February 18th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 18th History Highlights

1865 – Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia, near the end of the Civil War.
1885 – Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published for the first time.
1929 – The first Academy Awards were announced in 1929 for 1928’s films.
February 18, 1966 Birthday (fictional) Jack Bauer, TV, 24
1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle had its maiden “test flight” on top of a Boeing 747.
If you were born on February 18th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 28th (prior year)

February 18th is…

Crab Stuffed Founder Day
National Battery Day
National Drink Wine Day
Thumb Appreciation Day

February 18th Birthday Quotes

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens- that letting go- you let go because you can.
– Toni Morrison

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
– Yoko Ono

The difference between getting somewhere and nowhere is the courage to make an early start. The fellow who sits still and does just what he is told will never be told to do big things.
– Charles M. Schwab

I have collected all the writings of the Empire and burnt those which were of no use.
– Qin Shi Huang

When I stood up there as a pinch hitter, I honestly believed I was the best hitter in the game. That’s the only attitude to have.
– Manny Mota

Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody.
– Helen Gurley Brown

God has given us our talents, not to copy the talents of others, but rather to use our brains and imagination in order to obtain the revelation of true beauty.
– Louis Comfort Tiffany

February 18th Birthdays

259 BC – Qin Shi Huang, Chinese emperor (died in 210 BC)
1559 – Isaac Casaubon, Swiss scholar (died in 1614)
1795 – George Peabody, American merchant and philanthropist (died in 1869)
1848 – Louis Comfort Tiffany, American stained glass artist (died in 1933)
1862 – Charles M. Schwab, American businessman, co-founded Bethlehem Steel (died in 1939)
1892 – Wendell Willkie, American politician (died in 1944)
1906 – Hans Asperger, Austrian pediatrician and academic (died in 1980)
1919 – Jack Palance, American actor (died in 2006)
1920 – Bill Cullen, American game show panelist and host (died in 1990)
1922 – Helen Gurley Brown, American journalist and author (died in 2012)
1922 – Allan Melvin, American character actor (died in 2008)
1925 – George Kennedy, American actor (died in 2016)
1927 – Luis Arroyo, Puerto Rican-American baseball player (died in 2016)
1931 – Johnny Hart, American cartoonist, co-created The Wizard of Id (died in 2007)
1931 – Toni Morrison, American novelist (died in 2019)
1932 – Miloš Forman, Czech-American actor, director, and screenwriter (died in 2018)
1933 – Yoko Ono, Japanese-American singer-songwriter
1938 – Manny Mota, Dominican baseball player,
1939 – Bobby Hart, American singer-songwriter
1941 – Irma Thomas, American singer
1950 – John Hughes, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died in 2009)
1950 – Cybill Shepherd, American actress
1952 – Juice Newton, American singer-songwriter
1954 – John Travolta, American actor
1957 – Vanna White, American model and game show host
1960 – Greta Scacchi, Italian-Australian actress
1964 – Matt Dillon, American actor
1965 – Dr. Dre (Andre Young), American rapper and producer
1968 – Molly Ringwald, American actress
1974 – Jillian Michaels, American fitness trainer and author
1980 – Regina Spektor, Russian-American singer-songwriter
1986 – Robert DeLong, American singer-songwriter

February 18th History

1856 – The “Know-Nothing Party,” convened in Philadelphia to nominate its first presidential candidate. The Know-Nothing movement began in the 1840s, when an increasing rate of immigration led to the formation of a number of groups to combat “foreign” influences in American society.

1861 – Jefferson Davis became the provisional president of the Confederate States of America. He was ‘provisional’ because he was not elected by the people, but appointed by the Confederate Congress.

1908 – The first US postage stamps in coils were available for the first time in vending machines.

1911 – The first official flight with airmail took place from Allahabad, United Provinces, British India (now India), when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivered 6,500 letters to Naini, about 6 miles away.

1913 – Pedro Lascuráin becomes President of Mexico for 45 minutes, the shortest term to date of any person as president of any country.

1921 – The Colorado River was not the original name of the river that helped split the Grand Canyon. Before February 18th of this year, it was called the Grand River.

1930 – A cow named Ollie was milked over St. Louis, MO. Her milk was cartoned and parachuted down.

1930 – Ex-planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh.

1948 – Broadway Show – Mister Roberts (Play) February 18, 1948

1950 – #1 Hit February 18, 1950 – March 17, 1950: Red Foley – Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy

1954 – The first Church of Scientology was established in Los Angeles.

1956 – #1 Hit February 18, 1956 – February 24, 1956: Kay Starr – Rock And Roll Waltz

February 18, 1966 Birthday (fictional) Jack Bauer, 24, TV

1978 – The first Ironman Triathlon competition took place on the island of Oahu and was won by Gordon Haller.

2001 – Racecar legend Ralph Dale Earnhardt was killed in a crash in the last lap of the Daytona 500 . Michael Waltrip (who was Earnhardt’s driver) won the race.

2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

2010 – WikiLeaks published the first of hundreds of thousands of classified documents disclosed by the American soldier now known as Chelsea Manning.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Astronaut John Glenn ate the first meal in space when he ate pureed applesauce squeezed from a tube aboard Friendship 7 in 1962.

Pope John Paul II – Real Name: Carol Wojtila

The ice cream soda was invented in 1874 by Robert Green, in Philadelphia.

“It was beauty killed the beast.” – Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) #moviequotes

The word “mesmerize” comes from the name of a German physician and hypnotist named Franz Mesmer who developed the theory of animal magnetism and used it as a healing practice.

2000 mockingbirds: 2 kilo mockingbirds

Each frame of the CGI scenes in James Cameron’s, “Avatar” (1/24 of a second) took an average of 47 hours to render.

Because of how heavy an average car is, one car is technically a ton, even tons, of traffic.

Daniel Radcliffe went through 160 pairs of prop glasses by the end of the Harry Potter series.

The ‘Hamster Dance’ song is a sped up version of ‘The Walking Song’ from Disney’s 1973 film, Robin Hood.

I’m Pet Sitting for Schrodinger. His cat is currently hiding behind all couches in existence and won’t come out. Do I just have to coax just one of them out or am I in big trouble?

‘The Bride of Frankenstein’ never killed anyone.

“Musicogenic Epilepsy” is a rare disease that makes you have a seizure whenever you hear your favorite music

Garfield the Cat is named after Jim Davis’s grandfather, who in turn was named after US President James A. Garfield.

Autodefenestration is the act of throwing ones self out a window.

Meat Loaf’s album “Bat Out of Hell” has sold more than 43 million copies worldwide and continues to sell an estimated 200,000 copies annually nearly 40 years after it was released.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to age yourself up when asked how old you are? That way people would say “damn you look good for 81, Joe.”

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February 18, 2026

February 17 in Pop Culture History

February 17th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 17th History Highlights

1865 – Columbia, South Carolina surrendered to General Sherman’s Union forces. Fort Sumpter was also returned to Union control.
1897 – The National Parent Teacher Association was formed.
1929 – The League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was founded.
February 17, 1936 – The Phantom, Comic Strip debuted.
If you were born on February 17th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 27th (prior year)

Now You Know…

Sonicare did a poll about toothbrushes in 2007. They found out that 54% of Americans would use the toothbrush after it fell on the floor.

9% said they would use it after it fell in a toilet.

February 17th is…

Café au Lait Day (Coffee with Milk Day)
Human Spirit Day
National Cabbage Day
Public Science Day
Random Acts of Kindness Day

February 17th Birthday Quotes

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”
– Michael Jordan

“If you listen to the fans, you’ll be sitting up there with them.”
– Buddy Ryan

“If you’re going to put yourself above everybody else, you might end up alone.”
– Joseph Gordon-Levitt

“Whenever you have a tight situation and there’s a close pitch, the umpire gets a squawk no matter how he calls it.”
– Walter ‘Red’ Barber

“My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning.”
– Huey P. Newton

“I think it will be found that experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably confirms its truth.”
– Thomas Malthus

“The way I see it, you should live every day like it’s your birthday.”
– Paris Hilton

“There are always two or three or four sides to every story.”
– Denise Richards

February 17th Birthdays

1766 – Thomas Malthus, English demographer (died in 1834)
1843 – Aaron Montgomery Ward, American businessman, founded Montgomery Ward (died in 1913)
1881 – Mary Carson Breckinridge, American nurse-midwife, founded Frontier Nursing Service (died in 1965)
1888 – Otto Stern, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died in 1969)
1908 – Walter ‘Red’ Barber, American sportscaster (died in 1992)
1908 – Buster Crabbe, American Olympian and actor (died in 1983)
1920 – Annie Glenn (Castor), American disability and communication disorder advocate
1920 – Curt Swan, comic book illustrator (died in 1996)
1922 – Tommy Edwards, American R&B singer-songwriter (died in 1969)
1925 – Hal Holbrook, American actor
1931 – (James David) Buddy Ryan, American football coach (died in 2016)
1934 – Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage), Australian comedic actor
1937 – Mary Ann Mobley, American model and actress, Miss America 1959 (died in 2014)
1940 – Gene Pitney, American singer-songwriter (died in 2006)
1942 – Huey P. Newton, American activist, co-founded the Black Panther Party (died in 1989)
1957 – Loreena McKennitt, Canadian singer-songwriter
1962 – Lou Diamond Phillips, American actor
1963 – Michael Jordan, American basketball player
1963 – Larry the Cable Guy (Daniel Whitney), American comedian
1965 – Michael Bay, American director and producer
1971 – Denise Richards, American model and actress
1972 – Billie Joe Armstrong, American singer-songwriter
1974 – Jerry O’Connell, American actor
1981 – Joseph Gordon-Levitt, American actor, director, and producer
1981 – Paris Hilton, American model, media personality
1983 – Kevin Rudolf, American singer-songwriter
1991 – Ed Sheeran, English singer-songwriter

February 17th History

1600 – Giordano Bruno, an early ‘Free Thinker‘ born in 1548, was burned at the stake.

1621 – Myles Standish was appointed as the first commander of the English Plymouth Colony in North America.

1859 – Dmitri Mendeleev began creating what we now call The Periodic Table.

1863 – A group of citizens of Geneva, Switzerland, founded an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

1904 – Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly premiered at the La Scala theatre in Milan, Italy. It was one of the first worldwide pop culture event ‘hits’.

1933 – The magazine Newsweek was published for the first time. Newsweek ceased print publication with the December 31, 2012 issue.

1933 – Blondie Boopadoop married Dagwood Bumstead in Chic Young’s popular comic strip, Blondie.

February 17, 1936 – The Phantom, Comic Strip

1953 – Bwana Devil, an early 3D movie, was released in theaters.

1958 – Pope Pius XII designated St. Clare of Assisi the patron saint of television.

1959 – Vanguard 2 – The first weather satellite, was launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.

1965 – Joan Rivers made her first guest appearances on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.

1968 – The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opened in Springfield, MA

1972 – With the 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle coming off the assembly line, the VW Beetle broke the world car production record held for more than four decades by the Ford Motor Company’s Model T, which was in production from 1908 and 1927.

1979 – A Prairie Home Companion premiered on Minnesota Public Radio.

1995 – Colin Ferguson was convicted of the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings and received a 200+ year sentence to jail

1996 – In the final game of a six-game match, world chess champion Garry Kasparov defeated Deep Blue, IBM’s chess-playing computer, and won the match, 4-2. But in 1997, Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in a rematch.

2001 – #1 Hit February 17, 2001 – February 23, 2001: Outkast – Ms. Jackson

2009 – 368 US Television stations permanently shut off their analog transmission signals, becoming digital.

February 17, 2012 – Radio Rebel aired on The Disney Channel

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Tom and Jerry were originally called Jasper And Jinx.

“The rest of you can kiss my ass” – James Allen Red Dog (said after apologizing to his family before lethal injection in Delaware) #LastWords #Delaware

The Capital of Uzbekistan is Tashkent

I just realized Miss Piggy is a plus-sized pig who craves attention. AKA a “huge ham”.

A Bible was printed with a typo in 1631, which told Christians to commit adultery… It was known as the ‘Wicked Bible’.

A group of Dolphins is called a Pod.

101 Dalmatians, Peter Pan, Lady, and the Tramp, and Mulan are among the only Disney cartoons where both parents are present and don’t die throughout the movie.

If you like to take photos for the sake of memorization, take photos of things you see every day once in a while. #SmellTheRoses

Whoopi Goldberg – Real Name: Caryn Johnson

Isaac Newton, who revolutionized mathematics and physics, spent almost as much time writing about and studying alchemy, and firmly believed in its viability as a science.

“Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” – John Keating (Robin Williams) #moviequotes

The lint that collects in the bottom of your pockets has a name, ‘gnurr’.

You’ve probably never heard the number 4,138,352,490 said or used in any way, as well as nearly all other numbers.

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” – Lena Horne

The Internet is MUCH more powerful than the pen or the sword. AND, it’s irrational.

Phony Bologna REALLY shouldn’t rhyme.

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February 17, 2026

February 16 in Pop Culture History

February 16th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 16th History Highlights

1923 – In Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter entered the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen. He had been looking for King Tut’s tomb since his first trip to Egypt in 1891. The outer chambers were discovered in November 1922.
1959 – Fidel Castro became the Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown (on January 1).
February 16, 1967 Birthday (fictional) Phoebe Buffay, Friends, TV
2005 – The Kyoto Protocol came into force.
If you were born on February 16th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 26th (prior year)

February 16th is…

Do a Grouch a Favor Day
National Almond Day
National Innovation Day

February 16th Birthday Quotes

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
– Henry Adams

“Be authentic to your dreams. Be authentic to your own idea about yourself. Grind away at your own minds and bodies until you become your own invention. Be Mad Scientists.”
– Warren Ellis

“There’s a saying among prospectors: ‘Go out looking for one thing, and that’s all you’ll ever find.”
– Robert Joseph Flaherty

“It’s not about division. It’s not about politics. My concern is how do we come together?”
– LeVar Burton

“We believe a scientist because he can substantiate his remarks, not because he is eloquent and forcible in his enunciation. In fact, we distrust him when he seems to be influencing us by his manner.”
– Ivor Armstrong Richards

“Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”
– Henry Adams

“Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?”
– Edgar Bergen

“Heroism is endurance for one moment more.”
– George F. Kennan

“It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.”
– Warren Ellis

February 16th Birthdays

1838 – Henry Brooks Adams, American historian (died in 1918)
1843 – Henry M. Leland, American engineer and businessman, founded Cadillac and Lincoln (died in 1932)
1866 – ‘Sliding’ Billy Hamilton, American baseball player (died in 1940)
1878 – Pamela Colman Smith, English occultist and illustrator (died in 1951)
1884 – Robert Joseph Flaherty, American ‘Father of the Documentary Film’ (died in 1951)
1893 – Ivor Armstrong Richards, English Author (died in 1979)
1901 – Wayne King, American singer-songwriter and conductor (died in 1985)
1903 – Edgar Bergen, American actor and ventriloquist (died in 1978)
1904 – George Keenan, American diplomat (died in 2005)
1909 – Hugh Beaumont, American actor (died in 1982)
1914 – Jimmy Wakely, American country music singer-songwriter (died in 1982)
1920 – Anna Mae Hays, American general (died in 2018)
1931 – Otis Blackwell, American singer-songwriter and pianist (died in 2002)
1935 – Sonny Bono, American actor, singer, and politician (died in 1998)
1952 – William Katt, American actor
1952 – James Ingram, American singer-songwriter (died in 2019)
1954 – Margaux Hemingway, American model and actress (died in 1996)
1957 – LeVar Burton, German-born American actor, director, and producer
1958 – Ice-T (Tracy Lauren Marrow), American rapper and actor
1961 – Andy Taylor, English singer-songwriter and guitarist
1968 – Warren Ellis, English comic book author
1972 – Jerome Bettis, American football player and sportscaster
1982 – Lupe Fiasco, American rapper

February 16th History

1852 – Studebaker Brothers wagon company was established.

1883 – Ladies Home Journal magazine began publication.

1894 – Gunslinger John Wesley Hardin is pardoned after spending 15 years in a Texas prison for murder. Hardin shot and killed a man just for snoring, by firing through the wall at the sleeping snorer.

1923 – Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

1959 – Fidel Castro was sworn in as prime minister of Cuba after leading a Communist guerrilla campaign that forced dictator Fulgencio Batista into exile.

1960 – The U.S.S. Triton began the first circumnavigation of the globe underwater and finished on May 10.

1964 – The Beatles appeared in the Ed Sullivan Show for the second time.

1968 – Haleyville, Alabama was the first town to use the 911 emergency number.

1980 – #1 Hits February 16, 1980 – February 22, 1980: Captain & Tennille – Do That to Me One More Time

1983 – The Ash Wednesday brushfires in Southern Austalia took the lives of 71 people, becoming Australia’s worst fire ever.

1985 – #1 Hit February 16, 1985 – March 8, 1985: Wham! featuring George Michael – Careless Whisper

2005 – The National Hockey League canceled the entire 2004-2005 regular season and playoffs.

2006 – The last Mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) was decommissioned by the United States Army.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

The first VHS release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1990 retailed for $89.95.

Progress is made by lazy men looking for an easier way to do things.

If alien life is ever discovered, ‘aliens don’t exist’ will become the new popular conspiracy theory.

The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde were both released on May 16, 1966.

“Say ‘hello’ to my little friend!” – Tony Montana (Al Pacino) #moviequotes

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” #songlyrics

I have loads of fun doing laundry.

“I am Groot” – Groot (Vin Diesel) #moviequotes

Pedro López, a South American serial killer confirmed to have killed 110 people and confessed to having killed more than 300 between 1969 and 1980, was released in 1998 on good behavior. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Groucho Marx – Real Name: Julius Marx

A group of Minnows is called a Shoal or Steam or Swarm.

