on top of $8.5 million in compensatory damages awarded earlier.
1997Feb 10The US Air Force suspended all training flights over the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast after two new reports of close encounters between F-16s and commercial aircraft over New Mexico and Texas.
1997Feb 10The Army suspended its top-ranking enlisted soldier, Army Sgt. Major Gene McKinney, following sexual misconduct allegations.
1997Feb 10The National Park Service took over a small section of Santa Cruz Island, one of the Channel Islands off of Ventura, Ca. Most of the 60,800 acre island is owned by the Nature Conservancy.
1997Feb 10The city of Cincinnati revealed plans for a new $80-million museum for its role in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. The museum and freedom center were scheduled to open in 2002.
1997Feb 10From Bolivia it was reported that heavy rains have destroyed the homes and crops of tens of thousands of farmers. The rains were the heaviest in 3 decades.
1997Feb 10Bosnian Croat gunmen killed a Bosnian Muslim man and wounded 22 others who were among a crowd of some 200 trying to visit a cemetery in the divided city of Mostar.
1997Feb 10In Spain a Supreme Court Justice, Rafael Martinez Emperador, was shot dead in Madrid. In Grenada a car bomb exploded and killed one person and wounded 7. Guerrillas of the ETA, Basque Homeland and Liberty, were blamed.
1998Feb 10Dr. David Satcher was confirmed as Surgeon General by the US Senate.
1998Feb 10Voters in Maine repealed a gay rights law. Gov. Angus King called it unfortunate.
1998Feb 10Monica Lewinsky’s mother, Marcia Lewis, testified before the grand jury investigating her daughter’s alleged affair with President Clinton.
1998Feb 10Speedskater Hiroyasu Shimizu won Japan’s first gold medal of the Nagano Olympics, in the 500-meter event.
1998Feb 10French legislators approved a reduction in the workweek from 39 to 35 hours.
1999Feb 10Resigned to losing their case, US House prosecutors said public opinion polls had made a stronger impression on senators than any evidence that President Clinton committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
1999Feb 10A federal judge ordered American Airlines pilots to end a sickout that had grounded 2,500 flights, stranded 200,000 travelers and left businesses scrambling for cargo carriers.
1999Feb 10Mitt Romney, a venture capitalist son of George Romney, was proposed as the new chief of the Olympic Committee for the 2002 games in SLC.
1999Feb 10Timothy Schultz (21) and Sarah Elder (20) of Des Moines, Iowa, split a $10.6 million Powerball lottery prize.
1999Feb 10US and British jets again hit Iraqi air defense sites. It was reported that Saddam Hussein has offered $14,000 to air defense troops who shoot down a US or British plane.
1999Feb 10A Vietnamese shopkeeper in Westminster, Orange County, Ca., was assaulted and began a riot when he displayed a poster of Ho Chi Minh in his shop window.
1999Feb 10A UN panel eased a trade ban on ivory. It allowed Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell nearly 34 tons to Japan.
2000Feb 10Steve Forbes, publisher, announced that he was abandoning his 6-year GOP bid for the presidency after an investment of $66 million.
2000Feb 10In Yemen tribesmen released Kenneth White (54), an American oil executive, who was kidnapped a month ago.
2001Feb 10The space shuttle Atlantis’ astronauts installed the $1.4 billion Destiny laboratory on the international space station.
2001Feb 10Former New York City Mayor Abraham D. Beame died at age 94.
2001Feb 10In Algeria assailants killed at least 27 people near Berrouaghia. Half of the dead were children
2001Feb 10Israel said it would not cooperate with the newly arrived UN human rights mission for a fact-finding tour of Palestinian areas.
2002Feb 10Snowboarder Kelly Clark won America’s first gold at the Salt Lake City Olympics in women’s halfpipe. Claudia Pechstein of Germany shattered her own world record in the three-thousand-meter speedskating event, crossing the line in 3:57.70.
2002Feb 10Two Palestinian Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli soldiers at Beersheva. 2 soldiers were killed before the gunmen were slain.
