1519 – Hernán Cortés leaves Cuba for the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico with 11 ships and 500 men.
1678 – John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” is published in Holborn, London, by Nathaniel Ponder.
1861 – King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia becomes first King of Italy.
1885 – Mark Twain publishes the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in the US.
1917 – 1st major strike of the Russian “February Revolution” starts at the giant Putilov factory in Petrograd [NS=Mar 3].
1930 – Using a 13-inch (33-cm) telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Clyde W. Tombaugh, a 24-year-old American with no formal training in astronomy, discovered the dwarf planet Pluto this day in 1930.
1951 – Nepal becomes a constitutional monarchy
1964 – Papandreou government takes power in Greece
1965 – Church deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson is beaten and shot during a peaceful march in Marion, Alabama. His death 8 days later inspires the Selma to Montgomery marches.
1970 – US President Richard Nixon launches the “Nixon doctrine”
1975 – Italy broadens abortion law
1979 – Snow falls in Sahara Desert
2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison
2004 – Up to 295 people, including nearly 200 rescue workers, die near Neyshabur in Iran when a run-away freight train carrying sulfur, petrol and fertiliser catches fire and explodes.
2010 – A relatively obscure website called WikiLeaks publishes a leaked diplomatic cable detailing discussions between American diplomats and Icelandic government officials.
2014 – Ukrainian Revolution of 2014 begins as protesters, riot police and unknown shooters take part in violent events in the capital, Kiev, culminating after five days in the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.
2016 – Pope Francis questions US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s Christianity over his call to build a wall on the Mexican border
2018 – Syrian government forces begin a new offensive on Eastern Ghouta in Syria’s civil war
2019 – British parliamentary committee issues scathing report on Facebook, accusing company of breaking privacy laws, calling for new regulations
2020 – Boy Scouts of America files for bankruptcy amid hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits, suspending those claims
2020 – Swarms of desert locusts affecting east Africa reach South Sudan, threatening a food crisis
Births & Deaths: 1836 – Hindu religious leader Ramakrishna, who founded a school of thought that united diverse mystical traditions into a single belief system, was born in Hooghly, Bengal state, India.
1933 – Japanese artist and musician Yoko Ono, who became internationally famous as the wife and artistic partner of musician John Lennon, was born.
Music: 1968 – David Gilmour joins rock group Pink Floyd
