EVENTS
- 1925 – Franz Kafka publishes his landmark novel “The Trial”. The text, which was initially published as Der Process, is a nightmarish account of a man being arrested and prosecuted by a faceless authority for an unknown crime.
- 1933 – The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.
- 1937 – During the Spanish Civil War, the ancient town of Guernica was attacked by German warplanes. After destroying the town in a three hour bombing raid, the planes machine-gunned fleeing civilians.
Spanish Civil War - 1944 – Federal troops seized the Chicago offices of Montgomery Ward and removed its chairman after his refusal to obey President Roosevelt’s order to recognize a CIO union. The seizure ended when unions won an election to represent the company’s workers.
- 1962 – NASA’s Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
- 1986 – At the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, an explosion caused a meltdown of the nuclear fuel and spread a radioactive cloud into the atmosphere, eventually covering most of Europe. A 300-square-mile area around the plant was evacuated. Thirty one persons were reported to have died while an additional thousand cases of cancer from radiation were expected. The plant was then encased in a solid concrete tomb to prevent the release of further radiation.
- 1989 – Lucille Ball, of “I Love Lucy” fame, dies.
- 1989 – The deadliest tornado in history kills about 1300 people. The Daulatpur–Saturia Tornado devastated everything in its 50-mile long path across central Bangladesh.
- 1994 – South Africa holds its first multiracial elections.
- 1994 – Germany makes Holocaust denial illegal. The far-right party NPD had sought legitimation by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court for expressing the view that the Nazis’ genocide of six million Jews never occurred. The court ruled against them.
- 2005 – Syria ends its military occupation of Lebanon after 29 years. Syria buckled to domestic and international pressure following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14 of the same year.
BIRTHDAYS
- 121 – Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor)
Marcus Aurelius - 570 – Muhammed (Founder of Islam)
- 1785 – American artist and naturalist John J. Audubon (1785-1851) was born in Haiti
- 1822 – Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) was born in Hertfors, Connecticut
- 1889 – Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian/English philosopher)
- 1894 – Nazi Rudolf Hess (1894-1987) was born in Alexandria, Egypt
- 1932 – Israr Ahmed (Indian/Pakistani theologian, philosopher, scholar)
- 1933 – Carol Burnett (Comedienne)
- 1960 – Roger Taylor (Drummer)
- 1962 – Michael Damian (Singer)
- 1963 – Jet Li (Actor and martial arts expert)
DEATHS
- 1920 – Srinivasa Ramanujan (Indian mathematician)
- 1951 – Arnold Sommerfeld (German physicist)
- 1984 – Count Basie (American pianist, bandleader, composer)
- 1989 – Lucille Ball (American actress)
Lucille Ball - 1999 – Adrian Borland (English singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer)