2003Feb 10Clark MacGregor (80), former Minnesota Congressman who’d led the Nixon re-election campaign in 1972, died in Pompano Beach, Fla.
2003Feb 10Ron Ziegler (b.1939), former press secretary for Richard Nixon, died in Coronado, Ca.
2003Feb 10Afghanistan became the 89th nation to join the International Criminal Court.
2003Feb 10In Kabul, Afghanistan, Germany and the Netherlands took control of the 22-nation peacekeeping force charged with keeping order, replacing Turkey.
2003Feb 10A Chinese court convicted U.S.-based dissident Wang Bingzhang on spying and terrorism charges and sentenced him to life in prison.
2004Feb 10French prosecutors launched a money-laundering probe into the alleged transfers of $11.5 million dollars to accounts held by the wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
2004Feb 10In Haiti government supporters in Cap-Haitien, the second largest city, built flaming barricades to keep rebels out. UN aid officials warned of a looming humanitarian crisis.
2004Feb 10An Iranian Fokker-50 plane carrying mostly foreign workers crashed as it approached Sharjah airport in the United Arab Emirates, killing 43 people aboard. 3 survived.
2004Feb 10In Iskandariyah, Iraq, a car bomb exploded at a police station south of Baghdad as dozens of would-be recruits lined up to apply for jobs, and a hospital official said at least 53 people were killed and 50 others wounded.
2005Feb 10Police in Nepal’s capital arrested 12 rights activists and quashed a rally to protest the king’s emergency rule, while rebels in the southwest killed five policemen and freed comrades from a jail during a raid on a town.
2005Feb 10Heavy rains caused the Shakidor Dam to burst in southwestern Pakistan, releasing a torrent of water that killed at least 135 people. The country’s total number of dead from weeklong rains and avalanches soon grew to 278.
2005Feb 10Palestinian militants fired dozens of mortar shells and homemade rockets at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, prompting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to order his security forces to move quickly to preserve a new cease-fire with Israel. Abbas fired his top security commanders following the attacks.
2005Feb 10In Peru President Alejandro Toledo said the government is considering subsidizing some of this Andean nation’s poorest people with direct monthly cash payments.
2005Feb 10Male voters converged at polling stations in the Riyadh region to participate in city elections, marking the first time Saudis are taking part in a vote that largely conforms to international standards. Women were banned from casting ballots.
2006Feb 10In Myanmar government officials said Win Aung, a former foreign minister ousted in a Cabinet reshuffle by the country’s ruling military junta, has been put on trial for corruption charges.
2006Feb 10In western Nepal communist rebels clashed with soldiers, leaving seven people dead, as the royal government announced its mostly uncontested candidates swept discredited local elections.
2006Feb 10The editor of a small Christian newspaper in Norway apologized for offending Muslims by reprinting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in January.
2006Feb 10In northwestern Pakistan Shiites and Sunnis battled each other with rockets and gunfire, raising the death toll of two days of Muslim sectarian violence to 38.
2006Feb 10FBI agents in Puerto Rico searched five homes and a business to thwart what the agency said was a “domestic terrorist attack” planned by militants favoring independence for the US island territory.
2006Feb 10In southern Russia 2 days of fighting in a town in the Stavropol region, 25 miles north of Chechnya, left 12 suspected rebels and seven policemen dead.
2006Feb 10In Sicily NATO defense ministers sought to calm Islamic anger over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad at a counterterrorism meeting with Arab countries including Israel, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Mauritania.
2006Feb 10In Turkey a Syrian was charged with masterminding suicide bombings that killed 58 people in Istanbul, and Turkish prosecutors claimed that Osama bin Laden personally ordered him to carry out terror attacks in this pro-Western country. Loa’i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa (32) was accused of serving as a point man between al-Qaida and homegrown militants behind the series of suicide bombings in Istanbul in 2003, said the indictment. It said al-Saqa gave the Turkish militants about $170,000. He was captured in Turkey in August after an alleged failed plot to attack Israeli cruise ships in the Mediterranean.
