On This Day

Larry Froeber/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images Six and a half months before Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, New York City’s Madison Square Garden hosted a rally to celebrate the rise of Nazism in Germany. Inside, more […]

On February 16, 1923, in Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen. Because the ancient Egyptians saw their pharaohs as gods, they carefully preserved […]

Future president Abraham Lincoln is born in Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809.  Lincoln, one of America’s most admired presidents, grew up a member of a poor family in Kentucky and Indiana. He attended school for only […]

On February 12, 2005, 7,503 orange curtains unfurl across New York City’s Central Park from thousands of gates. The art installation, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates,” will be gone by the end of the month, […]

Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, is released from prison after 27 years on February 11, 1990. In 1944, Mandela, a lawyer, joined the African National Congress (ANC), the oldest […]

On February 9, 1773, future President William Henry Harrison is born on the Berkeley Plantation in Virginia. Harrison went on to serve as the ninth U.S. president for a brief 32 days in 1841, the […]

Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images After 19 years of imprisonment, Mary, Queen of Scots is beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England for her complicity in a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth I. In […]

As the 40th president of the United States, the former movie star was called the “Great Communicator” for his ability to get through to ordinary Americans and give them hope and optimism for their own […]

The first organized immigration of freed enslaved people to Africa from the United States departs New York harbor on a journey to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa. The immigration was largely the work of […]

On February 3, 2005, Alberto Gonzales wins Senate confirmation as the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general despite protests over his record on torture. The Senate approved his nomination on a largely party-line vote of 60-36, […]