On the evening of February 15, 1898, the USS Maine, an American naval battleship, met a catastrophic fate in Havana Harbor, Cuba. A massive explosion tore through the vessel, obliterating its forward section and igniting a firestorm of speculation and accusation. The Maine had arrived three weeks…
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On February 14, 1849, in a New York City studio filled with harsh light and chemical fumes, a weary and soon-to-be former president sat motionless before a new and untested machine. In that moment, James K. Polk became the first sitting president of the…
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On February 14, 1779, British explorer and navigator Captain James Cook was killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawai‘i. His death marked a violent and symbolic end to a career that had significantly expanded European knowledge of the Pacific…
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On February 13, 1920, in a Kansas City YMCA, a group of Black baseball owners gathered under the leadership of Andrew “Rube” Foster and did something quietly revolutionary: they founded the Negro National League, the first successful, organized professional baseball league for African American…
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On February 13, 1914, a group of distinguished songwriters, composers, and music publishers gathered at the Hotel Claridge in New York City to establish the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). Their goal was both simple and groundbreaking: to protect the copyrights…
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On February 12, 1909—coinciding with the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth—a small but determined coalition of Black and white reformers gathered in New York City to launch what would become one of the most consequential civil rights organizations in American history: the National Association…
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On February 12, 1999, the United States Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton of impeachment charges, bringing an end to a highly contentious political and legal battle that had gripped the nation for over a year. Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, had…
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On February 11, 1979, the Iranian state collapsed—not gradually, not through constitutional maneuvering, but in a sudden, cascading failure that left one of the Middle East’s most powerful monarchies dissolved almost overnight. That day, revolutionary forces seized key military installations in Tehran, senior officers…
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The story is could be straight out of the movie Rocky as one of the greatest sports upsets of all time. On February 11, 1990, Buster Douglas took on Mike Tyson in Tokyo, Japan. Douglas, the challenger, was a monumental 42-1 underdog, facing the undefeated…
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On February 10, 1306, a killing inside a church in the Scottish border town of Dumfries turned a long, faltering resistance into an open revolution. Before the high altar of Greyfriars Church, Robert the Bruce struck down his political rival John Comyn. In medieval…
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