16 Feb 1659     The first known cheque was written. (for £400 and now on display at Westminster Abbey)
16 Feb 1923     Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
16 Feb 1959     Fidel Castro became Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.
16 Feb 1982     Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett Majors were divorced.

17 Feb 1904     Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Madame Butterfly” had its premiere in Milan.
17 Feb 1924     Johnny Weissmuller set a 100m world freestyle record of 57.4 seconds.
17 Feb 1959     Vanguard 2 the first weather satellite was launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.
17 Feb 1972     British Parliament voted to join the European Common Market.
17 Feb 2002     Joan Collins married Percy Gibson at Claridge’s Hotel in London.

18 Feb 1861     King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia became first King of Italy.
18 Feb 1885     The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was published in the United States.
18 Feb 1957     Walter James Bolton became the last person legally executed in New Zealand.
18 Feb 1965     The Gambia became independent from the UK.
18 Feb 1969     Lulu married Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees.
18 Feb 1977     The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle was carried on its maiden flight on top of a Boeing 747.

19 Feb 1878     Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.
19 Feb 1964     Peter Sellers married Britt Ekland in London.
19 Feb 1985     13 million viewers tuned in to watch the first episode of ‘EastEnders’.
19 Feb 2021     Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her third husband, Kanye West.

20 Feb 1472     Orkney and Shetland were left by Norway to Scotland, due to a dowry payment.
20 Feb 1547     Edward VI was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
20 Feb 1816     Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville had its premiere in Rome.
20 Feb 1962     John Glenn became the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship 7.
20 Feb 1968     John Cleese married Connie Booth.
20 Feb 1974     Cher filed for divorce from Sonny Bono.
20 Feb 1986     The Soviet Union launched its Mir spacecraft that remained in orbit for 15 years.
20 Feb 1998     15 year old Tara Lipinski became the youngest Olympic figure skating gold-medalist at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Japan.
20 Feb 2007     ‘Baywatch’ star Carmen Electra divorced rockstar Dave Navarro after less than three years of marriage.

21 Feb 1173     Pope Alexander III canonized Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury.
21 Feb 1952     The British government abolished identity cards in the UK.
21 Feb 1952     Elizabeth Taylor married husband number two, Michael Wilding.
21 Feb 1958     The CND symbol, protesting against Atomic Weapons, was designed by Gerald Holtom.
21 Feb 1972     Richard Nixon became the first US President to visit China.
21 Feb 1995     Steve Fossett landed in Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

22 Feb 1955     Maureen Connolly, ‘Little Mo’ retired from tennis seven months after a horse-riding accident.
22 Feb 1959     Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500.
22 Feb 1987     Andy Warhol died.
22 Feb 2017     Jay-Z became the first rapper to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
22 Feb 2008     Pamela Anderson divorced Rick Salomon just 2 months after getting married.
22 Feb 2018     Marit Bjoergen became the most successful Winter Olympic athlete of all time winning 15 medals.