“Well, when I see 5 weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of the park in full view of 100 people, I shoot the bastards. That’s my policy.” – Frank Drebin #moviequotes

The Capital of the Philippines is Manila

The biggest film of 1979: Kramer vs. Kramer (Drama) earned ~ $106,000,000

A group of Lions is called a Pride or Sault or Troop.

If you are taking your toddler to a crowded place like a market or a theme park, tie a helium balloon to their wrist. If they get lost you will see the balloon from a distance and in a crowd. #LifeProTip

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February 16, 2026

February 15 in Pop Culture History

February 15th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 15th History Highlights

1898 – The American battleship Maine was blown up at Havana Harbor (Cuba), leading to the Spanish-American was on April 25, 1898.
1946 – ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
2013 – Asteroid 2012 DA14 (150 feet long) passed with 18,000 miles of Earth. In an unrelated event, another meteor (estimated 50 feet in diameter) exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia that same day.
If you were born on February 15th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 25th (prior year)

February 15th is…

Annoy Squidward Day
I Want Butterscotch Day
Lupercalia
National Gumdrop Day
National Hippo Day
Singles Awareness Day

February 15th is National Gumdrop Day in the United States. It is a day to celebrate the sweet and chewy candy known as gumdrops. The origins of the holiday are not clear. Still, it could have been created by candy manufacturers or gumdrop enthusiasts to promote the candy and encourage people to enjoy it. It’s a day to indulge in different varieties of gumdrops or make your gumdrop recipe; it’s also a way to remind us of the sweet things in life.

Gumdrops are a type of candy that are made from a mixture of sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin, which gives them their chewy texture. The mixture is typically flavored with various fruit flavors and food coloring is added to give them their bright colors. The mixture is then poured into molds in the shape of small, round candies. The candies are then dusted with granulated sugar to prevent sticking and left to dry for several hours or overnight. Sugar-free and natural gumdrops are also made with natural sweeteners and food coloring.

February 15th Birthday Quotes

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
– Galileo Galilei

“Comics are a gateway drug to literacy.”
– Art Spiegelman

“Indomitable perseverance in a business, properly understood, always ensures ultimate success.”
– Cyrus McCormick

“I am not a hero. I just did what any decent person would have done.”
– Miep Gies

“The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows because it always coincides with their own desires.”
– Susan B. Anthony

“Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals … except the weasel.”
-Matt Groening

“In 1908, you could easily earn $20 to $200 as a cartoonist. What’s amazing is that it’s still true!”
– Art Spiegelman

“Funny is when you’re serious.”
– Harvey Korman

“I can only speak from my own personal experience, being behind the camera and in front of it, but every magazine cover you see is completely airbrushed.”
– Janice Dickinson

February 15th Birthdays

1564 – Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer, physicist, and mathematician (died in 1642
1797 – Henry E. Steinway, German-American businessman, founded Steinway & Sons (died in 1871)
1803 – John Sutter, owned the property that started The Calfornia Gold Rush (died in 1880)
1809 – Cyrus McCormick, American and businessman, co-founded International Harvester (died in 1884)
1812 – Charles Lewis Tiffany, American jeweler (died in 1902)
1820 – Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist and activist (died in 1906)
1892 – James Forrestal, American politician, 1st United States Secretary of Defense (died in 1949)
1905 – Harold Arlen, American songwriter (died in 1986)
1907 – Cesar Romero, American actor (died in 1994)
1909 – Miep Gies (Hermine Santruschitz), Austrian/Hungarian citizen, protected Anne Frank’s family and held Anne’s diary (died in 2010)
1910 – Irena Sendler, Polish social worker who saved 2,500 Jewish children from Warsaw (died in 2007)
1927 – Harvey Korman, American comedic actor (died in 2008)
1948 – Art Spiegelman, Swedish-American cartoonist
1951 – Jane Seymour, English-American actress
1954 – Matt Groening, American animator, producer, and screenwriter
1955 – Janice Dickinson, American model
1964 – Chris Farley, American comedic actor (died in 1997)
1967 – Jane Child, Canadian singer-songwriter
1971 – Renee O’Connor, American actress
1972 – Jaromír Jágr, Czech ice hockey player

February 15th History

1758 – Mustard was first advertised for sale in America, by Benjamin Jackson, in Philadelphia, PA.

1764 – The city of St. Louis was established in Spanish Louisiana (now in Missouri, USA).

1879 – US President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

1898 – An explosion sank the battleship, USS Maine, in Cuba’s Havana harbor, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American crew members aboard, sparking the Spanish-American war.

1903 – The first Teddy Bear was introduced in Brooklyn, NY.

1932 – George Burns and Gracie Allen debuted as regulars on The Guy Lombardo Show on CBS radio.

1950 – Disney’s Cinderella cartoon feature opened in theaters. It was one of the biggest films of the year and was theatrically re-released several times- 1957, 1965, 1973, 1981, and 1987.

1953 – The first American to win the women’s world figure skating championship was 17-year-old Tenley Albright.

1958 – #1 Hit February 15, 1958 – March 21, 1958: Elvis Presley – Don’t / I Beg Of You

1961 – The whole 18-member U.S. figure skating team was killed in a plane crash in Berg-Kampenhout, Belgium. The team was on its way to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

1965 – The flag we know today, the red and white maple leaf was designed as the new flag of Canada. Prior to that, the official flag was Britain’s Union Jack.

1975 – #1 Hit February 15, 1975 – February 21, 1975: Linda Ronstadt – You’re No Good

1986 – #1 Hit February 15, 1986 – February 29, 1986: Whitney Houston – How Will I Know

1992 – Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison.

2001 – The first draft of the complete human genome was published in Nature.

2003 – It was estimated that between 8,000,000-30,000,000 people in 600 cities worldwide… the protest of the Iraq War was the largest protest in the history of the world.

2005 – YouTube was activated online.

2013 – A meteor exploded in the sky over Russia’s Ural Mountains, near Chelyabinsk, shattering glass and setting off car alarms for miles. Also, asteroid DA14 came with 18,000 miles of Earth.

February 15, 2484 Birthday (fictional) Zoe Alleyne, Firefly, TV

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Useless Pronunciation: E as in Eureka

The biggest film of 1980: Star Wars Ep. V: The Empire Strikes Back (Sci Fi) earned ~ $290,000,000

A group of Leopards is called a Leap.

You would think that the Death Star, of all things, would have had even a basic level of IT security. But no, a common droid resembling a garbage can just be plugged right in and had access to everything on the network.

Behind every successful student, there is a deactivated Facebook account.

“I’ll be back.” – The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in Terminator, The Terminator, 1984

Janet Leigh – Real Name: Jeanette Morrison

Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn was a baseball pitcher and Hall of Famer became the first person to be captured on camera giving the middle finger, on Opening Day 1886 team photo of Boston Beaneaters.

One TeraKelvin (1,000,000,000,000 K) is the melting temperature of a proton.

The shellfish in the logo used by Royal Dutch Shell is based on a giant scallop and the colors used are thought to relate to the colors of the flag of Spain.

There are no recorded deaths of persons 118, 120, or 121 years old, though there are 23 at 115, 7 at 116, 3 at 117, one at 119, and one at 122.

You are a conglomeration of eleven different elements… a miracle of a being, yet you still spend 99.99% of your time reading stuff like this on online.

“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” – Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) #moviequotes

Hello Kitty has an identical twin sister named Mimmy.

The biggest film of 1952: The Greatest Show on Earth earned ~ $36,000,000

“Accelerating at 1G toward the center of the earth” sounds a lot more interesting than “laying on the couch doing nothing”

You catch more flies with honey, and more honeys by being fly.

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 15, 2026

February 14 in Pop Culture History

February 14th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 14th History Highlights

1849 – The first photograph of a US President, James Polk, was taken in Washington, DC.
1920 – The League of Women Voters formed in Chicago, IL.
1929 – Four men came in, dressed as police at Bugsy Moran’s headquarters on North Clark Street in Chicago, killing seven of Bugs’s men in what is called the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Moran was a rival of Al Capone.
1930 – The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett was published.
1946 – The ENIAC Computer was introduced.
If you were born on February 14th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 24th (prior year)

Valentine’s Day

Everybody loves Valentine’s Day. Well, everybody that has a significant other is supposed to love Valentine’s Day. Either way, it is another excuse for people to spend all day eating chocolate, and who could contest that?

Many think Valentine’s Day is just a day commemorating Cupid and his little arrow of love, but there’s a little bit more mystery to it than that. There is more than one Saint Valentine recognized by the Catholic Church, so, which one started the whole day of romance and flowers?

One legend of Valentine is he was a Roman priest who served during the third century. At this time, Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage because he thought single men made better soldiers. Valentine was appalled by this and thought it would be best to keep performing marriages for young couples in love. When the emperor found out about what Valentine was doing behind his back, he had Valentine put to death. Not the greatest end to a story about love.

It is said Valentine sent love letters to a young, blind girl from prison, who visited him while he was there. Supposedly he signed each letter, “From your Valentine.” Sound familiar?

While it is true that February 14th is the day all Valentines were martyred, some say Valentine’s Day is in February because in ancient Rome it is the official beginning of spring, a time of cleansing and purification. The middle of February was also the time of a Christian fertility festival called Lupercalia.

Around 498 AD Pope Gelasius declared February 14th Valentine’s Day. Later, in France and England during the Middle Ages, February 14th was believed to be the first day of bird mating season. (How romantic!) But that also added to the whole notion of a day of love.

According to the History Channel, Valentine’s Day became popular in Great Britain around the 17th century. Exchanging handwritten notes of affection became popular in the 18th century, and by the 19th century printed cards were available to send. Currently, it is approximated by the Greeting Card Association that one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide.

If you ever wondered why everywhere you look on Valentine’s Day there are hearts all around, it’s because it’s a belief in the Christain faith that the heart is the seat of all emotions, especially love. And since love is the dominant feeling of the day, the heart is now a great symbol of the holiday.

SAD – Singles Awareness Day

You may not know it, but there is a different side to Valentine’s Day wonder. It is called Singles Awareness Day, also known as SAD. Although this holiday is usually celebrated on February 15th, it can also be celebrated on the 13th or 14th.

This holiday lets people know that it’s ok to be single, and why not celebrate it?! The tradition is for singles to get together, go to dinner, bars, or even a movie. (It’s usually preferable that you get together with more than one other single.) However, other activities may include: sending yourself flowers/chocolates, planning a party for singles to mix and meet, or possibly sitting home alone eating popcorn and watching The Notebook. The choice is yours.

The holiday was originally created for February 14th, but who wants to celebrate being single on a day that celebrates love, relationships, and matrimony? So for all you singles out there, work up the strength to sit it out for one day, and then CELEBRATE YOUR SINGLENESS!!

Greatest Love Letter of All Time? (To Jane)

I am Tarzan of the Apes.
I want you. I am yours. You are mine.
We live here together always in my house. I will bring you the best of fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats that roam the jungle. I will hunt for you. I am the greatest of the jungle fighters. I will fight for you. I am the mightiest of the jungle fighters. You are Jane Porter, I saw it in your letter.
When you see this you will know that it is for you and that Tarzan of the Apes loves you.

February 14th is…

Ferris Wheel Day
Cream-filled Chocolate day
National (Organ) Donor Day
Pet Theft Awareness Day
Read To Your Child Day
Saint Valentine’s Day

National Organ Donor Day is dedicated to raising awareness and celebrating those who have offered the gift of life by donating their organs. It serves as an important reminder that organ donation can save lives, and it’s an opportunity for us all to make a difference.

Organ donation is one of the most generous gifts we can give — it’s the ultimate act of kindness and generosity. But despite its potential to help so many people, there are still not enough donors in the United States. Only about half of Americans are registered as organ donors. This means more than 100,000 people are waiting for transplants that may never come because there aren’t enough organs available.

February 14th Birthday Quotes

“Everything good that happened to me happened by accident.”
– Jack Benny

“I learned that I never really know the true story of my guests’ lives, that I have to content myself with knowing that when I’m interviewing somebody, I’m getting a combination of fact and truth and self-mythology and self-delusion and selective memory and faulty memory.”
– Terry Gross

“Some things you don’t need until they leave you; they’re the things that you miss.”
– Rob Thomas

“Comedy itself is based upon very old principles of which I can readily name seven. They are, in short: the joke, exaggeration, ridicule, ignorance, surprise, the pun, and finally, the comic situation.”
– Jack Benny

“I was in the right place at the right time.”
– Mel Allen

“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.”
– John Barrymore

“I used to lie in bed in my flat and imagine what would happen if there was a zombie attack.”
– Simon Pegg

February 14th Birthdays

1824 – Winfield Scott Hancock, American general and politician (died in 1886)
1838 – Margaret E. Knight, American inventor (died in 1914)
1859 – George Ferris, American engineer and inventor, created the Ferris Wheel (died in 1896)
1882 – John Barrymore, American actor (died in 1942)
1894 – Jack Benny, American comedic actor (died in 1974)
1913 – Mel Allen, American sportscaster (died in 1996)
1929 – Vic Morrow, American actor (died in 1982)
1941 – Donna Shalala, American politician
1942 – Michael Bloomberg, American businessman and politician
1944 – Carl Bernstein, American journalist and author
1946 – Gregory Hines, American actor, singer, and dancer (died in 2003)
1947 – Tim Buckley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died in 1975)
1948 – Pat O’Brien, American journalist
1951 – Terry Gross, American radio host
1957 – Alan Hunter, American television host and actor
1960 – Meg Tilly, American actress
1968 – Jules Asner, American model and television host
1970 – Simon Pegg, English actor, director and producer
1972 – Rob Thomas, American singer-songwriter
1977 – Jim Jefferies, Australian comedian
1988 – Katie Boland, Canadian actress
1992 – Freddie Highmore, English actor

February 14th History

278 – Valentine, a priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was beheaded for performing (illegal at the time) marriage ceremonies.

1779 – Captain James Cook, the great English explorer, and surveyor in the Royal Navy, was murdered by natives of Hawaii during his third visit to the Pacific island group.

1822 – The patent (#X003456) was issued for the first practical grass mowing machine to Jeremiah Bailey of Chester county, Pennsylvania.

1876 – Both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied for a telephone patent. Alexander’s was later approved.

1903 – The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (it was later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor).

1912 – Arizona was admitted as the 48th state of the United States.

1920 – The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago.

1921 – Birthday (fictional) Skeezix Wallett, a character in Gasoline Alley comic strip

1929 – Sir Alexander Fleming left a plate of staphylococcus bacteria uncovered, and noticed the mold had killed much of the bacteria. He identified the mold as penicillium notatum, and shortened the name to Penicillin.

1932 – The US team won the first bobsled competition at the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, NY.

1938 – Former silent film actress Hedda Hopper began her gossip column in The Los Angeles Times.

1949- The Knesset (parliament of Israel) convened for the first time.

1954 – The TV show Letter to Loretta changed its name to The Loretta Young Show. The show premiered on September 20, 1953.

1961 – Element 103, Lawrencium, was first synthesized at the University of California.

1962 – First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave a tour of the White House on CBS television.

1968- Broadway Show – Plaza Suite (Play) February 14, 1968

1970 – Live at Leeds by The Who was recorded.

1970 – #1 Hit February 14, 1970 – February 27, 1970: Sly & the Family Stone – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) / Everybody Is a Star

1972 – Broadway Show – Grease (Musical) February 14, 1972

1987 – #1 Hit February 14, 1987 – March 13, 1987: Bon Jovi – Livin’ On A Prayer

1989 – Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. It was rescinded in 1998.

1989 – Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

1998 – #1 Hit February 14, 1998 – February 27, 1998: Usher – Nice And Slow

2000 – NEAR Shoemaker became the first spacecraft to orbit around an asteroid, 433 Eros

2002 – The final Family Guy episode aired after Fox announced its cancellation. It came back after DVD sales indicated a huge audience for the show.

2004 – #1 Hit February 14, 2004 – February 20, 2004: Outkast featuring Sleepy Brown – The Way You Move

2005 – Youtube.com was launched.

February 14, 2006 – The Apple MacBook Pro was released.

February 14, 2010 – Starstruck aired on The Disney Channel

February 14, 2016 (fiction) Pris was incepted, Blade Runner, Film

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

To let a fool kiss you is stupid. To let a kiss fool you is worse.

Ben Franklin’s 13 Virtues #4 – Resolution.
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Harpo Marx – Real Name: Adolph Marx

Characters having no peripheral vision whatsoever. #actionmoviecliches

Frosty wasn’t a living snowman, he was a sentient hat controlling a snowman.

“I like rich people. I like the way they live. I like the way I live when I’m with them.” – Max, in The Sound of Music #moviequotes

An individual horse has a peak power output of 14.9 horsepower.

“Yeah… that’s the ticket” – Jon Lovitz as the pathological liar, Tommy Flanagan (Saturday Night Live)

Grandma Moses – Real Name: Anna Mary Robertson

Progressive auto insurance’s Flo is actress Stephanie Courtney.

“Just hold me two seconds, then drop me so I can kiss the ground.” – Dale Arden

Lincoln Logs were created by John Lloyd Wright, son of the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Peter Venkman, Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zedmore were the original Ghostbusters.

