On February 23, 1974, a communiqué arrived with a demand as audacious as the crime that had preceded it. The self-styled Symbionese Liberation Army—an obscure, violent revolutionary collective barely known outside the Bay Area—announced it would require an additional $4 million in food distribution…
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During World War II, the Battle of Iwo Jima became one of the most intense and strategically significant confrontations in the Pacific Theater. Located roughly 750 miles from Japan’s mainland, this small volcanic island was of great importance to the United States. Its airfields…
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On February 22, 1371, the Scottish crown passed quietly—but decisively—into new hands. With the death of David II, son of Robert the Bruce, the direct Bruce line came to an end. Ascending in his place was his nephew, Robert II of Scotland, the first…
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On February 22, 1770, in Boston’s North End, what began as a small disturbance quickly turned into a pivotal tragedy that echoed across colonial America and hinted at the revolution to come. Ebenezer Richardson, a British customs officer already despised by locals, fired a…
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On February 21, 1848, a slim political pamphlet appeared in London that would reverberate across continents and centuries. Titled The Communist Manifesto, it was authored by two German intellectuals in exile—Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—and commissioned by a small revolutionary organization known as the…
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On February 21, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon undertook a groundbreaking journey that would reshape global geopolitics: his visit to the People’s Republic of China. This unprecedented diplomatic effort aimed to normalize relations between two nations that had been ideological rivals since the Communist…
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On February 20, 1943, The Saturday Evening Post published the first installment of what would become one of the most recognizable artistic statements of the Second World War: Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms.” Inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address,…
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On February 20, 1943, The Saturday Evening Post published the first of Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings, a series of illustrations inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address. In that speech, Roosevelt outlined his vision for a world based…
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On February 19, 1945, after days of relentless naval and aerial bombardment, approximately 30,000 United States Marines stormed the black volcanic beaches of Iwo Jima, a small, sulfur-scented island in the western Pacific that would become one of the bloodiest battlefields in American military…
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On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, granting the military broad authority to exclude individuals from designated areas. Though the order did not explicitly mention Japanese Americans, it became the legal basis for one of the most severe violations…
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