9 Feb 1539       The first recorded race was held on Chester Racecourse.
9 Feb 1900       The Davis Cup competition was established.
9 Feb 1964       The Beatles made their first appearance on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’.
9 Feb 1972       The government declared a state of emergency after a month-long coal miners’ strike.
9 Feb 1986       Halley’s Comet last appeared in the inner Solar System.
9 Feb 1995       ‘Riverdance’ first opened in Dublin with lead dancer Michael Flatley.
9 Feb 1997       The 167th episode of ‘The Simpsons’ aired on US TV and became the longest-running animated series in cartoon history.
9 Feb 2018       The Winter Olympics opened in South Korea.

10 Feb 1840     Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
10 Feb 1940     ‘Tom & Jerry’ made their debut.
10 Feb 1942     Glenn Miller was awarded the first ever gold disc for 1m sales of ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’.
10 Feb 1996     IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in a chess match.
10 Feb 2021     The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro was cancelled for the first time because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

11 Feb 1534     Henry VIII was recognised as supreme head of the Church of England.
11 Feb 1808     Jesse Fell burned anthracite on an open grate as an experiment to heat homes with coal.
11 Feb 1858     The first vision of the Virgin Mary to 14-year-old Bernadette at Lourdes.
11 Feb 1975     Margaret Thatcher replaced Edward Heath as leader of the Tory Party.
11 Feb 1976     John Curry won Britain’s first Olympic gold medal at the Winter games for 12 years.
11 Feb 1990     Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison after 27 years as a political prisoner.
11 Feb 1990     Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson in ten rounds to win boxing’s world Heavyweight title.
11 Feb 2012     Whitney Houston died.

12 Feb 1771     Gustav III became the King of Sweden.
12 Feb 1947     French fashion designer Christian Dior presented his first influential collection, named the ‘New Look’.
12 Feb 1963     Construction began on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.
12 Feb 1993     Two-year-old James Bulger was abducted from a Shopping Centre in Liverpool.
12 Feb 2001     NASA landed the NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft on an asteroid for the first time.

13 Feb 1542     Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII was executed for adultery.
13 Feb 1974     Boxer George Foreman and Adrienne Calhoun were divorced after almost 3 years of marriage.
13 Feb 1978     Anna Ford became ITN’s first female newsreader.
13 Feb 2021     Former President Donald Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial.

14 Feb 1779     James Cook was killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
14 Feb 1852     Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children was founded in London.

14 Feb 1859     Oregon became the 33^rd state of the USA.

14 Feb 1876     Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone, as did Elisha Gray.
14 Feb 1912     Arizona became the 48^th state of the USA.
14 Feb 1929     Seven people died in what became known as the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.
14 Feb 1946     The Bank of England was nationalised.
14 Feb 1978     The first “micro on a chip” was patented by Texas Instruments.
14 Feb 1984     Torvill and Dean famously performed to Ravel’s “Bolero” at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics.
14 Feb 1990     The Voyager 1 spacecraft took the photograph of the Earth that became known as Pale Blue Dot.
14 Feb 2003     Dolly the Sheep died.
14 Feb 2005     YouTube was launched by a group of college students.
14 Feb 2018     Jacob Zuma resigned as President of South Africa.

15 Feb 1923     Greece became the last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar.
15 Feb 1965     Nat King Cole died.
15 Feb 1971     The UK and Ireland switched to decimal currency.