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February 14, 2026

February 13 in Pop Culture History

February 13th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 13th History Highlights

1741 – American Magazine was first published. It was America’s first magazine.
1861 – Colonel Bernard Erwin earned the first Medal of Honor, America’s highest military honor.
February 13, 1937 – Prince Valiant, Comic Strip debuted
1943 – Dresden, Germany was firebombed, killing an estimated 135,000 people.
1961 – The Coso Artifact was discovered, a 1920s era spark plug, supposedly found in a 500,000-year-old rock.
If you were born on February 13th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 23rd (prior year)

February 13th is…

Dream Your Sweet Day
Madly in Love with Me Day
National Crab Rangoon Day
National Tortellini Day
National Wingman’s Day
World Whale Day
World Radio Day

February 13th is not particularly significant in the history of radio. World Radio Day celebrated on February 13th, is a relatively recent creation, first celebrated in 2012. The day was proclaimed by UNESCO to recognize the importance of radio as a medium for information, education, and entertainment and to celebrate the role of radio in bringing people together and promoting understanding.

February 13th Birthday Quotes

“Life is what it is, and you take what’s handed, and you work as hard as you can, and hopefully you’ll be successful, but I just don’t spend too much time worrying about that.”
– Jerry Springer

“Let them think what they think. Nobody doesn’t get stereotyped. Nobody doesn’t get scorned. Everybody’s bad news in somebody’s life.”
– Peter Tork

“I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.”
– Henry Rollins

“I’ve liked lots of people ’til I went on a picnic jaunt with them.”
– Bess Truman

“You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.”
– Chuck Yeager

“In love, there are no penalties and no payments, and what is given is indistinguishable from what is received.”
– Eleanor Farjeon

“One thing that really appeals to me is this idea of music being a living thing that has an evolution that, in a way, enables the artist to sell a process rather than a piece of product.”
– Peter Gabriel

“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.”
– Henry Rollins

February 13th Birthdays

1881 – Eleanor Farjeon, English Author (died in 1965)
1883 – Hal Chase, American baseball player and manager (died in 1947)
1885 – Bess Truman, American wife of US President Harry S Truman (died in 1982)
1891 – Grant Wood, American painter (died in 1942)
1892 – Robert Jackson, American lawyer (died in 1954)
1919 – Tennessee Ernie Ford, American singer and actor (died in 1991)
1919 – Eddie Robinson, American college basketball coach (died in 2007)
1923 – Chuck Yeager, American general and pilot, the first pilot to break the sound barrier (died in 2020)
1933 – Kim Novak, American actress
1934 – George Segal, American actor
1941 – Bo Svenson, Swedish-American actor
1942 – Carol Lynley, American model and actress (died in 2019)
1942 – Peter Tork, American singer-songwriter, bass player and actor (died in 2019)
1944 – Stockard Channing, American actress
1944 – Jerry Springer, English-American television host
1946 – Richard Blumenthal, American politician
1950 – Peter Gabriel, English singer-songwriter and musician
1957 – Denise Austin, American fitness trainer
1961 – Henry Rollins, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor
1968 – Kelly Hu, American actress
1974 – Robbie Williams, English singer-songwriter
1979 – Mena Suvari, American actress

February 13th History

1633 – Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome to face charges of heresy by the Catholic Church for advocating Copernican theory, which held that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

1689 – William and Mary were proclaimed co-rulers of England.

1741 – The first magazine was published in America – The American Magazine.

1866 – Jesse James committed the first daylight armed bank robbery in the United States during peacetime, at the Clay County Savings Association in the town of Liberty, Missouri

1895 – Oscar Wilde’s final play, The Importance of Being Earnest, opened at the St. James’ Theatre in London.

1906 -The patent (#812,554) was issued to Alfred Einhorn for his synthesis of procaine, which was given the tradename of Novocain.

1914 -The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP ) was established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

February 13, 1937 – Prince Valiant, Comic Strip

1946 – The world’s first electronic digital computer, ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was first demonstrated at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.

1961 – #1 Hit February 13, 1961 – February 26, 1961: Lawrence Welk – Calcutta

1965 – Sixteen-year-old Peggy Fleming won the ladies’ senior figure skating title at Lake Placid, NY.

February 13, 1967 – CBS’s As The World Turns was the first Soap Opera to broadcast in color.

1971 – #1 Hit February 13, 1971 – March 19, 1971: The Osmonds – One Bad Apple

1993 – Double Dare game show ended.

1999 – #1 Hit February 13, 1999 – March 12, 1999: Monica – Angel Of Mine

2000 – Two days after Charles M Schulz died, February 11, the last original Peanuts comic strip was printed in newspapers.

2002 – Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

2004 – Astronomer Travis Metcalfe of the Harvard – Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics believed he discovered the largest diamond in the known universe at the center of the white dwarf star, BPM 37093. Observations claim that the core of the star is a diamond crystal 4000 km in diameter.

February 13, 2015 – Bad Hair Day aired on The Disney Channel

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

There are two kinds of people who don’t say much: Those who are quiet and those who talk a lot.

Leather armor is the best for stealth because it is made of hide.

“That’s odd…” #famouslastwords

PD James – Real Name: PD White

From my Idea Book: Bring back Nahuatl, Latin, and Aramaic back as languages taught for credit in schools.

“Where’s the beef?” – Wendy’s ad

When someone throws a no-hitter, why is it that we’re excited for them instead of disappointed for all the guys who failed to get a hit?

The Capital of Vanuatu is Port-Vila

Alliumphobia is the fear of garlic. #vampireshaveit

The highest-grossing film never to reach number one on the U.S. charts was “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” (2002) $241,438,208.

Stir-fry cooks come from all woks of life.

“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” – Margo Channing (Bette Davis)

If I can make a few people smile or laugh by saying some dumb stuff on the Internet, then that’s good enough for me.

‘Piloerection’ is the medical term for goosebumps.

“I let out a battle cry. Sure, a lot of people might have mistaken it for a sudden yelp of unmanly fear, but trust me. It was a battle cry.” – Jim Butcher

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February 13, 2026

February 12 in Pop Culture History

February 12th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 12th History Highlights

1733 – James Oglethorpe founded Georgia, the 13th colony of the Thirteen Colonies, by settling at Savannah.
1870 – Women were granted the right to vote in the Utah Territory.
1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida Wells-Barnett and others.
1999 – The US Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton after he was impeached by the US House of Representatives.
If you were born on February 12th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 22nd (prior year)

February 12th is…

Hug Day
Lost Penny Day
National Plum Pudding Day
Oglethorpe Day (in Georgia)
Paul Bunyan Day
Safety Pup Day

February 12th Birthday Quotes

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“History is the story of events, with praise or blame.”
– Cotton Mather

“Success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion, and cannot be achieved except by a dint of hard work.”
– Anna Pavlova

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
– Charles Darwin

“Most people think they know the answer. I am willing to admit I don’t even know the question.”
– Arsenio Hall

“I’m satisfied and proud of the things I did – even the bumps and the bruises that I’ve had on the way. You fall down, you get up, you brush yourself off and you keep going. And that’s what we’re doing.”
– Gucci Mane

“Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.”
– Omar Nelson Bradley

“The ancient Egyptians used to say: if you say a man’s name, he is alive. I take this opportunity to say, Jim Morrison.”
– Ray Manzarek

February 12th Birthdays

1606 – John Winthrop the Younger, English-American colonist lawyer and politician, Governor of Connecticut (died in 1676)
1663 – Cotton Mather, North American Puritan minister (died in 1728)
1809 – Charles Darwin, English geologist and theorist (died in 1882)
1809 – Abraham Lincoln, American politician, 16th President of the United States (assassinated in 1865)
1834 – Paul Bunyan, Giant American lumberjack, fictional: possibly based on Fabian Fournier (1845 – 1875)
1876 – 13th Dalai Lama (died in 1933)
1880 – John L. Lewis, American miner and union leader (died in 1969)
1881 – Anna Pavlova, Russian ballarina (died in 1931)
1893 – Omar Nelson Bradley, American general (died in 1981)
1898 – Roy Harris, American composer (died in 1979)
1904 – Ted Mack, American radio and television host (died in 1976)
1914 – Tex Beneke, American singer, saxophonist, and bandleader (died in 2000)
1915 – Lorne Greene, Canadian-American actor (died in 1987)
1919 – Forrest Tucker, American actor (died in 1986)
1930 – Arlen Specter, American politician (died in 2012)
1938 – Judy Blume, American author
1939 – Ray Manzarek, American singer-songwriter, keyboard player (died in 2013)
1945 – Maud Adams, Swedish model and actress
1950 – Michael Ironside, Canadian actor
1956 – Arsenio Hall, American comedic actor and talk show host
1968 – Josh Brolin, American actor
1968 – Chynna Phillips, American singer
1973 – Tara Strong, Canadian voice actress
1979 – Jesse Spencer, American actress
1980 – Sarah Lancaster, American actress
1980 – Christina Ricci, American actress
1980 – Gucci Mane (Radric Delantic Davis), American rapper
1988 – Mike Posner, American singer-songwriter

February 12th History

Feb 12 is Darwin Day, named after the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth (Feb 12, 1813)

881 – Charles the Fat was declared the Holy Roman Emperor.

1855 – Michigan State University was established.

1870 – Women were given the right to vote, in Utah.

1879 – The first artificial ice rink opened in Madison Square Garden in NYC.

1898 – The first car crash resulting in a fatality happened to Henry Lindfield, in England.

1914 – The first stone of Washington DC’s Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

1924 – Rhapsody In Blue, by George Gershwin, performed for the first time at the Aeolian Hall in New York City. Paul Whitman conducted the now-classic piece of American music.

1931 – Dracula premiered in theaters.

1935 – The patent (#1,991,236) was issued to Robert Jemison Van de Graaff for his Electrostatic Generator.

1940 – Mutual Radio presented the first broadcast of The Adventures of Superman.

1955 – #1 Hit February 12, 1955 – March 25, 1955: The McGuire Sisters – Sincerely

1963 – Construction began on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

1972 – #1 Hit February 12, 1972 – February 18, 1972: Al Green – Let’s Stay Together

1985 – East End Show – Me and My Girl (Musical) February 12, 1985

1999 – President Bill Clinton was acquitted on both articles of impeachment against him: perjury and obstruction of justice.

2004 – The city and county of San Francisco began to issue a marriage license to same-sex couples

2004 – Mattel officially announced the split of Barbie and Ken

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

It’s amazing to think that humans started off bashing rocks together, and now we have superconducting magnets cooled to near-absolute-zero smashing rocks together at close to the speed of light.

The Capital of Poland is Warsaw

Biggest film of 1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Action/Adventure) earned ~ $248,000,000

“Airplane!” (1980) is a remake of a serious 1957 TV movie called “Zero Hour”. The producers actually bought the rights to it.

A group of Bananas is called a Bunch.

The most complex object in the known universe is sitting right inside your skull.

Victoria Island, Canada’s 2nd largest island, the world’s 8th largest, and that it contains the world’s largest island within an island within an island.

Biggest film of 1950: Cinderella (Drama) earned ~ $85,000,000

“In a world full of people only some want to fly, isn’t that crazy?” #songlyrics

I don’t recall the last time I clicked “Next Page” on a Google search.

Every single person you meet knows something that you don’t.

George C. Scott refused the 1970 Academy Award for best actor for his portrayal of Patton because he believed every dramatic performance is unique and cannot be compared.

Gene Wilder – Real Name: Jerome Silberman

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

“Put that coffee down. Coffee’s for closers only.” – Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross #moviequotes

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February 12, 2026

February 11 in Pop Culture History

February 11th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 11th History Highlights

1790 – The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitioned the US Congress for the abolition of slavery.
1872 – Japan began celebrating National Foundation Day (founded in 660 BC). It was banned after WWII but revived in 1966.
1945 – The Yalta Agreement was signed between Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin.
1990 – Nelson Mandela was released from prison, serving 27 years of a life sentence.
If you were born on February 11th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 21st (prior year)

February 11th is…

Get Out Your Guitar Day
International Day of Women and Girls in Science
National Make a Friend Day
National Pro Sport’s Wives Day
National Shut-in Visitation Day
Peppermint Patty Day
Promise Day
White (T) Shirt Day

White T-Shirt Day

Today is White Shirt Day, a day when UAW members honor the workers who participated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936 and 1937. This was a time of great struggle for labor unions, as they faced constant opposition from business owners and politicians who saw them as a threat to the status quo. In the face of brutal working conditions, low wages, and anti-union sentiment, men and women in Flint came together to orchestrate a historic sit-in that would change the course of labor history.

On February 11th, 1937, the United Autoworkers Union secured a contract with General Motors that gave all GM employees pay raises and lunch breaks. This historic event is celebrated each year on February 11th as Labor Rights Day. Following the sit-in, workers began wearing white shirts every February 11th to show their solidarity and support for labor rights.

The Flint Sit-Down Strike was a turning point for the labor movement, as it showed that workers could successfully fight back against corporate greed and win better working conditions and fair wages. The victory of the Flint strikers inspired other workers across the country to stand up for their rights, and helped pave the way for the passage of important labor legislation like the National Labor Relations Act.

February 11th is Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day, a reminder not to get too upset over small mistakes or problems. It encourages people to move on and not dwell on minor setbacks. The saying “don’t cry over spilled milk” is often used to convey that it is not worth getting upset over something that can’t be changed and that one should focus on moving forward instead.

February 11 Birthday Quotes

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
– Thomas Edison

“It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.”
– Sheryl Crow

“I was sixteen years old when the first World War broke out, and I lived at that time in Hungary. From reading the newspapers in Hungary, it would have appeared that whatever Austria and Germany did was right and whatever England, France, Russia, or America did was wrong. A good case could be made out for this general thesis, in almost every single instance. It would have been difficult for me to prove, in any single instance, that the newspapers were wrong, but somehow, it seemed to me unlikely that the two nations located in the center of Europe should be invariably right, and that all the other nations should be invariably wrong. History, I reasoned, would hardly operate in such a peculiar fashion, and it didn’t take long until I began to hold views that were diametrically opposed to those held by the majority of my schoolmates.”
– Leó Szilárd

“You do not send me to Brooklyn to get a cheesecake and then I come back and you’re gone.”
– Brandy

“You can only hold your stomach in for so many years.”
– Burt Reynolds

February 11th Birthdays

1802 – Lydia Maria Child, American writer and abolitionist (died in 1880)
1847 – Thomas Edison, American engineer and businessman (died in 1931)
1898 – Leó Szilárd, Hungarian-American physicist (died in 1964)
1909 – Max Baer, American boxer and actor (died in 1959)
1917 – Sidney Shelton, American television producer and novel writer (died in 2007)
1919 – Eva Gabor, Hungarian-American actress and socialite (died in 1995)
1925 – Virginia E. Johnson, American psychologist and academic (died in 2013)
1926 – Leslie Nielsen, Canadian-American actor (died in 2010)
1934 – Tina Louise, American actress
1935 – Gene Vincent, American singer and guitarist (died in 1971)
1936 – Burt Reynolds, American actor (died in 2018)
1941 – Sérgio Mendes, Brazilian pianist and composer
1953 – Jeb Bush, American politician
1956 – Catherine Hickland, American actress
1961 – Carey Lowell, American model and actress
1962 – Sheryl Crow, American singer-songwriter
1964 – Sarah Palin, American politician
1967 – Ty Treadway, American actor and talk show host
1969 – Jennifer Aniston, American actress
1974 – D’Angelo, American singer-songwriter
1979 – Brandy (Norwood), American singer
1981 – Kelly Rowland, American singer-songwriter
1982 – Natalie Dormer, English actress
1984 – Aubrey O’Day, American singer-songwriter
1991 – Georgia May Foote, English actress
1992 – Taylor Lautner, American actor

February 11th History

660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.

1534 – Henry VIII of England was recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.

1752 – The first hospital in the United States, Pennsylvania Hospital, opened.

1808 – As an experiment, anthracite coal was burned as fuel by Judge Jesse Fell in Pennsylvania.

1812 – Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry ‘gerrymandered’ for the first time.

1858 – Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, a 14-year-old French peasant girl, first claimed to see a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes, France. In 1933, she was canonized as St. Bernadette by the Roman Catholic Church.

1928 – The La-Z-Boy reclining chair was invented by Ed Shoemaker.

1929 – The Vatican was officially independent of Italy with the Lateran Treaty.

1939 – Nature published a theoretical paper on nuclear fission by Lise Meitner and Otto Fritsch.

1940 – NBC radio debuted The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street.

1963 – The French Chef, starring Julia Child debuted on WGBH in Boston, MA.

1971 – 87 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, signed the Seabed Arms Control Treaty, outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor in international waters.

1979 – Broadway Show – They’re Playing Our Song (Musical) February 11, 1979

1989 – Rev. Barbara Harris became the first woman to be consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

1989 – #1 Hit February 11, 1989 – March 3, 1989: Paula Abdul – Straight Up

1990 – Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, was released from prison after 27 years

1990 – Buster Douglas (40 to 1 odds against him winning) defeated Mike Tyson, to become the new undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

1994 – #1 Hit February 12, 1994 – March 11, 1994: Celine Dion – The Power Of Love

1994 – The ‘rBGH’ genetically engineered growth hormone for cows goes on sale to dairy farmers under the name Posilac, made by Monsanto. It was the first time altered genes were allowed into live animals.

2006 – Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot his friend Harry Whittington while the two were hunting together.

2011 – #1 Hit February 19, 2011 – February 25, 2011: Wiz Khalifa – Black and Yellow

2012 – Singer Whitney Houston died in a hotel bathtub, the result of accidental drowning. Heart disease and cocaine, which was found in her system, were determined to be contributing factors.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

The Capital of Vatican City (Holy See) is Vatican City

“There are just two things that can make you famous… being noble or notorious.” – Ram Mohan

“Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!” – “Gold Hat” (Alfonso Bedoya) in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948

“Humor is also a way of saying something serious.” – T.S. Eliot

The First Rick Roll: Micheal Jackson’s “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” was taken off of first place on the 1987 British singles chart by Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”

Someday I’ll refer to synthetic constructs as ‘artificial intelligence’ and my grandchildren will cringe, even though they’ll know it’s just the label I grew up with, and that I’m not being hateful.

Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

TV Quotes… “This is the city …” (Sgt. Joe Friday) on “Dragnet”

Seal – Real Name: Seal Henry Samuel

The Scary Statistic: Fireworks Discharge severe injury odds: 1-in-615,488
What to do: This one is easy, and just four words: Armored asbestos bodysuit.

“House Music” received its name from its place of origin, The Warehouse club opened in Chicago in 1977.

Star Wars & Wizard of Oz: Each has a protagonist who leaves their home planet and is called to defeat a villain. They make friends (C3PO-The Scarecrow – Chewbacca – The Lion – Han Solo-The Tin Man), get trapped in the enemy base, and disguise themselves as the enemy guard to rescue a damsel in distress.

A cookie you eat while baking cookies is a “Cooking Cookies Cookie.”

On average, there are 178 sesame seeds on each McDonalds BigMac bun.

The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory, a Toy Chemistry Lab from the 1950s, included radioactive elements such as Polonium-210 and Uranium Ore.

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 11, 2026

February 10 in History

February 10th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 10th History Highlights

1897 – ‘All The News That’s Fit To Print’ – the phrase appeared permanently on the front page of The New York Times.
1949 – Death of a Salesman by American playwright Arthur Miller, opened at the Morocco Theatre in New York City.
1967 – The 25th Amendment was ratified, regarding US Presidential succession.
2007 – Illinois senator Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president in the 2008 elections.
If you were born on February 10th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 20th (prior year)

Now You Know…

Jimmy Durante’s NOSE was insured for $50,000, a lot of money in the 1940s.

National Umbrella Day

February 10th marks a unique and often overlooked celebration – National Umbrella Day. While many might not associate a specific day with this everyday item, the humble umbrella deserves its spotlight. National Umbrella Day reminds us of the ingenious invention that has shielded us from rain and the sun for centuries.

The origins of National Umbrella Day are shrouded in mystery, much like the protective canopies themselves. However, what is certain is the impact that umbrellas have had on our lives. Historically, the umbrella has evolved from a symbol of nobility to a common accessory used by people worldwide. Its practicality in shielding us from the elements has made it indispensable in our daily lives.

Beyond its utilitarian function, the umbrella has also found its way into popular culture, becoming a symbol of romance in classic movies and literature. Who can forget the iconic “Singin’ in the Rain” scene where Gene Kelly twirls an umbrella while dancing in the rain? This special day is an opportunity to appreciate not only this invention’s functionality but also its artistry and symbolism.

The Teddy Bear (Teddy Day)

The Teddy Bear appeared in a shop window in Brooklyn, New York, on February 15, 1903, but the story of the cuddly toy began a few months before that.

It really started when President Theodore Roosevelt took up an invitation to go bear hunting, in Mississippi with the Governor of the state, Andrew Longino, in November 1902. I can tell you two things about President Teddy Roosevelt – 1. He hated being called Teddy, and 2. he was an avid hunter – he had trophies and hunted for both meat and sport. That first day of his hunting trip, he was really disappointed because he and the governor didn’t find any Bears, but the governor DID NOT want to disappoint the President, so he had the hunting guide go out and find a bear, which he did. He found an old bear and tied it to a tree; they brought the president, but he didn’t want to hunt a trapped bear – it was unsportsmanlike.

Whenever any President does anything, it’s kind of newsworthy, and Clifford Berryman, a cartoonist heard the story, made the old bear a cub, and made a cartoon of Teddy freeing a Bear Cub from a tree. The cartoon made the rounds and inspired Morris Michtom and his wife Rose, to make a little toy bear cub, just to decorate the window of their hand-made toy shop. Most toys were handmade still in the early 1900s. A bunch of people offered to buy it, but he didn’t sell it right away. He actually sent it to the President and asked permission to sell what he called The Teddy Bear. Teddy Roosevelt approved, with no strings attached, so the Mitchums started making them, and put them on sale.

The Teddy Bear really represented the start of more than just the first stuffed non-human toy with arms and legs, it changed the whole toy industry. The earliest toys were usually something with wheels, a ball, a human baby doll, or sports-oriented. In 1892, there was a cat toy, basically the outline of a cat with stuffing, called Ithaca Cat (US patent 483727A). It was more like a shaped pillow, they still make reproductions today. That caused a mini-craze for other stuffed pillow toys like bunnies, kittens, puppies, and the Teddy Bear came out at just about the right time.

The stuffed Bear was the biggest toy of the last century. Change a few things, and give the bear a personality, and the toy becomes Winnie The Pooh, or Paddington Bear, Teddy Ruxpin, The Care Bears, or Corduroy. Teddy Bears introduced the whole idea of anthropomorphic toys- animals having human features and personalities.

The Mitchums went on to found the IDEAL Toy Company, which up until Barbie & GI Joe, was the largest Toy Company in the World. IDEAL is also the company that gave us The Rubik’s Cube in the 1980s. If the Michtoms didn’t start by giving us the Teddy Bear, we’d probably still be rolling hoops (hooping) with a stick like people did for most of the past 2000 years.

February 10th is…

Cream Cheese Brownie Day
National Flannel Day
Teddy Day

February 10th Birthday Quotes

“Be nice to people on your way up, because you’re going to meet them all on your way down.”
– Jimmy Durante

“Our theater must stimulate a desire for understanding, a delight in changing reality. Our audience must experience not only the ways to free Prometheus but be schooled in the very desire to free him. Theater must teach all the pleasures and joys of discovery, all the feelings of triumph associated with liberation.”
– Bertolt Brecht

“I believe that cruelty, spite,
The powers of darkness will in time
Be crushed by the spirit of light.”
– Boris Pasternak

“Do you know somethin’, man? Someday I’m gonna be walkin’ up the street one way and you’re gonna be comin’ down the other way, and we’re gonna pass each other and I’m gonna say ‘Hello, best white band in the world’ and you’re gonna say ‘Hello, best colored band in the world.”
– Chick Webb (to bandleader Artie Shaw)

“If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.”
– Mark Spitz

“So see every opportunity as golden, and keep your eyes on the prize – yours, not anybody else’s. Remember: Always walk in the light. And if you feel like you’re not walking in it, go find it. Love the light.”
– Roberta Flack

“You don’t have to run away from life your whole life. You can really live. You can change. And you can be an agent of change.”
– Laura Dern

“Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is believing you’re worthy of the trip.”
– Glenn Beck

“What I’ve really learned over time is that optimism is a very, very important part of leadership.”
– Robert Iger

February 10th Birthdays

1775 – Charles Lamb, English poet and essayist (died in 1834)
1824 – Samuel Plimsoll, English politician, ‘The Sailor’s Friend’ (died in 1898)
1883 – Edith Clarke, American electrical engineer (died in 1959)
1890 – Boris Pasternak, Russian writer (died in 1890)
1893 – Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and pianist (died in 1980)
1898 – Dame Judith Anderson, English actress (died in 1992)
1898 – Bertolt Brecht, German playwright, co-wrote The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill (died in 1956)
1905 – Chick Webb, American drummer and bandleader (died in 1939)
1906 – Lon Chaney Jr., American actor (died in 1973)
1929 – Jerry Goldsmith, American composer and conductor (died in 2004)
1930 – Robert Wagner, American actor
1937 – Roberta Flack, American singer-songwriter
1944 – Peter Allen, Australian singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (died in 1992)
1946 – Donovan Leitch, Scottish singer
1950 – Mark Spitz, American swimmer
1951 – Robert (Bob) Iger, American media executive
1955 – Jim Cramer, American television personality and pundit
1963 – Lenny Dykstra, American baseball player
1964 – Glenn Beck, American journalist, producer, and author
1967 – Vince Gilligan, American director, producer, and screenwriter
1967 – Laura Dern, American actress
1974 – Elizabeth Banks, American actress
1991 – Emma Roberts, American actress
1997 – Chloë Grace Moretz, American actress

February 10th History

1355 – In Oxford, England, a dispute between 2 Oxford students and a Tavern Keeper over the quality of his drinks escalated into the St Scholastica Day riot between Oxford students and locals citizens where 63 students and 30 locals were killed.

1763 – The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War and France ceded Canada to England.

1840 – Queen Victoria and her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha, married. They had 9 children – Victoria, Bertie, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold, and Beatrice.

1863 – General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren were married in NYC.

1870 – The YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) was formally founded in New York City.

1923 – Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas

1933 – In Round 13 of an infamous boxing match at Madison Square Garden; Primo Carnera knocked out Ernie Shaaf, killing him.

1933 – The singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegraph Company of New York City.

1940 – Cartoon characters Tom and Jerry made their debut with Puss Gets the Boot.

1942 – The first gold record was presented to Glenn Miller for Chattanooga Choo Choo for selling 1.2 million copies. There was no official ruleset at the time to qualify.

1953 – Romper Room premiered, in syndication.

1956 – My Friend Flicka debuted on CBS

1962 – Roy Lichtenstein’s first solo art exhibition opened at the Castelli Gallery in NYC.

1962 – The Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for the Soviet spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abe with the US.

1966 – Ralph Nader, the author of Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, testified before Congress for the first time about unsafe practices in the auto industry.

1968 – #1 Hit February 10, 1968 – March 15, 1968: Paul Mauriat – Love Is Blue

1976 – Sesame Street episode #847 featured Margaret Hamilton reprising her role as the Wicked Witch of the West from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It scared children so badly that the episode has never been re-aired.

1979 – #1 Hit February 10, 1979 – March 9, 1979: Rod Stewart – Da Ya Think I’m Sexy

1990 – #1 Hit February 10, 1990 – March 2, 1990: Paula Abdul & The Wild Pair – Opposites Attract

1992 – Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black American contestant.

February 10, 1992 Birthday (fictional) Tyler Lockwood, Vampire Diaries, TV

1993- Oprah Winfrey interviewed Michael Jackson at his home The Neverland Ranch. It was Jackson’s first televised interview since 1979.

1996 – World chess champion Gary Kasparov lost the first game of a six-game match against Deep Blue. He won three and tied twice in the matchup.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

I’m going for a walk because I want to stay healthy. I’m also taking along a pack of M&M’s because let’s be honest here…

“A friend of mine went to buy some long underwear. The shopkeeper asked him, ‘How long do you want it?’ ” – Uncle Albert #moviequotes

Geronimo – Real Name: Goyathlay

Only about 9 or 10 grandpas ago they were just discovering North America.

In the word queue, the “ueue” is silent.

“Hated it!” – Men on Film’s Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier (In Living Color) #TVQuotes

“No comment” – Edward Abbey (the writer who was asked if he had any last words, the phrase is also engraved on his tombstone) #LastWords

Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan are the only two Doubly Landlocked countries in the world.

Like 90% of what the Dog Whisperer does involves modifying the behavior of the people who own the dogs, not the dogs themselves. He should be called The Human Whisperer.

All bicycles weigh 50 pounds: A 30-pound bicycle needs a 20-pound lock and chain.
All bicycles weigh 50 pounds: A 40-pound bicycle needs a 10-pound lock and chain.
All bicycles weigh 50 pounds: A 50-pound bicycle needs no lock or chain.

“When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead.” – Barney Stinson

Rock band Journey never had a No. 1 hit single on the U.S. Billboard top 40.

A group of Tigers is called a Streak or Ambush.

The planet Venus is nearly identical in size to Earth, their radius’ differ in size by only 201 miles, with Earth being the larger.

If the force of every step I took for the rest of my life was all combined, it would probably be powerful enough to destroy a mountain. #toomuchtimeonmyhands

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 10, 2026

February 9 in Pop Culture History

February 9th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 9th History Highlights

1864 – 109 Union Officers escaped from Libby Prison in Virginia.
1943 – The Allies retook Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Island, a major victory in WWII.
1964 – The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, with 73,000,000 viewers, a record at that time. There were 728 people in the studio audience.
If you were born on February 9th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 19th (prior year)

Pizza Pie Day

Naples, Italy is often credited as the birthplace of pizza. Though flatbreads with toppings were consumed by ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks, Naples took the simple dish and turned it into an art form. The first pizzas were made in the 1700s and early 1800s by Naples’ working poor, or lazzaroni. These pies were typically very thin-crusted and loaded with fresh ingredients like tomatoes, mozzarella, olives, and anchovies.

Today, pizza is enjoyed all over the world and comes in many different varieties. Whether it’s a classic Margherita or something more adventurous like Pizza Hawaii, there’s a slice for everyone. So the next time you’re feeling hungry, why not grab a pizza? You won’t be disappointed.

Some popular pizzas include:

Pepperoni Pizza
Hawaiian Pizza (heavily debated)
BBQ Chicken Pizza
Meat Lover’s Pizza
Veggie Pizza
Garlic Parmesan Pizza

Chocolate Day

We all know that chocolate is a delicious treat, but did you know that the ancient Mayans were the first to make it into a drink? This sweet but bitter foodstuff was reserved for royalty and consumed with dignity as they could afford only luxuries like this. The Olmecs of Mexico’s south discovered how to make cocoa beans into a beverage around 1500 BC – over 3500 years ago! From there it spread throughout South America before making its way northward towards Peru.

There are many stories about how chocolate made its way around the world. One story says Christopher Columbus discovered cacao beans after intercepting a trade ship on a journey to America and brought the beans back to Spain with him in 1502. Another tale states Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes was introduced to chocolate by the Aztecs of Montezuma’s court. After returning to Spain, cacao beans in tow, he supposedly kept his chocolate knowledge a well-guarded secret. A third story claims that friars who presented Guatemalan Mayans to Philip II of Spain in 1544 also brought cacao beans along as a gift.

Swiss chocolatiers created milk chocolate in 1875. Prior to that, all chocolate was dark chocolate. In Europe chocolate was once considered an aphrodisiac. More chocolate is consumed in the United States than in any other country. Antioxidants in cocoa can improve cardiovascular health. Cocoa also contains flavonoids which can improve cognitive function chocolate has been shown to reduce stress levels and help you feel happier.

Fun Facts about this delicious treat:

The word “chocolate” comes from the Nahuatl word “xocolātl,” meaning “bitter water.”
Chocolate was originally used as a currency by the Aztecs.
Cocoa beans were so valuable that they were used as dowries to pay for brides.
Chocolate is the second most popular food in the world, after rice.
Chocolate contains antioxidants that can improve your cardiovascular health.
Chocolate also contains flavonoids, which can improve your cognitive function.
Chocolate has been shown to reduce stress levels and help you feel happier.

February 9th is…

Chocolate Day
National Develop Alternative Voices Day
National Toothache Day
Pizza (Pie) Day
Read in a Bathtub Day

February 9th Birthday Quotes

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
– Thomas Paine

As human beings, why does it take somebody to feel like they’re close to us for us to see their humanity? Why can’t we see the humanity in people that are distant from us?
– Michael B. Jordan

You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I’ll come runnin’ to see you again
Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall,
All you have to do is call
And I’ll be there
You’ve got a friend.
– Carole King

He knew he was good but did he know he was the best ever? Did he know he taught millions of artists how to dream? He never repeated a drawing. He always created anew, discovering again and again what it meant to create, to be a true artist that copied no one, not even himself. A world without Frank Frazetta makes no sense. No one like him will ever appear again. Remember him well.
– Ralph Bakshi’ on Frank Frazetta.

It’s not what you do. It’s the way you do it-stripping or writing or talking… or just breathing. Do it with air, and never admit you’re scared.
– Gypsy Rose Lee

The real danger of writing a great song when you’re on something is that it might get you thinking that the only way to repeat that is by only writing when you’re high.
– Barry Mann

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
– Thomas Paine

In this life, to earn your place you have to fight for it.
– Shakira

Too many managers manage by what the postgame press conference is going to be.
– John Kruk

February 9th Birthdays

1737 – Thomas Paine, English-American philosopher, author, and activist (died in 1809)
1773 – William Henry Harrison, American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (died in 1841)
1800 – Hyrum Smith, American religious leader (died in 1844)
1874 – Amy Lowell, American poet, critic and educator (died in 1925)
1892 – Peggy Wood, American actress (died in 1978)
1914 – Gypsy Rose Lee (Rose Louise Hovick), American burlesque entertainer (died in 1970)
1914 – Ernest Tubb, American singer-songwriter (died in 1984)
1928 – Frank Frazetta, American painter and illustrator (died in 2010)
1939 – Barry Mann, American pianist, songwriter, and producer
1942 – Carole King, American singer-songwriter
1943 – Barbara Lewis, American soul/R&B singer-songwriter
1943 – Joe Pesci, American actor
1945 – Mia Farrow, American actress
1946 – Jim Webb, American politician
1949 – Judith Light, American actress
1954 – Jo Duffy, American comic book writer
1957 – Terry McAuliffe, American politician
1961 – John Kruk, American baseball player and sportscaster
1963 – Travis Tritt, American country singer
1977 – Shakira Ripoll, Columbian singer
1979 – Ziyi Zhang – Chinese actress
1979 – Mema Suvari, American actress
1981 – Tom Hiddleston, English actor
1987 – Michael B. Jordan, American actor
1992 – Avan Jogia, Canadian actor

February 9th History

1825 – The U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president since no candidate had received a majority of electoral votes.

1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis was elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.

1870 – The weather service, now named the National Weather Service (NWS) was authorized by Congress.

1889 – The United States Department of Agriculture was established

1895 – William G. Morgan, a Holyoke, MA, YMCA physical education director, invented the game of volleyball.