2006Feb 10The UN said Secretary-General Kofi Annan has sent Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo a $3.6 million bill for UN property and equipment damaged or lost during January riots.
2007Feb 10Democrat Barack Obama announced in Illinois that he is running for the White House in 2008.
2007Feb 10In Afghanistan a suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a NATO convoy outside Kandahar city, killing himself but hurting no one else.
2008Feb 10Roy Scheider (b.1932), actor and a one-time boxer, died. His broken nose and pugnacious acting style made him a star in “The French Connection.” He later uttered “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” one of cinematic history’s most memorable lines in “Jaws.”
2008Feb 10Ray J. Wu, Chinese-born professor at Cornell Univ. and creator of a transgenic rice, died.
2008Feb 10State media reported that China has lost about one tenth of its forest resources to recent snow storms regarded as the most severe in half a century.
2009Feb 10Nigerian union officials said a 2-day-old strike by freight and forwarding agents to protest high charges was worsening cargo congestion in Lagos, the country’s main seaport.
2009Feb 10Pakistan called for a new strategy of dialogue to combat militancy and urged Washington to reconsider military action on its territory in its first talks with US envoy Richard Holbrooke.
2009Feb 10An unmanned Russian cargo ship lifted off from Kazakhstan carrying supplies and a space suit to the international space station and its three-member crew. American astronauts Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus are aboard the station along with Russian Yuri Lonchakov. The crew size will be doubled to six members later this year.
2010Feb 10Iran’s top police official says authorities have made a series of arrests of suspected opposition activists before expected Feb 11 protest rallies.
 2010Feb 10An Israeli TV station said it has uncovered evidence that Palestinian Authority officials have stolen millions of dollars in public funds.
2011Feb 10Russian environmental activist Alla Chernysheva (35) was detained with her 2 daughters (3&6), the latest victim in a campaign to silence opponents of a new Moscow-St. Petersburg highway that is tearing up the ancient Khimki forest. Authorities announced a March start date for the highway. According to police Chernysheva was arrested on suspicion of taking a fake bomb to a Feb. 1 protest rally.
2012Feb 10Former San Diego police officer Anthony Arevalos was sentenced to nearly 9 years in prison for soliciting sexual favors in exchange for not issuing traffic tickets against young women.
2012Feb 10In California information from death row inmate Wesley Shermantine led trained dogs to a site in Calaveras County containing the remains of Chevelle Wheeler (16), who disappeared while skipping school in 1985. A day earlier the same dogs found the remains of Cyndi Vanderheiden (25), last seen in front of her home in San Joaquin County in 1998.
2012Feb 10In New Hampshire Hunter Mack (14) shot himself in the face at the Walpole Elementary School cafeteria filled with dozens of students eating lunch. Mack, was hospitalized after the shooting. A relationship issue was suspected.
2012Feb 10In North Dakota the vice president in charge of overseeing a foreign students program resigned following a report that the school had awarded hundreds of degrees to foreign students who did not earn them.
2012Feb 10In Spokane, Washington, Tracy Ann Ader and her two sons, 8 & 10, were killed. The body of suspect Dustin Gilman (22) was found on Feb 13. The Aders had befriended him and he had lived with the family for several months.
2012Feb 10In southern Afghanistan a roadside bomb hit a police vehicle on patrol, leaving five policemen dead and one wounded in Trin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan province. A car was also hit by a roadside bomb in the Khinjak area of Trin Kot, killing one person and wounding two others.
2012Feb 10Argentina accused Britain of sending nuclear weapons to the disputed Falkland islands, while UN leader Ban Ki-moon appealed to both sides to avoid an “escalation” of their sovereignty battle.
2012Feb 10In Bahrain tens of thousands of anti-government protesters streamed toward an empty lot dubbed ‘Freedom Square’ in the village of Miqsha outside the capital Manama. They sought to occupy the site for the one-year anniversary of their uprising in the Gulf kingdom. Three people were severely wounded by tear gas canisters fired at the protesters.
2012Feb 10Bosnia’s Parliament approved a new Cabinet in a vote of 26-7, with one abstention. The leadership has promised to immediately tackle the country’s economic problems, including its pressing lack of a budget.
2012Feb 10In Brazil police and firefighters in Rio went on strike, a week before glittering Carnival celebrations that typically draw 800,000 tourists were due to start. Union officials expected anywhere from 50% to 70% of 58,000 officers to join the strike. Union members were not content with legislative approval of a 39% raise to be staggered over this year and the next, along with a promise of more in 2014.
2012Feb 10Mayor Boris Johnson said London will be the first city in England to test electronic monitoring to force persistent alcohol offenders to stop drinking. The trial program was expected to start later this year. Electronic devices which continuously monitor alcohol are used in several US states. Offenders who break their no-drink order can be sent to jail.
2012Feb 10Judge Duncan Ouseley ruled in London’s High Court: “The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a council is not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue.” The legal challenge was launched in July 2010 after the National Secular Society was contacted by Clive Bone, a non-believer who was then a councilor in Bideford.
2012Feb 10Chinese PM Wen Jiabao pledged religious freedom and cultural protection in Tibet, just hours after security forces reportedly killed two Tibetans who protested China’s rule.
2012Feb 10Nearly 2,000 Syrians took part in a demonstration outside the Syrian consulate in Dubai.
2012Feb 10In Egypt hundreds of protesters marched to the defense ministry in Cairo demanding the military rulers’ ouster, on the eve of a planned civil disobedience campaign to mark Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow a year ago. Armed tribesmen kidnapped three South Korean tourists and their Egyptian guide in the Sinai peninsula. All 4 were released the next day and plan to continue their tour.
2012Feb 10In Greece violence broke as over 15,000 people took to the streets of Athens after unions launched a 2-day general strike to protest spending cuts.
2012Feb 10Guinea Bissau PM Carlos Gomes Junior named Adiato Djalo Nandigna, his current communications minister, to stand in for him until presidential polls on March 18 in which he is a candidate.
2012Feb 10In Hong Kong mainland woman Xu Li (29) was charged in a magistrates’ court for her role as a “birth agent,” the first prosecution of its kind as the southern city cracks down on the practice.
2012Feb 10In Israel a general strike in Israel entered its third day after negotiations between unions and government broke down.
2012Feb 10In Jamaica Wilmot Perkins (80), a veteran journalist considered the island’s “godfather of talk radio,” died. He worked for more than 50 years in radio, launching his first program “What’s your Grouse?” on RJR 94FM in 1960. He quit a couple years later to become a farmer but returned to radio in the 1970s, ultimately launching a show called “Perkins On Line” on Hot102 FM.
2012Feb 10The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said more than 40,000 people have fled recent clashes between two northern Kenyan tribes over access to water and pasture. The clashes pit two traditional rivals, the Borana and the Gabra, around the town of Moyale on the Ethiopian border.
2012Feb 10In central Mexico a mob in the village of San Mateo Hitzilzingo beat three suspected kidnappers to death. Two of the men on fire during the attack. Some 300 angry people took the three men out of the town’s police station and began beating them after a woman screamed that they were kidnappers.
2012Feb 10From Niger Saadi Kadhafi, one of the sons of Libya’s slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi, said a nationwide rebellion is brewing against the country’s new rulers as he vowed to return to his homeland.
2012Feb 10In Nigeria officers from the State Security Service and soldiers raided a home in Mutum Biyu, Taraba state, where Kabiru Sokoto, alleged mastermind of a radical Islamist sect’s Christmas Day church bombing, was hiding. He had escaped a day after his arrest in January. They found Sokoto hiding behind a rack of drying laundry. Two explosions went off outside a customs building in Maiduguri, killing four bombers and wounding two soldiers.