1900 – The Davis Cup tennis competition was established.

1902 – Doctor Eugène-Louis Doyen of Paris, performed a successful operation separating Siamese freakshow twins (Radhika and Dodika), from the Barnum and Bailey Circus, apart.

1913 – The 1913 Great Meteor Procession took place over the eastern section of North America.

1942 – ‘War Time’ Daylight-savings went into effect in the US.

1957 – #1 Hit February 9, 1957 – March 1, 1957: Elvis Presley – Too Much

1960 – Adolph Coors was kidnapped and later killed by Joe Corbett while driving to work from his Morrison, Colorado, home.

1961 – The Beatles debuted at Liverpool’s Cavern.

1963 – #1 Hit February 9, 1963 – March 1, 1963: Paul & Paula – Hey Paula

1964 – The Beatles appeared in the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.

1969 – The Boeing 747 flew its inaugural flight.

1971 – Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1974 – #1 Hit February 9, 1974 – March 1, 1974: Love Unlimited Orchestra – Love’s Theme

1986 – Halley’s Comet last appeared in the inner Solar System, next appearing in 2061.

1991 – #1 Hit February 9, 1991 – February 22, 1991: C+C Music Factory featuring Freedom Williams – Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)

1997- The Simpsons made television history with their episode “The Itchy, Scratchy and Poochie Show” which they then surpassed the Flintstones as the longest-running prime-time cartoon series in terms of episodes aired.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Showgirls still holds the record for most Razzie nominations with 13.

One of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World: Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in Iraq?, referred to in the mid 500s BC

“I’m walking here! I’m walking here!” – “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) in Midnight Cowboy, 1969

In the scene in “Alien” when the alien pops out of John Hurt’s stomach, the actors were not told it was going to happen.

John Williams, the person who composed the scores of Star Wars and Harry Potter, also composed and conducted the music of Home Alone.

Biggest film of 1982: ET: The Extra-Terrestrial (Drama) earned ~ $435,000,000

Marvel’s Deadpool Wade Wilson was originally created as a spoof of DC’s Deathstroke Slade Wilson.

“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

There’s no money in scientific data gathering, there’s lots of money in data interpretation, and there’s ungodly money in data distortion.

“The time to change was yesterday; the time to wake up is now.” – Judge Judy

A group of Eagles is called a Convocation or Aerie.

This generation won’t have old school cool… they’ll have an old school selfie. Or worse, old school duckface.

Orgasmatron – from Woody Allen’s SLEEPER. A sex machine

The pound/hashtag sign # is called an Octothorp.

More Pop Culture History Resources

February

February 9, 2026

February 8 in Pop Culture History

February 8th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 8th History Highlights

1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots was executed by beheading, for plotting the death of Queen Elizabeth I.
1851 – Portland (The City of Roses) was incorporated in Oregon.
1887 – The Dawes Act authorized the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments.
1922 – President Warren G. Harding brought the first radio set in the White House.
If you were born on February 8th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 18th (prior year)

February 8: National Boy Scout Day

This day is set aside to honor those who embody the traits of being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. The Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910 by American William D. Boyce and has helped shape many of our nation’s leaders. These young men have learned to become responsible citizens and are prepared to lead successful lives. We salute all Boy Scouts for their dedication to service and for always living up to the motto: “Be Prepared.”

National Kite-Flying Day

Kite-flying has a rich history, dating back over 2,000 years to ancient China. Legend has it that a Chinese farmer tied a string to his hat to keep it from blowing away in the wind. Inspired by how it floated, he attached a bamboo frame and paper to create the first kite. From this humble beginning, kites evolved into a form of entertainment, recreation, and even military use in various cultures.

February 8 was chosen as National Kite-Flying Day to honor Sir George Cayley, an English engineer and aviation pioneer credited with significantly advancing the design and understanding of kites and gliders in the 19th century. His contributions laid the foundation for modern aviation.

Families and friends gather in parks, open fields, and beaches on this special day, showcasing vibrant kites of all shapes and sizes. The sky transforms into a kaleidoscope of colors as kites of every hue dance and weave through the air. It’s a spectacle that captivates both young and old, fostering a sense of camaraderie and shared joy.

Participating in National Kite-Flying Day is not just about the thrill of watching a kite soar high; it’s also an opportunity for creativity and self-expression. Many kite enthusiasts take pride in designing and crafting their kites, turning the day into a showcase of artistic ingenuity.

February 8th is…

Boy Scouts Day
Laugh and Get Rich Day
National Fly A Kite Day
National Molasses Bar Day

February 8th Birthday Quotes

“There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.”
– Kate Chopin

“There’s a very basic human, non-verbal aspect to our need to make music and use it as part of our human expression. It doesn’t have to do with body movements, it doesn’t have to do with articulation of a language, but with something spiritual.”
– John Williams

“Without John Williams, bikes don’t really fly, nor do brooms in Quidditch matches, nor do men in red capes. There is no Force, dinosaurs do not walk the Earth, we do not wonder, we do not weep, we do not believe.”
– Steven Spielberg

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
– Martin Buber

“There’s no greater way to gain an audience’s sympathy than by being unfortunate.”
– Seth Green

“Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality.”
– John Ruskin

“Man’s constitution is so peculiar that his health is purely a negative matter. No sooner is the rage of hunger appeased than it becomes difficult to comprehend the meaning of starvation. It is only when you suffer that you really understand.”
– Jules Verne

February 8th Birthdays

1591 – Guercino, Italian painter (died in 1666)
1819 – John Ruskin, English writer (died in 1900)
1828 – Jules Verne, French author, poet, and playwright (died in 1905)
1850 – Kate Chopin, American author (died in 1904)
1978 – Martin Buber, Austrian-Jewish philosopher (died in1965)
1899 – Lonnie Johnson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died in 1970)
1914 – Bill Finger, American comic author and illustrator, co-created Batman (died in 1974)
1918 – Freddie Blassie, American wrestler and manager (died in 2003)
1921 – Lana Turner, American actress (died in 1995)
1922 – Audrey Meadows, American actress (died in 1996)
1925 – Jack Lemmon, American actor (died in 2001)
1931 – James Dean, American actor (died in 1955)
1932 – John Williams, American pianist, composer, and conductor
1940 – Ted Koppel, English-American journalist
1941 – Nick Nolte, American actor
1942 – Robert Klein, American comedian and actor
1953 – Mary Steenburgen, American actress
1955 – John Grisham, American lawyer and author
1968 – Gary Coleman, American actor (died in 2010)
1969 – Mary McCormack, American actress
1972 – Big Show (Paul Donald Wight II), American wrestler, actor
1974 – Seth Green, American actor
1980 – William Jackson Harper, American actor
1984 – Cecily Strong, American actress
1994 – Nikki Yanofsky, Canadian singer-songwriter

February 8th History

1587 – Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded.

1692 – A doctor in Salem Village claimed three teenaged girls were possessed by Satan, which then lead to the chaotic Salem Witch Trials.

1693 – The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia was granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II.

1735 – The first Opera in the American Colines was performed – Flora: or the Hob in the Well, in Charlestown, South Carolina.

1855 – The Devil’s Footprints mysteriously appeared around the Exe Estuary in East Devon and South Devon, England. After a heavy snowfall, trails of two-legged hoof-like marks appeared overnight in the snow covering a total distance of many miles.

1865 – Delaware voters rejected the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and vote to continue the practice of slavery, although in practice, it did not exist. (Delaware finally ratified the amendment on February 12, 1901.)

1898 – The first envelope folding and gumming machine patent (#598,716) was issued to John Ames Sherman of Worcester, Mass.

1910 – The Boy Scouts of America were founded.

1915 – The Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith’s controversial film, premiered. It was originally titled The Clansman.

1924 – The first state execution in the United States by gas chamber took place in Nevada.

1936 – The first National Football League (NFL) draft was held. The Philadelphia Eagles chose Jay Berwanger, the first to be selected.

1946 – The first portion of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published.

1950 – The Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, was established.

1952 – Elizabeth II was proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom.

1960 – #1 Hit February 8, 1960 – February 21, 1960: Mark Dinning – Teen Angel

1960 – Ground-breaking for the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The initial stars were Joanne Woodward, Olive Borden, Ronald Colman, Louise Fazenda, Preston Foster, Burt Lancaster, Edward Sedgwick, and Ernest Torrence.

1969 – Pieces of the large Allende meteorite were recovered in Chihuahua, Mexico. They were estimated to be over 4.6 billion years old.

1969 – The last issue of the Saturday Evening Post was published. It was revived in 1971 as a quarterly publication and eventually 6 times a year.

1971 – The NASDAQ stock market index opened.

1975 – #1 Hit February 8, 1975 – February 14, 1975: Ohio Players – Fire

1992 – #1 Hit February 8, 1992 – February 28, 1992: Right Said Fred – I’m Too Sexy

1998 – The first female hockey game in Olympic history took place. Finland defeated Sweden 6-0.

2003 – # 1 Hot February 8, 2003 – March 7, 2003: Jennifer Lopez featuring LL Cool J – All I Have

2014 – #1 Hit February 8, 2014 – March 7, 2014: Katy Perry featuring Juicy J – Dark Horse

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

To Yoda, backwards everyone else must speak.

Writing has become 1% inspiration, 99% not getting distracted by the internet.

The more cheese you have, the beggir the number of holes. The beggir the number of holes, the less cheese you have. The more cheese you have, the less cheese you have. #conundrum

The original title for The Breakfast Club was ‘Detention’.

Star Wars: A New Hope is all about Darth Vader’s kids getting him in trouble with his boss. First, his daughter steals the Death Star plans, and then his son blows it up.

The Capital of Portugal is Lisbon

The biggest film of 1983: Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi (Sci-Fi) earned ~ $309,000,000

There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don’t.

A very important part of staying organized is having a “junk drawer” – without a place to put miscellaneous items, they’ll just end up all over the place. Or, a “junk room”.

“The Dali Lama told me I would reach total consciousness on my death bed, so I’ve got that going for me.” #moviequotes

The fear of long words is Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.

Having too much sex can cause memory loss. I read that on page 437 in a medical journal on November 2006 at 6:15 pm. It was cloudy.

For every Spiderman, Batman, Ironman, etc there are probably at least ten potential unknown heroes who died in the first few weeks testing their new powers.

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 8, 2026

February 7 in Pop Culture History

February 7th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 7th History Highlights

1795 – The 11th Amendment was ratified, reaffirming the sovereignty of the individual United States.
1817 – The first public gas street light was lit in Baltimore, Maryland, the first in the United States.
1914 – The silent film Kid Auto Races at Venice premiered in theaters, featuring Charlie Chaplin in his first screen appearance as The Little Tramp.
If you were born on February 7th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 17th (prior year)

National Periodic Table Day

On February 7, 1863, English chemist John Newlands published one of the first tables of elements. Newlands divided the known 56 elements into 11 groups based on the “Law of Octaves.” His table suggested that anyone element will have similar properties to elements eight places before and behind it on the table. While this theory was eventually disproven, it laid the groundwork for Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table, which is still in use today.

The periodic table is one of the most important tools in chemistry. It allows scientists to group and compare elements, making it easier to study their properties. The first version of the table was developed by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869. Mendeleev’s table was based on the idea that elements are not random, but have a patterned organization. He noticed that certain elements tended to occur together in nature and grouped them accordingly.

Mendeleev’s Periodic Table soon became the standard for chemists all over the world. In fact, it was not until 1911 that another chemist, John Newlands, published his own version of the table. Newlands’ “Law of Octaves” proposed that each element has similar properties to the elements eight places before and behind it on the table. While this theory was eventually disproven, it laid the groundwork for Mendeleev’s periodic table, which is still in use today.

The periodic table has come a long way since its inception over 150 years ago. It has been modified and updated many times, but it still remains one of the most important tools in chemistry. Thanks to Dmitri Mendeleev, John Newlands, and all of the other chemists who have contributed to its development, we now have a tool that makes studying atoms and molecules much easier.

Wave All Your Fingers at Your Neighbor Day

Wave All Your Fingers at Your Neighbor Day, celebrated every February 7th, is a whimsical and heartwarming holiday with a charming origin. In the early 1980s, Tom Roy, a Minnesota radio station manager, created this playful occasion as a unique way to foster connections among neighbors and enhance community bonds. What started as a lighthearted concept has since evolved into an annual celebration encouraging people to embrace the simple yet powerful act of waving all five fingers at their neighbors (replacing the not-so-kind one-fingered gesture!)

The essence of this special day lies in its simplicity. Instead of resorting to mundane and sometimes negative gestures, this day encourages individuals to smile and extend a friendly wave or a simple “hello” to their neighbors.

This day is a gentle reminder of the importance of human connections in a world that often feels increasingly disconnected. In our fast-paced lives dominated by technology and virtual interactions, Wave All Your Fingers at Your Neighbor Day encourages people to step outside their comfort zones and engage in genuine, face-to-face moments with other people.

February 7th is…

Clash Day
“e” Day
National Fettuccine Alfredo Day
National Periodic Table Day
Rose Day

February 7th Birthday Quotes

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
– Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities

“I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.”
– Eddie Izzard

“It is a source of consolation to me to know that I never willfully wronged any man and that I never put on the market a poorly-made implement.”
– John Deere

“I don’t believe that old cliche that good things come to those who wait. I think good things come to those who want something so bad they can’t sit still.”
– Ashton Kutcher

“You don’t pay taxes – they take taxes.”
– Chris Rock

“A man acts suitably to his nature, when he conquers his enemy in such a way as that no other creature but a man could be capable of, and that is by the strength of his understanding.”
– Thomas More

“I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life that are the real ones after all.”
– Laura Ingalls Wilder

“I don’t get high, but sometimes I wish I did. That way, when I messed up in life I would have an excuse. But right now there’s no rehab for stupidity.”
– Chris Rock

“Religion and philosophy, philosophy and religion – they’re two words which are both… different. In spelling.”
– Eddie Izzard

“The trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they’re organized for.”
– Laura Ingalls Wilder

February 7th Birthdays

1478 – Sir Thomas More, English Scholar (died in 1535)
1804 – John Deere, American blacksmith and businessman, founded Deere & Company (died in 1886)
1812 – Charles Dickens, English novelist and critic (died in 1870)
1837 – James Augustus Murray, English, 3rd editor for the Oxford English Dictionary (died in 1915)
1864 – Arthur Collins, American baritone singer (died in 1933)
1867 – Laura Ingalls Wilder, American writer (died in 1958)
1885 – Sinclair Lewis, American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died in 1951)
1908 – Buster Crabbe, American swimmer and actor (died in 1983)
1920 – An Wang, Chinese-American engineer and businessman, founded Wang Laboratories (died in 1990)
1934 – King Curtis, American saxophonist and producer (died in 1971)
1955 – Miguel Ferrer, American actor and director (died in 2017)
1960 – James Spader, American actor
1962 – Garth Brooks, American singer-songwriter
1962 – Eddie Izzard, English comedian
1965 – Chris Rock, American comedic actor
1972 – Robyn Lively, American actress
1978 – Ashton Kutcher, American actor
1985 – Tina Majorino, American actress

February 7th History

1497 – The Bonfire of the Vanities occurred in which supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burned thousands of objects like cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, Italy.

1783 (Earthquake) Calabria, Italy

1827 – Ballet was introduced in America, in New York’s Bowery Theatre, The Deserter.

1904 – 1500 buildings, in an 80 block area of downtown Baltimore was destroyed in a fire. No one was killed.

1932 – The ‘neutron’ was mentioned in an article in the journal Nature by its discoverer, James Chadwick,

1935 – ‘Monopoly’ was first sold by Charles Darrow. In December he sold the patented (#2,026,082) game to Parker Brothers.

1940 – The second full-length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premiered.

1962 – The United States banned all Cuban imports and exports.

1964 – The Beatles first arrived in the United States.

1964 – Pan Am Yankee Clipper flight 101 from London Heathrow landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport, bring The Beatles to America for the first time.

1970 – #1 Hit February 7, 1970 – February 13, 1970: Shocking Blue – Venus

1976 – #1 Hit February 7, 1976 – February 27, 1976: Paul Simon – 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

1979 – Ex-planet Pluto moved inside real planet Neptune’s orbit for the first time since both planets were known to science.

1981 – February 7, 1981 – February 20, 1981: Kool & the Gang – Celebration

1982 – Superman: The Movie was broadcast on American television for the first time. It was in two parts, continued the following night.

1984 – STS-41-B Challenger Mission: Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered spacewalk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).

1985 – New York, New York became the official anthem of New York City.

1987 – #1 Hit February 7, 1987 – February 13, 1987: Madonna – Open Your Heart

1988 – America’s Most Wanted premiered on FOX.

1990 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power.

1997 – NeXT merged with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X.

2009 – #1 Hit February 7, 2009 – February 20, 2009: Kelly Clarkson – My Life Would Suck Without You

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Useless Pronunciation: Y as in you

The Capital of Qatar is Doha

Janelle “Penny” Commissiong was the first black woman to hold the Miss Universe title. She won the title in 1977 at the Miss Universe pageant, which was held in the Dominican Republic.

Biggest film of 1993: Jurassic Park (Action) earned ~ $396,000,000

I could walk into Kohl’s and buy one pair of socks but my receipt would still say I saved like $40.

Based On A True Story could be shortened to BOATS. #mynewacronym

Just once before I die, I want to know what it feels like to steal a freshly baked pie from someone’s windowsill.

Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, also narrated The Powerpuff Girls.

Bender from Futurama was named after John Bender from The Breakfast Club.

Wall Street is called Wall Street because the settlers erected an actual wall to defend against Native Americans.