2012Feb 10A Russian military court convicted Lt. Col. Vladimir Nesterets of providing the CIA with secret information on Russia’s new intercontinental ballistic missiles and sentenced him to 13 years in prison. The Federal Security Service said Nesterets pleaded guilty to passing on that classified information in exchange for money.
2012Feb 10In Saudi Arabia Zuhair al-Said (21) was killed as security forces dispersed a protest against the death of another Shiite demonstrator the previous day.
2012Feb 10In Slovenia Janez Jansa (b.1958), a former prime minister (2004-2008) again took office as prime minister.
2012Feb 10Eight South Korean lawmakers made a high-profile visit to a modern factory park that sits just across the world’s most heavily armed border and represents the last major cooperative initiative between the two rival Koreas.
2012Feb 10Spain’s new conservative government approved sweeping labor market reforms as part of a drive to revive the economy and reduce the nearly 23% unemployment.
2012Feb 10Swaziland’s main teachers’ union said the government has let go 1,200 school teachers, leaving classrooms empty just one month into the school year. The union threatened mass action.
2012Feb 10In Syria 2 explosions struck security compounds in Aleppo, killing 28 people, the first significant violence in a major city that has largely stood by President Bashar Assad in the 11-month-old uprising against his rule. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 27 civilians were killed as security forces opened fire on antigovernment protesters who streamed out of mosques. A Syria-based activist, said the regime appears to be trying to take over rebel-held areas in Homs and the northwestern restive province of Idlib before Feb. 17, when Assad’s ruling Baath party is scheduled to hold its first general conference since 2005.
2012Feb 10Turkey Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said that five Turks, including a former intelligence officer, were being questioned for allegedly kidnapping and handing over to Damascus Lt. Col. Hussein Harmoush, a Syrian army officer, who had sought refuge in Turkey.
2012Feb 10The UN refugee agency said it needs $145 million (110 million euros) in extra funds to help thousands fleeing fighting in Sudan’s Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.
2012Feb 10In Yemen thousands rallied in Sanaa to back a single-candidate presidential election planned for later this month that has sparked protests in the south.
2013Feb 10In California 3 people died in a helicopter crash in a rural area of northern Los Angeles. The helicopter was being used for a reality TV show.
2013Feb 10The Carnival Triumph began floating aimlessly about 150 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula after a fire erupted in the aft engine room, knocking out the ship’s propulsion system. Passengers had limited access to bathrooms, food and hot coffee as they waited for two tugboats to arrive to tow them to port. The ship arrived into Mobile Bay, Alabama, on Feb 14.
2013Feb 10In Afghanistan US Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford took over as the new and probably last commander of all US and international forces in the country.
2013Feb 10Opposing factions in Bahrain began talks to ease an Arab Spring conflict that has run longer than Syria’s rebellion and is playing out on the doorstep of the US military’s main naval base in the Persian Gulf.
2013Feb 10In the Canary Islands a lifeboat with occupants fell overboard during a safety drill from a cruise ship docked at the pier of Santa Cruz port in La Palma. 5 crew members were killed and three injured.
2013Feb 10The Chinese New Year, celebrated as the beginning of the year of the Snake, officially began.
2013Feb 10Rabbi David Hartman (81), one of the world’s leading Jewish philosophers and a promoter of both Jewish pluralism and interfaith dialogue, died in Israel.
2013Feb 10In Allahabad, India, a stampede killed 37 people following the Kumbh Mela religious gathering. Tens of thousands of people were in the station waiting to board a train when railway officials announced a last-minute change in the platform.
2013Feb 10In Iraq gunmen killed four people in three attacks in the northern city of Mosul.
2013Feb 10The Israeli government gave final approval for construction of 90 new homes in a West Bank settlement, a move that could cause tensions with the US ahead of President Obama’s visit to the region.
2013Feb 10One person was killed as protests broke out in at least two parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir despite a strict curfew to prevent violence after the execution of a Kashmiri man convicted in a deadly 2001 attack on India’s Parliament.
2013Feb 10Malian soldiers with rocket propelled grenades traded fire in Gao with combatants believed to be from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO. Islamic fighters invaded through Gao’s Niger River harbor and fought a protracted downtown battle for hours.
2013Feb 10Acclaimed Spanish writer Antonio Munoz Molina said he will accept the prestigious Jerusalem Prize, an Israeli award given to authors, despite calls from pro-Palestinian activists to boycott the Jewish state.
2013Feb 10Syrian troops and opposition forces battled for control of a key highway outside Damascus for the fifth straight day as the rebels continued their campaign to push into the capital, the seat of President Bashar Assad’s power.
2013Feb 10In southern Thailand suspected militants killed 5 soldiers and wounded 5 others in two roadside attacks.
2013Feb 10Tunisia’s state news agency reported that the Congress for the Republic party, led by President Moncef Marzouki, is quitting the coalition government, which is led by Islamist party Ennahda.
2014Feb 10Shirley Temple Black (b.1928), child film star and US diplomat, died at her home in Woodside, Ca.
2014Feb 10In Afghanistan a car bomb in Kabul killed two US contractors for the international security force ISAF. A coalition soldier was killed in a separate attack in the east.
2014Feb 10Brazil’s Band TV said that 49-year-old journalist Santiago Andrade remains in a coma on life support, but that doctors have declared him brain dead. He was hit in the head on Feb 6 by a powerful flare fired during a protest against a 10-cent hike in bus fares in Rio.
2014Feb 10Thousands of Bosnian protesters called for the resignation of their regional government, ratcheting up demands on the sixth straight day of demonstrations over unemployment, corruption and political paralysis.
2014Feb 10The River Thames burst its banks after reaching its highest level in years, flooding riverside towns upstream of London.
2014Feb 10In Burundi at least 60 people perished in flooding and landslides following a night of torrential rain in Bujumbura that swept away hundreds of homes and cut off roads and power.
2014Feb 10The EU agreed to launch negotiations with Cuba to increase trade, investment and dialogue on human rights in its most significant diplomatic shift since Brussels lifted sanctions on the island in 2008.
2014Feb 10Greek police arrested four foreigners and seized weapons and explosives in a raid by the country’s anti-terrorist unit on residences in the greater Athens area. Media said they appeared to be Turkish nationals suspected of belonging to the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP/C.
2014Feb 10Penguin Books India agreed to withdraw from sale all copies of “The Hindus: An Alternative History” (2011) by Wendy Doniger, a book that takes an unorthodox view of Hinduism, and will pulp them as part of a settlement after a case was filed against the publisher.
2014Feb 10In Iraq militants accidentally set off their own car bomb at a training camp in an orchard in the village of al-Jalam, leaving 21 dead and resulting in two dozen arrests.
2014Feb 10In Kenya gays and lesbians joined a global effort to protest against an anti-homosexuality bill passed by Uganda’s parliament that is now in the hands of the country’s president.
2014Feb 10In the Netherlands former health minister Els Borst (81), a woman who drafted the nation’s landmark 2002 law permitting euthanasia, was found dead in her garage. Police ruled out natural causes.
2014Feb 10Saudi state media said a court has sentenced a man to 10 years in prison for protesting and disseminating photos of demonstrations online.
2014Feb 10In Somalia two car bombs exploded in Mogadishu, wounding at least five people including a government official.
2014Feb 10Spanish High Court Judge Ismael Moreno sought international arrest orders for former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, ex-PM Li Peng and others on allegations of genocide in Tibet.
2014Feb 10Syria shipped out a third consignment of chemical weapons materials and has also destroyed some materials on its territory.
2014Feb 10Peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition resumed in Geneva.
2014Feb 10Thai police made their first arrest of a senior leader of the antigovernment protests. Sonthiyarn Cheunruethainaitham was arrested for violating the country’s emergency law.
2014Feb 10Yemen’s president and main parties agreed to transform the unrest-riven country into a six-region federation as part of a political transition. The move was immediately rejected by some southerners who insist on a separate state.
Credit: Timelines of History 

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