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates

“Live your epitaph” – Zoe Weil

Potato chips were invented in Saratoga Springs in 1853 by chef George Crum.

Well… it’s a deep subject, isn’t it?

“Just look at the face: it’s vacant, with a hint of sadness. Like a drunk who’s lost a bet.” – Dianne, in Shaun of the Dead

A group of Midges is called a Bite.

Fred Astaire – Real Name: Frederick Austerlitz

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 7, 2026

February 6 in Pop Culture History

February 6th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 6th History Highlights

1778 – In Paris, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce were signed by the United States and France signaling thr official recognition of the United States.
1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants departed New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia.
February 6, 1950 Birthday (fictional) Arthur Weasley, Harry Potter
1952 – Queen Elizabeth II succeeded to the British Throne.
1959 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile had the first successful test firing.
If you were born on February 6th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 16th (prior year)

Pay a Compliment Day

Do you ever feel like the world is just too negative? It seems that everywhere we turn, someone is complaining or being rude. Well, today is the day to turn all of that around! Today is Pay-a-Compliment Day, a day where we should give genuine and soulful compliments to everyone we encounter.

This holiday was created by Adrienne Koopersmith on February 6th, 1995. She noticed on a cold Chicago day that someone who wasn’t at a bus stop was frantically waving at the bus she was on, hoping that it would stop; the bus driver stopped and let the person on. When Koopersmith exited the bus, she complimented the driver on how nice it was that he had stopped. Koopersmith then went home and decided to make the holiday.

So, what is a genuine and soulful compliment? A genuine compliment is something that comes from the heart; it’s honest and meaningful. A soulful compliment is one that touches the other person’s spirit; it’s heartfelt and compassionate. Today, let’s take the time to give these kinds of compliments to everyone we meet. Let’s make someone’s day a little bit brighter, just by telling them how wonderful they are!

Some ideas for giving great, sincere compliments:

You have beautiful eyes.
I love your smile.
Your hair looks so pretty today.
You’re such a kind person.
I appreciate how you always help others.
You’re one of the most talented people I know.
Thank you for being there for me when I needed someone.

So, what are you waiting for? Spread some love and joy today by giving great compliments to everyone you meet!
Happy Pay-a-Compliment Day! :

February 6th is…

Bob Marley Day in Jamaica and Ethiopia
Frozen Yogurt Day
International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation
Lame Duck Day
Pay a Compliment Day

February 6th Birthday Quotes

“I swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.”
– Babe Ruth

“I’ve married a few people I shouldn’t have, but haven’t we all?”
– Mamie Van Doren

“I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are no heroes, they just don’t know where to look.”
– Ronald Reagan

“One love, One heart, Let’s get together and feel alright.”
– Bob Marley

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
– Babe Ruth

“They’re Greaat!”
-Thurl Ravenscroft, as Tony The Tiger

“The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.”
– Henry Liddell

“I’ve never acted my age and I never will. It’s just the way I’ve always been.”
– Mamie Van Doren

“I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.”
– Zsa Zsa Gabor

February 6th Birthdays

1756 – Aaron Burr, American colonel and politician (died in 1836)
1811 – Henry Liddell, English priest, author, and academic (died in 1898)
1820 – Thomas C. Durant, American railroad tycoon (died in 1885)
1833 – J.E.B. Stuart, USA & CSA American general (died in 1864)
1895 – Babe Ruth, American baseball player and coach (died in 1948)
1911 – Ronald Reagan, American actor and politician, 40th President of the United States (died in 2004)
1912 – Eva Braun, German wife of Adolf Hitler (died in 1945)
1913 – Mary Leaky, English paleoanthropologist (died in 1996)
1914 – Thurl Ravenscroft, American voice actor and singer (died in 2005)
1917 – Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hungarian-American actress and socialite (died in 2016)
1922 – Patrick Macnee, English-American actor (died in 2015)
1931 – Rip Torn, American actor (died in 2019)
1931 – Mamie Van Doren, American actress and model
1939 – Mike Farrell, American actor and activist
1940 – Tom Brokaw, American journalist
1941 – Gigi Perreau, American actress
1942 – Tommy Roberts, English fashion designer (died in 2012)
1943 – Fabian Forte, American actor and singer
1950 – Natalie Cole, American singer-songwriter (died in 2015)
1957 – Kathy Najimy, American comedic actress
1958 – Barry Miller, American actor
1962 – Axl Rose, American singer-songwriter
1966 – Rick Astley, English singer-songwriter
1977 – Josh Stewart, American actor
1982 – Alice Eve, English actress
1985 – Kris Humphries, American basketball player
1993 – Tinashe, American singer-songwriter

February 6th History

60 – The earliest known reference to a single day of the week (Sunday) in Pompeii.

1788 – Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the Constitution.

1819 – Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore.

1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society left New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia.

1843 – The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opened at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.

1891 – The Dalton Gang’s first attempt at train robbery failed. Bob, Grat, and Bill Dalton unsuccessfully tried to rob a Southern Pacific train near Alila, California.

1919 – The American Legion was founded.

1926 – The National Football League (NFL) adopted a rule that made players ineligible for competition until their college class graduated.

1928 – A woman calling herself Anastasia Tschaikovsky and claiming to be the youngest daughter of the murdered czar of Russia arrived in New York City. In 1991, DNA evidence indicated she was not the Russian princess.

1933 – The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was declared in effect, making the start of presidential, vice-presidential and congressional terms from March to January.

1937 – John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men was published.

1951 – The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train, derailed near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, killing 85 people and injured over 500 more.

1952 – Queen Elizabeth II succeeded to the British throne.

1959 – The first patent for an integrated circuit (computer chip) was filed by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments.

1959 – At Cape Canaveral, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile.

1965 – #1 Hit February 6, 1965 – February 19, 1965: Righteous Brothers – You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’

1971 – Astronaut Alan B. Shepard used a six-iron that he had brought inside his spacecraft and swung at three golf balls on the surface of the moon. He said it went for “miles and miles.”

1978 (Blizzard) The Blizzard of 1978 – One of the worst Nor’easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of four inches an hour.

1982 – #1 Hit February 6, 1982 – March 19, 1982: The J. Geils Band – Centerfold

1985 – The French mineral water company, Perrier, debuted its first new product in 123 years. The new items were water with a twist of lemon, lime, or orange.

1988 – #1 Hit February 6, 1988 – February 19, 1988: Tiffany – Could’ve Been

1998 – Washington National Airport was renamed the Ronald Reagan National Airport.

2000 – First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton formally declared that she was a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from the state of New York.

2005 – American Dad premiered on FOX

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

It is said that Batman can beat anyone with prep time. The same can be said for Kevin from home alone.

Kurt Cobain recorded a theme for The Ren & Stimpy Show, but Nickelodeon rejected it.

If there are an infinite amount of alternate universes, then there must be an alternate universe in which somebody figured out how to destroy all other alternate universes and already did so. And, there must be another guy from another universe who stopped him.

Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.

If you had windshield wipers on your glasses you would think you’re the coolest person ever, but everyone else would think you look like an idiot. #neveragain

Biggest film of 1992: Aladdin (Action/Adventure) earned ~ $217,000,000

While prostitution is legal in Queensland Australia, advertising said services by skywriting is not.

TV Quotes… “I’m Rick James, bitch!” (Dave Chappelle as Rick James) on Chappelle’s Show.

Anakin did bring balance to the force. First, there were hundreds of Jedi and a couple of Sith. Afterward, there were a couple of Jedi and a couple of Sith.

“Hasta la vista, baby.” – The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991

Flavours are the colours of the tongue. (UK)

Flavors are the colors of the tongue. (US)

“I’ll die if I miss Scooby-Doo!” – Neil #TVQuotes

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 6, 2026

February 5 in Pop Culture History

February 5th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 5th History Highlights

1852 – The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opened to the public.
1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith founded United Artists.
1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory began broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal.
1985 – The Punic War, which began in 149 BC, ended when the mayors of Rome and Carthage signed a treaty in Tunis, Tunisia.
1993 – President Bill Clinton signed The Family Leave Act (effective Aug 5, 1993).
If you were born on February 5th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 15th (prior year)

National Weatherperson’s Day

February 5th is National Weatherperson’s Day, commemorating the birth of John Jeffries. Jeffries, one of America’s first weather observers, began taking daily weather observations in Boston in 1774 and he took the first balloon observation in 1784.

Weather observation is an important part of weather forecasting. Today, weather observations are taken from satellites and weather balloons. But it all started with John Jeffries in 1774.

Jeffries was born in Boston in 1744. He began taking daily weather observations when he was just 30 years old. In 1784, he took the first balloon observation. A weather balloon is a large rubber or latex balloon filled with hot air or helium gas that is used to measure atmospheric pressure, temperature, and wind speed.

Jeffries’ work helped improve weather forecasting techniques. His observations were used to create some of the first weather maps. He also developed the first storm warning system for ships sailing in the Atlantic Ocean.

John Jeffries was an important pioneer in the field of weather observation. He made significant contributions to the understanding of weather and helped make weather forecasting more accurate.

February 5th is…

California Western Monarch Day
Disaster Day
National Chocolate Fondue Day
Nutella Day
Shower With A Friend Day
Weatherperson’s Day
World Read Aloud Day

February 5th Birthday Quotes

“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
– Adlai Stevenson

“I am interested in the notion that people can become so obsessed by their world that they lose sense and awareness of how they appear to other people. They’re so earnest about it. But that’s true of so many things.”
– Christopher Guest

“Only temporary success is achieved by taking short cuts.”
– Roger Staubach

Spectacular achievements come from unspectacular preparation.
– Roger Staubach

“Telling lies is a bit like tiling bathrooms – if you don’t know how to do it properly, it’s best not to try.”
– Tom Holt

“My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling bad or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.”
– Hank Aaron

“You know, you really do choose your existence in a way.”
– Jennifer Jason Leigh

“The Dutch customs once thought my pictures were photos. Where on earth did they think I could have photographed my subjects? In Hell, perhaps?”
– H.R. Giger

“Since I was the stupidest kid in my class, it never occurred to me to try and be perfect, so I’ve always been happy as a writer just to entertain myself. That’s an easier place to start.”
– Stephen J. Cannell

“What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us- what convictions, what courage, what faith- win or lose.”
– Adlai Stevenson

February 5th Birthdays

Weatherperson’s Day, named after the birthday (Feb 5, 1744) of early US weatherman, John Jeffries.

1723 – John Witherspoon, American patriot, invented the word ‘Americanism’ (died in 1794)
1744 – John Jeffries, American weatherperson (died in 1819)
1788 – Robert Peel, English politician (died in 1850)
1840 – Hiram Maxim, American engineer, invented the Maxim gun (died in 1916)
1900 – Adlai Stevenson II, American soldier, politician and diplomat (died in 1965)
1906 – John Carradine, American actor (died in 1988)
1908 – Daisy and Violet Hilton, English conjoined twins (died in 1969)
1914 – William S. Burroughs, American novelist, short story writer, and essayist (died in 1997)
1919 – Red Buttons, American comedic actor (died in 2006)
1919 – Tom Holt, American actor (died in 1973)
1934 – Hank Aaron, American baseball player
1934 – Don Cherry, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and sportscaster
1940 – H.R. Giger, Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer (died in 2014)
1941 – Stephen J. Cannell, American actor, producer, and screenwriter (died in 2010)
1941 – Barrett Strong, American soul singer-songwriter
1942 – Roger Staubach, American football player and sportscaster
1943 – Nolan Bushnell, American engineer and businessman, founded Atari, Inc.
1944 – Al Kooper, American singer-songwriter and producer
1946 – Charlotte Rampling, English actress
1948 – Christopher Guest, American actor and director
1948 – Barbara Hershey, American actress
1961 – Tim Meadows, American actor
1962 – Jennifer Jason Leigh, American actress
1964 – Laura Linney, American actress
1967 – Chris Parnell, American actor and comedian
1969 – Bobby Brown, American singer
1971 – Sara Evans, American country singer
1986 – Reed Sorenson, American race car drive

February 5th History

62 – Pompeii earthquake (not to be confused with the Great Earthquake of 79)

1778 – South Carolina became the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

1783 (Earthquake) Calabria, Italy

1824 – Samuel Vaughan Merrick and William H. Keating founded “The Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts” in Philadelphia.

1846 – The Oregon Spectator became the first newspaper published on the Pacific coast, in Oregon City.

1883 – The Southern Pacific Railroad completed its transcontinental “Sunset Route” from New Orleans to California.

1917 – The Congress of the United States passed the Immigration Act of 1917. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, and it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.

1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1929 – A runner’s ‘starting blocks’ (Foot Support) patent (#1,701,026) was issued to George T. Bresnahan of Iowa City, Iowa

1936 – The last silent film of the era, Modern Times, was released by Charlie Chaplin.

1953 – Walt Disney film Peter Pan opened at the Roxy Theatre in New York City.

1955 – #1 Hit February 5, 1955 – February 11, 1955: The Fontane Sisters – Hearts Of Stone

1958 – A hydrogen bomb, known as the Tybee Bomb, was lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, and was never found.

1966 – #1 Hit February 5, 1966 – February 18, 1966: Petula Clark – My Love

1972 – Bob Douglas became the first African-American to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1977 – #1 Hit February 5, 1977 – February 18, 1977: Mary MacGregor – Torn Between Two Lovers

1983 – #1 Hit February 5, 1983 – February 18, 1983: Toto – Africa

1988 – Manuel Noriega was indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

February 5, 1992 Birthday (fictional) Bonnie Bennett, Vampire Diaries, TV

1999 – Mike Tyson was sentenced to a year in jail for assaulting two people after a car accident on August 31, 1998. Tyson was also fined $5,000, had to serve 2 years of probation, and had to perform 200 hours of community service upon release.

2000 – Kelly Ripa officially joined Regis Philbin on Live!

2008 – A major tornado outbreak (2008 Super Tuesday Tornado Outbreak) struck across the Southern United States killing 57 people.

#1 Hit February 5, 2022 – March 11, 2022: We Don’t Talk About Bruno – Carolina Gaitán, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz and the Encanto cast

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

TV Quotes… “Space, the final frontier …” (Capt. James Tiberius Kirk) on “Star Trek”

Every time in medical movies and shows when the doctor walks in announcing what’s wrong with the patient, they break HIPAA.

Downside Up isn’t the opposite up upside down. Upside up is.

“I’ll be in Hell before you start breakfast” – ‘Black Jack’ Ketchum (famous train robber) #LastWords

A group of Meteorologists is a Shower.

Over 90% of all fish caught are caught in the northern hemisphere.

The oldies station will have come full circle when it starts playing Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.”

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

The very best place to do a shady transaction or deal is in neon animal costumes outside a mental institution because no one would believe the witnesses.

Jayne Mansfield – Real Name: Vera Jane Palmer

Sammy Hagar’s biggest single “I Can’t Drive 55” spawned from a speeding ticket he got in NY.

Calculus has not changed much over 1000 years, but there is always that new edition of a textbook that comes out.

I forgot my password. Old me has outwitted new me.

“It’s strong enough for both of us.” #famouslastwords

From the beginning of “Empire Strikes Back” to halfway through “Return of the Jedi,” Han Solo was wearing the same pants.

Pringles are about 42% potato.

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 5, 2026

February 4 in Pop Culture History

February 4th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 4th History Highlights

1789 – George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the US Electoral College.
1941 – The USO (United Service Organization) was founded.
1992 – A coup d’état was led by Hugo Chávez against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
February 4, 2000, The Sims was released, Computer Game
2000 – The World Summit Against Cancer for the New Millennium, Charter of Paris is signed by the President of France, Jacques Chirac, and the Director-General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, initiating World Cancer Day on February 4 every year.
2004 – Facebook launched.
If you were born on February 4th,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 14th (prior year)

February 4th is…

Create A Vacuum Day
Homemade Soup Day
Medjool Date Day
National Quacker Day
Stuffed Mushroom Day
Thank A Mailman Day
World Cancer Day

The USO (United Service Organization)

United Services Organization (USO) is an American non-profit organization founded in 1941 to support members of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Army Air Corps, and Air National Guard. The USO was founded to provide morale and recreational services to U.S. uniformed military personnel during World War II, and served as a second home for GIs in the United States. By maintaining troops, providing social services, and maintaining the connection between military members and their families, home, and country until all return, we supported America’s military and their families.

During World War II, USO clubs served American G.I.s, and the initiative brought together the help of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Army Air Corps, and Air National Guard.

February 4 is Facebook’s Birthday

February 4th marks a significant milestone in the digital realm as Facebook, the social media giant, celebrates its birthday. Starting in 2004, the platform has evolved into a global phenomenon, fundamentally transforming how we connect, share, and communicate.

As we commemorate Facebook’s special day, it’s worth taking a nostalgic journey back to its humble beginnings. Conceived in a Harvard University dorm room by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates, the platform was initially known as “The Facebook.” The concept aimed to create an online space where students could connect, share interests, and build virtual communities.

Over the years, Facebook has survived and thrived, adapting to the ever-changing landscape of the internet. From a college-centric platform, it expanded to include users from various demographics, connecting people from around the globe. Today, it boasts more than 2.8 billion monthly active users, making it the largest social media platform in the world.

This day also celebrates Facebook’s resilience and ability to stay relevant in an ever-evolving digital landscape. The platform has undergone numerous transformations, introducing features like the News Feed, the Like button, and, more recently, the introduction of Meta, its parent company, signaling a shift towards the metaverse.

Facebook’s impact on society is undeniable. It has redefined how we communicate, share life moments, and stay connected with friends and family. The platform has become a virtual scrapbook, chronicling the highs and lows of our lives through status updates, photos, and videos. Birthdays, in particular, have taken on a new dimension, with Facebook’s reminder feature ensuring that no special day goes unnoticed.

February 4th Birthday Quotes

“Mistakes are part of the game. It’s how well you recover from them, that’s the mark of a great player.”
– Alice Cooper

“Our ideals, laws, and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation, in turn, becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on to the future.”
– Charles Lindbergh

“When people say I can’t or I mustn’t, I always say I can and I will.”
– Oscar De La Hoya

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
– Rosa Parks

“If one took no chances, one would not fly at all. Safety lies in the judgment of the chances one takes. That judgment, in turn, must rest upon one’s outlook on life. Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed.”
– Charles Lindbergh

“Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women’s denigration of themselves.”
– Betty Frieden

“It isn’t how much time you spend somewhere that makes it memorable: it’s how you spend the time.”
– David Brenner

“When you get old, everything is hurting. When I get up in the morning, it sounds like I’m making popcorn.”
– Lawrence Taylor

“I didn’t see myself as any advance guard, or feminist.”
– Ida Lupino

“We cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s missing is awareness.”
– David Brenner

“A zombie film is not fun without a bunch of stupid people running around and observing how they fail to handle the situation.”
– George A. Romero

February 4th Birthdays

1677 – Johann Ludwig Bach, German violinist and composer (died in 1731)
1818 – Emperor Norton I, San Francisco eccentric (died in 1880)
1895 – Nigel Bruce, English actor (died in 1953)
1902 – Charles Lindbergh, American pilot and explorer (died in 1974)
1912 – Nelson Byron, American golfer (died in 2006)
1913 – Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (died in 2005)
1918 – Ida Lupino, English-American actress (died in 1995)
1921 – Betty Friedan, American author and feminist (died in 2006)
1936 – David Brenner, American comedian and actor (died in 2014)
1940 – George A. Romero, American director and producer (died in 2017)
1944 – Florence LaRue, American singer and actress
1947 – Dan Quayle, American politician, 44th Vice President of the United States
1948 – Alice Cooper, American singer-songwriter
1959 – Lawrence Taylor, American football player and sportscaster
1965 – Jerome Brown, American football player (died in 1992)
1971 – Rob Corddry, American actor, producer, and screenwriter
1973 – Oscar De La Hoya, American boxer
1977 – Gavin DeGraw, American singer-songwriter

February 4th History

1169 – A strong earthquake struck the Ionian coast of Sicily, causing over 15,000 deaths, especially in Catania, Lentini and Modica.

1703 – In Edo (Japan), 46 of the Forty-seven Ronin committed seppuku (ritual suicide) for avenging their master’s death.

1783 – Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its American colonies, the United States.

1789 – George Washington was elected as the first president of the United States by the Electoral College.

1801 – John Marshall was sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.

1825 – The Ohio Legislature authorized the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal

1826 – The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper was published.

1859 – The Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in Egypt.

1922 – Ford Motor Company acquired the failing luxury automaker Lincoln Motor Company for $8 million.

1932 – The Winter Olympics were held in the United States at Lake Placid, NY.

1935 – Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch premiered on CBS radio.

1936 – Radium (Ra) became the first radioactive element to be synthetically made.

1938 – Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs was released by Walt Disney.

1941 – Roy Plunkett received the patent (#2,230,654) for Tetrafluoroethylene Polymers’ (Teflon)

1941 – The USO (United Services Organization) was founded.

1946 – Broadway Show – Born Yesterday (Play) February 4, 1946

1948 – Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.

1957 – Smith-Corona began selling portable electric typewriters.

1961 – The Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Montgomery Clift, was released by United Artists

1965 (Earthquake) Rat Islands, Alaska

1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army abducted 19-year-old Patty Hearst.

1978 – #1 Hit February 4, 1978 – March 3, 1978: Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive

1979 (Earthquake) Riobamba, Ecuador

1983 – Singer Karen Carpenter died of anorexia.

1984 – #1 Hit February 4, 1984 – February 24, 1984: Culture Club – Karma Chameleon

1985 – President Ronald Reagan’s defense budget called for a tripling of the expenditure on the “Star Wars” research program.

1989 – #1 Hit February 4, 1989 – February 10, 1989: Sheriff – When I’m with You

1991 – Pete Rose (aka Charlie Hustle) was banned ‘for life’ from the Baseball Hall of Fame due to the fact that he used to illegally gamble on games.

1992 – A coup d’état was led by Hugo Chávez against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez.

1997 – A civil jury in California found O.J. Simpson liable in the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Goldman’s parents were awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages.

February 4, 2000, The Sims was released, Computer Game

2004 – Facebook launched as “TheFacebook.com”

2006 – #1 Hit February 4, 2006 – March 10, 2006: Beyonce featuring Slim Thug – Check on It

2014 – The last living WWI veteran was British citizen Florence Beatrice Green who passed away on February 4th, 2012. She was 110 years old. She last living WWI veteran was British citizen Florence Beatrice Green who passed away on February 4th, 2012. She was 110 years old.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

The average word length in the English language is 5.1 letters.

Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl got really lucky when they named their son Dash as they had no way of knowing he’d have super speed as a superpower.

The name Scooby-Doo was inspired by Frank Sinatra’s scatting at the end of the song Strangers in the Night.

“I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you?” – Tommy DeVito #moviequotes

Be kinder to rude people. You may be the change they need to see.

When watching a documentary on lions, I root for the lions. When watching a documentary on antelopes, I root for the antelopes. #goteam

A group of Magpies is called a Tiding or Gulp or Murder or Charm.

To calculate the position of the Voyager 1 spacecraft some 12.5 billion miles away, you only need to use the first 15 digits of the value of Pi to be accurate within 1.5 inches.

A full-size Reeses Cup has 66 ridges around the edge.

“Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.” – Conan the Barbarian #moviequotes

“Denny Crane” – Denny Crane, Boston Legal

“Find a penny, pick it up. All day long you’ll have good luck” sounds like something Big Penny made up to keep the penny relevant.

‘Nipper’ is the name of the dog on the RCA label. ‘Chipper’ is the puppy version of the mascot.

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 4, 2026

February 3 in Pop Culture History

February 3rd History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 3rd History Highlights

1959 – The Day The Music Died: Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Pilot Roger Peterson crashed in a cornfield near Clear Lake, Iowa.
1943 – Four Chaplains Memorial Day (in honor of George Fox, Alexander Goode, Clark Poling, and John Washington). Each gave their life belts to other sailors when the SS Dorchester was torpedoed near Greenland.
February 3 is Sesame Street’s Elmo’s birthday.
If you were born on February 3rd,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 13th (prior year)

Now You Know…

Richard Dorson Invented the words:
“Fakelore” – “a synthetic product claiming to be authentic oral tradition but actually tailored for mass edification” (in 1950) and
“Urban Legend,” originally called “city tales” in the 1940s. (in 1968)

February 3rd is…

American Painters Day
Four Chaplains Memorial Day
Golden Retriever Day
Missing Persons Day
National Carrot Cake Day
National Cordova Ice Worm Day
Women Physicians Day

Four Chaplains Memorial Day.

The Four Chaplains (aka Immortal Chaplains or the Dorchester Chaplains), include Rabbi Shlomo Schachter, Rabbi Yosef Zalman Schuchter, and Rabbi Joseph Pole of the Chabad-Lubavitch Synagogue in New York City.

The four chaplains died when the SS Dorchester, a military transport with 902 American soldiers and civilian workers, was torpedoed by a German submarine. The four deceased gave up their life jackets and remained on board to comfort and pray for the hundreds of men who lost their lives on the ship when it sank on February 3, 1943. They are considered one of the greatest heroes of World War II and a symbol of America’s courage and bravery.

American Painters Day

Every year on February 3, art enthusiasts and admirers celebrate American Painters Day, a day dedicated to recognizing and honoring the contributions of American painters to the world of art. This special day serves as a reminder of the rich artistic heritage of the United States and the diverse talents that have shaped the country’s vibrant art scene.

This particular day is not only a celebration of the past masters who have left an indelible mark on the art world but also a recognition of contemporary artists who continue to push the boundaries of creativity. From the iconic works of figures like Jackson Pollock and Georgia O’Keeffe to today’s emerging talents, this day is a time to reflect on the power of visual expression and the unique stories each artist brings to the canvas.

One of the key aspects of American Painters Day is the opportunity for art enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the various styles and movements that have defined American art over the years. Whether it’s the abstract expressionism of Willem de Kooning or the realism of Edward Hopper, the diversity of American painting reflects the nation’s cultural richness and evolving identity.

Art institutions, galleries, and museums across the country often participate in this special day by organizing exhibitions, guided tours, and interactive workshops. These events provide a platform for both seasoned art lovers and newcomers to engage with the work of American painters, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation for the artistic journey.

February 3rd Birthday Quotes

“Sure I think it is healthy to speak the truth, and be who you are, and be proud of that.”
– Nathan Lane

“What is the answer? In that case, what is the question?”
– Gertrude Stein

“I make sure I always surround myself with good, down to earth, fun, real people, who always keep me grounded.”
– Sean Kingston

“I have to accept the fact that, no matter what I do, it’s going to annoy someone.”
– Nathan Lane

“The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they’re always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.”
– Norman Rockwell

“Being on Batman allowed me to do something we actors are taught never to do: overact.”
– Victor Buono

“Silent gratitude isn’t very much use to anyone.”
– Gertrude Stein

February 3rd Birthdays

1809 – Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (died in 1847)
1811 – Horace Greeley, American journalist, abolitionist and politician (died in 1872)
1821 – Elizabeth Blackwell, English/American abolitionist (died in 1910)
1874 – Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright, (died in 1946)
1894 – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (died in 1978)
1895 – John Ford, American film director (died in 1973)
1904 – Pretty Boy Floyd, American gangster (died in 1934)
1907 – James A. Michener, American author and (died in 1997)
1914 – Mary Carlisle, American actress, singer and dancer (died in 2018)
1914 – George Nissen, American gymnast. The inventor of the Trampoline (died in 2010)
1916 – Richard Mercer Dorson, American writer (died in 1981)
1918 – Joey Bishop, American actor (died in 2007)
1920 – Henry Heimlich, American physician and author (died in 2016)
1935 – Johnny “Guitar” Watson, American blues, soul, and funk singer-songwriter and guitarist (died in 1996)
1938 – Victor Buono, American actor (died in 1982)
1943 – Blythe Danner, American actress
1945 – Johnny Cymbal, Scottish-American singer-songwriter (died in 1993)
1950 – Morgan Fairchild, American actress
1956 – Nathan Lane, American actor and comedian
1965 – Maura Tierney, American actress
1969 – Beau Biden, American soldier and politician (died in 2015)
1976 – Isla Fisher, Omani-Australian actress
1990 – Sean Kingston, American-Jamaican singer-songwriter

February 3rd History

1690 – The first paper money in America was issued today, in the Colony of Massachusetts.

1783 – During the American Revolutionary War, Spain recognized the United States’ independence.

1809 – The 10th United States Congress created the Territory of Illinois.

1834 -Wake Forest University was established in North Carolina.

]1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.

1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.

1931 – The Hawke’s Bay Earthquake, New Zealand’s worst natural disaster, killed 258 people.

1870 – The 15th Amendment was ratified in the US, granting every citizen, regardless of race, the right to vote

1891 – The official electrical lighting of London streets commenced.

1889 – Outlaw Belle Starr was murdered in Oklahoma, and shot twice in the back.

1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.

1923 (Volcano Eruption) Kamchatka.

1943 – A German U-boat sank the SS Dorchester. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive; the event is described in the Four Chaplains Story.

1947 – The coldest weather ever recorded in North America was at Snag, Yukon: -63 °C or -81 °F.

1953 – Jacques Cousteau’s book The Silent World was published.

1959 – Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.

1968 – #1 Hit February 3, 1968 – February 9, 1968: The Lemon Pipers – Green Tambourine

1971 – New York Police Officer Frank Serpico was shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survived to testify against police corruption.

1973 – #1 Hit February 3, 1973 – February 23, 1973: Elton John – Crocodile Rock

1984 – The Challenger (STS-10) launched from the Kennedy Space Center.

2001 – #1 Hit February 3, 2001 – February 16, 2001: Shaggy featuring Ricardo ‘Rikrok’ Ducent – It Wasn’t Me

2008 – The Naked Brothers Band premiered on Nickelodeon.

2009 – Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was made a knight of the Légion d’Honneur, which is France’s highest civilian award.

#1 Hit February 3, 2018 – April 20, 2018: Drake – God’s Plan

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Half of a large intestine: 1 semicolon

“You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.” – Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs

TV Quotes… “I love it when a plan comes together” (Hannibal) on The A-Team

If dogs had the ability to speak to humans, we still would have no idea what Scottish Terriers would be trying to tell us.

I do not know for sure that every single night I am not abducted by extraterrestrials for experimentation followed by a complete wipe of my memory and then gently placed back in my bed.

The computer you are using is the product of a long series of tools making newer tools that go back to a caveman using a rock.

US President #7 Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) He was also the first president to ride a train. A quote: “It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word.” Jackson threw a large party when he was inaugurated and his friends trashed the White House. An assassination attempt was made on him in 1835 by the deranged Richard Lawrence on the steps of the Capitol building; his pistols did not fire and Jackson beat the disarmed attacker with his cane.

Biggest film of 1994: The Lion King (Action/Adventure) earned ~ $423,000,000

A group of Kangaroos is called a Troop or Mob or Herd.

If every toy suddenly turned into the real version of itself, life would be much more dangerous with the major increase in weapons, dinosaurs and marbles.

If you have something to do, and you put it off long enough, chances are someone else will do it for you.

“Give me a minute, I’m good. Give me an hour, I’m great. Give me six months, I’m unbeatable.” – Col. John ‘Hannibal’ Smith #moviequotes

“Say ‘hello’ to my little friend!” – Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Scarface, 1983

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 3, 2026

February 2 in Pop Culture History

February 2nd History, Trivia and, Fun Facts

February 2nd History Highlights

1653 – New Amsterdam (now the City of New York) was incorporated.
1913 – Grand Central Terminal is opened in New York City.
1925 – Balto and Togo led a team via Dog Sleg to the town of Nome, Alaska, with antitoxin serum for an outbreak of Diptheria. An estimated 10,000 people may have been saved.
1990 – President De Klerk of South Africa lifted the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid group the African National Congress (ANC).
If you were born on February 2nd,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 12th (prior year)

About Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is celebrated every year on February 2nd. It is said on this day when the groundhog comes out of his deep sleep, if he sees his shadow it means there will be six more weeks of winter. If there is no shadow to be seen, spring is near.

The idea of Groundhog Day roots from the comparable European tradition, Candlemas Day. February 2nd has always been a significant day since it marks the dead of winter. On this day, the clergy would bless candles and hand them out to the people.

An old English song went a little something like this:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Come, Winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Go Winter, and come not again.

History goes that the Roman legions brought the Candlemas tradition to the Germans, who constructed the idea that if the sun was out and an animal, in their case a hedgehog, cast a shadow, there would be six more weeks of winter. When the Germans came to Pennslyvania, they found groundhogs to be similar to the hedgehog used in their tradition. The groundhog was then adopted as the animal that determines the course of the winter season.

The official groundhog is named Punxsutawney Phil, who appears from his hole at Gobbler’s Knole in Pennslyvania every year. The first recorded celebration of Groundhog Day, then still known as Candlemas Day, was in the year 1841 in Morgantown, PA. However, the first official Groundhog Day at Gobbler’s Knole was in February of 1887.

The growing popularity of the groundhog since its first appearance in the 1800s is astounding. Not only has Punxsutawney Phil traveled to meet President Regan in Washington, but he’s also appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and there is even a movie dedicated (kind of) to his special day!

In 1993, Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell starred in the Romantic Comedy, Groundhog Day. In the movie, a weatherman (Murray) is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting “rat” (as he calls it). This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On waking the ‘following’ day he discovers that it’s Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First, he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realization that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day.

Every year, hundreds of people come from around the world to watch Punxsutawney Phil emerge from his little knole. Why not be one of them? Click HERE to get more information on attending the infamous Groundhog Day at Gobblers Knole.

February 2nd is…

California Kiwifruit Day
Crepe Day
Groundhog Day. Formerly, Hedgehog Day, formerly Candlemas Day.
Heavenly Hash Day
Self Renewal Day
Tator Tot Day

February 2 is Self Renewal Day, a day set aside for taking the time to focus on ourselves and our well-being. This special day allows us to take some quiet moments to reflect and refresh ourselves with self-care practices. We can use this day to start a new self-care routine or rekindle old habits that we moved away from due to other commitments.

February 2nd Birthday Quotes

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
– James Joyce in Ulysses

“To get such beauty from something that has been produced from the artist’s own imagination appealed to me enormously.”
– Solomon R. Guggenheim

“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”
– Abba Eban

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
– Ayn Rand

“I pefer an ugly truth to a pretty lie.”
– Shakira

“People will always be around to tell you you’re no good or you’re wrong or unwise to keep doing what you want to do. They’re wrong. They’re always wrong. Keep going.”
– Elaine Stritch

“The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.”
– Tommy Smothers

“Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.”
– Liz Smith

“I deeply believe in one’s own positive will to overcome even the most daunting challenges.”
– Farrah Fawcett

“I cannot play a lie. I have to believe in what I play or it won’t come out.”
– Stan Getz

February 2nd Birthdays

1585 – Hamnet Shakespeare, William Shakespeare’s only son (baptized on this date, died 1596)
1861 – Solomon R. Guggenheim, American businessman and philanthropist, Guggenheim Museum (died in 1949)
1882 – James Joyce, Irish novelist, short story writer and poet (died in 1941)
1905 – Ayn Rand, Russian/American novelist and philosopher (died in 1982)
1915 – Abba Eban, South African/Israeli author (died in 2002)
1923 – Liz Smith, American journalist and author (died in 2017)
1925 – Elaine Stritch, American actress and singer (died in 2014)
1927 – Stan Getz, American saxophonist (died in 1991)
1933 – Tony Jay, English-American actor (died in 2006)
1937 – Tom Smothers, American comedian and actor
1942 – Graham Nash, English-American singer-songwriter
1947 – Farrah Fawcett, American actress (died in 2009)
1948 – Roger Williamson, English race car driver (died in 1973)
1949 – Brent Spiner, American actor
1954 – Christie Brinkley, American actress and model
1977 – Shakira, Colombian singer-songwriter

February 2nd History

1046 – The “Little Ice Age” began in Europe.

1872 – The Prohibition Party held its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.

1876 – National League (now Major League Baseball) of baseball was founded

1887 – The first Groundhog Day was observed in Punxsutawney, PA

1892 – The bottle cap with cork seal was patented (#468,226) by William Painter, from Baltimore.

1913 – Grand Central Terminal, also known as Grand Central Station, is a commuter railway terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The terminal officially opened on February 2, 1913, and it was one of the most significant transportation hubs in the world at the time. The terminal was built by the New York Central Railroad and it was designed by the architectural firm of Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore. The terminal spans over 48 acres and features 44 platforms, making it the largest train station in the world at its opening. It was designed with a Beaux-Arts style and featured a main concourse that was more than 300 feet long, with a ceiling painted with a night sky and constellations. Grand Central Terminal is still an active transportation hub, and it is a National Historic Landmark, a New York City Landmark, and a National Register of Historic Places.

1914 – Charlie Chaplin’s first film appearance, Making a Living premiered in early theaters.

1922 – Ulysses by James Joyce was published.

1924 – President Calvin Coolidge became the first President to deliver a radio address from the White House.

1925 – Dog sleds, led by Gunnar Kasson, reached Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod Race.

1925 – Sears & Roebuck opened their first retail store, in Chicago.

1928 – Great Fall River Fire, Massachusetts

1936 – The record 24-hour snowfall for Hawaii was 6.5 inches that fell on the Haleakala volcano.

1950 – What’s My Line debuted on CBS.

1959 – Nine experienced ski hikers in the northern Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union die under mysterious circumstances.

1961 -Nearly 600 passengers aboard the hijacked Santa Maria liner were finally landed and released in Brazil.

1964 – G.I. Joe action figures (they are not ‘dolls’!) went on sale for the first time, featuring the four branches of the US military.

1967 – The American Basketball Association (ABA) was established. It only had four teams (New York Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs) and later merged with its competition, the National Basketball Association (NBA).

1974 – #1 Hit February 2, 1974 – February 8, 1974: Barbra Streisand – The Way We Were

1979 – Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose in New York City.

1980 – An FBI operation called ABSCAM, an undercover operation regarding US congressional corruption was made known to the public.

February 2, 19** – Phil Conners lived the same day over and over, Groundhog Day, Film

1985 – #1 Hit February 2, 1985 – February 15, 1985: Foreigner – I Want to Know What Love Is

1989 – Sky Television began broadcasting in the UK.

1992 – #1 Hit February 1, 1992 – February 7, 1992: George Michael & Elton John – Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me

2000 – Oxygen debuted on cable.

2013 – #1 Hit February 2, 2013 – March 1, 2013: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz – Thrift Shop

#1 Hit February 2, 2019 – March 8, 2019: Ariana Grande – 7 Rings

February 2, 2388 – (fiction) Data was first activated, Star Trek, TV

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

Embiggen – The Simpsons – meaning to make larger. ” I can embiggen this sentence by adding a big, cromulent word to make it larger”.

In Animal House, Bluto’s grade point average was 0.0.

“I wish I knew how to quit you.” – Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) #moviequotes

The first avocado tree in the United States was planted in Florida in 1833.

The question “Can you hear me?” technically only has one answer.

King George of Saxony’s (August 8, 1832 – October 15, 1904) full name was Friedrich August Georg Ludwig Wilhelm Maximilian Karl Maria Nepomuk Baptist Xaver Cyriacus Romanus English: Frederick Augustus George Louis William Maximilian Charles Maria Nepomuk Baptist Xaver Cyriacus Romanus

Hot girl is going out with a jerk jock. The nerd secretly loves the hot girl. #moviecliches

A baby spider is called a spiderling.

During the production of Saving Private Ryan, Matt Damon was intentionally kept out of the boot camp training with the other stars to make them resent his character more.

When you rearrange the letters “ELEVEN PLUS TWO” you get “TWELVE PLUS ONE”

The poor gamble, the wealthy play the odds.

“Failure doesn’t come from falling down. Failure comes from not getting up.” – Karim Seddiki

The original (1781) name of Los Angeles was “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula,” or “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on of the River Porciúncula.”

If you want to fight someone who can read your mind, just think in a language they dont understand.

The Star Wars Title Sequence was Inspired by a Movie about the Railroad Industry Titled Union Pacific.

A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself.
Prime Days include:
February: 2/2 ,2/3 ,2/5 ,2/7 ,2/11 ,2/13 ,2/17 ,2/19 ,2/23 ,2/29/17, 2/29/19, 2/29/23, 2/29/29
March: 3/2 ,3/3 ,3/5 ,3/7 ,3/11 ,3/13 ,3/17 ,3/19 ,3/23 ,3/29 ,3/31
May: 5/2 ,5/3 ,5/5 ,5/7 ,5/11 ,5/13 ,5/17 ,5/19 ,5/23 ,5/29 ,5/31
July: 7/2 ,7/3 ,7/5 ,7/7 ,7/11 ,7/13 ,7/17 ,7/19 ,7/23 ,7/29 ,7/31
November: 11/2 ,11/3 ,11/5 ,11/7 ,11/11 ,11/13 ,11/17 ,11/19 ,11/23

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 2, 2026

February 1 in Pop Culture History

February 1st History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 1st History Highlights

1790 – The United States Supreme Court held its first session.
1898 – Travelers Insurance issued the first automobile accident insurance.
1960 – The Greensboro ‘Sit-In’ took place in North Carolina, protesting discrimination.
1964 – Hasbro introduced the G.I. Joe action figure (retail price: $2.49)
1982 – Late Night with David Letterman premiered on NBC.
If you were born on February 1st,
You were likely conceived the week of… May 11th (prior year)

February 1st is…

Decorating With Candy Day
National Candy Making Day
Car Insurance Day
Change Your Password Day
Dark Chocolate Day
Freedom Day
National Get Up Day
Robinson Crusoe Day
Serpent Day

Change Your Password Day

In 2012, Matt Buchanan, who was writing for Gizmodo at the time, came up with the idea to make it easier for hackers to get into your accounts. He wrote that there had been a proliferation of password-protected accounts on the Internet, and he complained that he had seen his account hacked twice.

He thought it would be a good idea if everyone changed their passwords on the same day and “Change your Password Day” was born. He suggested adding symbols to the new passwords and using different root passwords for banking and e-mails than anything else. Online banking passwords, for example, are more sensitive than magazine subscription passwords.

The importance of protecting your personal data with strong passwords is well documented – documented in the Data Breach Investigation Report 2019, which shows that 80% of hacker attacks – which are associated with access data breaches – are associated with compromised or weak credentials

National Dark Chocolate Day

Dark chocolate, with its intense cocoa flavor and slightly bitter undertones, has carved a special place in the hearts of chocolate lovers around the world. February 1st is the designated day to honor this sophisticated treat, recognizing its unique qualities and the joy it brings to our taste buds.

One of the primary reasons dark chocolate has its dedicated day is its myriad of health benefits. Unlike its sweeter counterparts, dark chocolate is known for containing higher. cocoa content, which is rich in antioxidants. These antioxidants are crucial in promoting heart health and reducing the risk of certain diseases. Additionally, dark chocolate is believed to have mood-enhancing properties, thanks to the release of endorphins when consumed. So, indulging in a piece or two on National Dark Chocolate Day satisfies your sweet tooth and contributes to your overall health.

Beyond the health benefits, the versatility of dark chocolate makes it a star ingredient in various culinary creations. From decadent desserts to savory dishes, chefs and home cooks alike experiment with dark chocolate to elevate their recipes. On National Dark Chocolate Day, you might find special menus at restaurants featuring dark chocolate-infused dishes, providing patrons a unique and delightful dining experience.

For those who enjoy a DIY approach to celebrating, National Dark Chocolate Day offers the perfect excuse to get creative in the kitchen. The possibilities are endless, Whether crafting homemade truffles, baking a sumptuous chocolate cake, or simply melting dark chocolate for a fondue feast. This day encourages individuals to explore their culinary skills and share the joy of dark chocolate with friends and family.

Chocolate brands often seize the opportunity to launch limited-edition dark chocolate treats or promotions on National Dark Chocolate Day. This allows chocolate enthusiasts to discover new flavors and indulge in exclusive offerings, adding excitement to the celebration.

February 1st Birthday Quotes

“I’m just a lucky slob from Ohio who happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
– Clark Gable

“I’ll retire when the Good Lord calls me.”
– Ben Weider

“The Romans did not see (the tale of Romulus, Remus, and the she-wolf) as a charming story; they meant to show that they had imbibed wolfish appetites and ferocity with their mother’s milk.”
– Terry Jones

“Dissidents should be paid 13 months’ salary for a year, otherwise our mindless unanimity will bring us to an even more hopeless state of stagnation. It is especially important to encourage unorthodox thinking when the situation is critical: At such moments every new word and fresh thought is more precious than gold. Indeed, people must not be deprived of the right to think their own thoughts.”
– Boris Yeltsin

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
– Clark Gable

“I can’t hang out as loose as I used to, but I can still go down Jefferson Avenue and look in the faces of winos, pimps and junkies, all the things I’m made of.”
– Rick James

“Some people are passionate about aisles, others about window seats.”
– Terry Jones

February 1st Birthdays

1859 – Victor Herbert, Irish-American cellist, composer, and conductor (died in 1924)
1901 – Clark Gable, American actor (died in 1960)
1902 – Langston Hughes, American poet and playwright (died in 1967)
1908 – George Pal, Hungarian-American animator and producer (died in 1980)
1918 – Muriel Spark, American writer (died in 2006)
1923 – Ben Weider, Canadian businessman, co-founded the International Federation of BodyBuilding & Fitness (died in 2008)
1931 – Boris Yeltsin, Russian politician, 1st President of Russia (died in 2007)
1937 – Don Everly, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1937 – Garrett Morris, American actor and comedian
1938 – Sherman Hemsley, American actor and singer (died in 2012)
1942 – Terry Jones, English actor, Monty Python (died in 2020)
1946 – Elisabeth Sladen, English actress (died in 2011)
1947 – Jessica Savitch, American journalist (died in 1983)
1948 – Rick James, American singer-songwriter and producer (died in 2004)
1965 – Brandon Lee, American actor and martial artist (died in 1993)
1965 – Sherilyn Fenn, American actress
1968 – Lisa Marie Presley, American singer-songwriter and actress
1968 – Pauly Shore, American comedian and actor
1971 – Michael C. Hall, American actor
1983 – Heather DeLoach, American actress, Bee Girl
1986 – Lauren Conrad, American Reality TV personality
1987 – Rhonda Rousey, American fighter athlete
1994 – Harry Styles, English singer-songwriter

February 1st History

1790 – The first meeting of the Court was scheduled to take place in New York City on Monday, February 1, 1790, but the lack of a quorum (only three of the six Justices were present) delayed the official opening until the following day, February 2, 1790 in New York City. The court was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789, which was signed into law by President George Washington on September 24, 1789. At the time, the court consisted of a Chief Justice, John Jay, and five Associate Justices. The Supreme Court originally had limited jurisdiction, and its primary role was to serve as an appellate court for cases appealed by lower federal and state courts. The court met in several locations before moving to its current home in the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. in 1935.

1851 – Evaporated milk was invented by Gail Borden. The process of evaporated milk involved removing most of the water from fresh milk, preventing spoilage, and making it possible to store the milk without refrigeration. This was a major breakthrough at the time as it allowed milk to be transported long distances, making it accessible to people who lived far from dairy farms. Borden received a patent for his method of evaporating milk in 1856, and he opened the first factory to produce evaporated milk the same year. Borden’s Eagle Brand evaporated milk became one of the most popular and well-known brands in the United States, and it is still being produced today.

1884 – The first volume (A to Ant) of the Oxford English Dictionary is published. The OED is widely considered one of the most comprehensive and scholarly dictionaries of the English language. The first edition of the OED was a monumental work that took over 70 years to complete, from 1857 to 1928. It was edited by James Murray and a team of scholars and volunteers, who collected and analyzed examples of words and their usage from various sources, including literary texts, newspapers, and manuscripts. The first edition of the OED included over 414,000 words and definitions, and it was issued in 10 volumes. The OED has since been updated, with new words and meanings regularly added.

1887 – The area known as Hollywood was founded by Harvey Henderson Wilcox, a real estate developer from Kansas, and his wife, Daeida. The Wilcoxes purchased 120 acres of land west of Los Angeles and founded the Hollywood subdivision, which they envisioned as a religious community. The area was initially a small rural community, but it began to proliferate after the introduction of the movie industry in the 1910s. The first movie studio in Hollywood, Nestor Studios, was established in 1911, and many other studios soon followed. Hollywood became the center of the American movie industry, attracting thousands of actors, directors, and other industry professionals. Today, Hollywood is known worldwide as the symbol of the entertainment industry and home of the famous Hollywood sign.

1893 – Thomas A. Edison finished the construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey. Thomas A. Edison played a key role in the early development of motion picture technology, and the Black Maria studio was one of the earliest motion picture studios in the world. The studio, also known as the “Edison Kinetoscope Company,” was completed in 1893 in West Orange, New Jersey. It produced short films known as “Edison kinetoscope films,” which were shown in kinetoscope parlors. The studio was called the “Black Maria” because it resembled a police patrol “black maria” wagon, it was a small wooden building with a peaked roof that could be rotated to follow the sun, it was the first motion-picture studio specifically designed for film production. The Edison Manufacturing Company operated the studio and produced around 200 films. The studio was used until 1901 and is considered a milestone in the history of motion pictures.

1896 – Puccini’s La bohème premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy. La bohème is an opera in four acts composed by Giacomo Puccini and based on Henri Murger’s novel “Scenes de la vie de bohème.” The premiere was conducted by Arturo Toscanini and directed by Luigi Illica, Puccini’s librettist. The opera tells the story of a group of young bohemians living in Paris in the mid-19th century and is set in the Latin Quarter. The main characters are the poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimi, whose love story is at the center of the opera. La bohème was an immediate success, and it is still considered one of Puccini’s most popular and enduring works. It is regularly performed around the world and it has been adapted into various forms of media, including films, stage productions, and ballets.

1898 – Travelers Insurance Company began issuing car insurance. Travelers Insurance Company, now known as The Travelers Companies, Inc., was founded in 1864 and initially focused on providing insurance for maritime and transportation-related risks. At the time of its foundation, car insurance did not yet exist. As the automobile industry developed, the company began to offer car insurance policies and other types of insurance such as property, casualty and liability insurance. Travelers Insurance Company was one of the first companies to introduce the concept of personal auto insurance and quickly became a major auto insurance provider in the United States.

1911 – Thomas Jennings was the first person in the United States to be convicted of a crime using fingerprint evidence. He was found guilty of burglary in a trial in Illinois in 1911. The case was noteworthy for fingerprint evidence, which had been used in criminal investigations in other countries but not yet in the United States. The fingerprint evidence was presented by an expert witness, Dr. Henry Faulds, and it helped to link Jennings to the crime scene. The court found the fingerprint evidence to be convincing, and Jennings was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison. This case marked the first time fingerprint evidence was used in a court of law in the United States and helped establish fingerprinting as a reliable identification method.

1942 – Voice of America (VOA) is a U.S. government-funded multimedia news organization that provides news, information, and programming to people worldwide. The organization was established on February 1, 1942, during World War II, to respond to the need for accurate and reliable news from the United States to be broadcast to people in countries controlled by the Axis powers. The VOA’s mission is to provide accurate, balanced, and comprehensive news and information to an international audience, supporting freedom and democracy. The VOA broadcasts news, features, and other programming in more than 45 languages via radio, television, and digital platforms. It is an independent federal agency, part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and its news and programming are editorially independent of the U.S. government.

1947 – You Are There was a radio drama series that premiered on CBS radio on February 1, 1947. The show was created by producer-director Irving Cummings and it was written by a team of writers led by Walter Newman. “You Are There” was a unique program that presented historical events as if they were unfolding in the present. Each episode was set in a different historical period, and the show covered events such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Boston Tea Party, and the trial of Socrates. Walter Cronkite hosted the show, featuring a talented cast of actors, who portrayed famous historical figures such as Julius Caesar, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. The show was popular and critically acclaimed and it ran until 1957. It was also adapted into a television series that ran on CBS from 1953 to 1957, hosted by Cronkite as well.

1953 – General Electric Theater was a television anthology series that premiered on CBS. General Electric sponsored the show, and it featured a mix of dramas, comedies, and musicals. The show was hosted by Ronald Reagan, who was also an actor and a spokesman for General Electric at the time. The series presented a wide range of stories, from adaptations of classic literature to original dramas, and it featured a talented cast of actors, such as James Stewart, Bette Davis, and Claudette Colbert. The show was popular and critically acclaimed and ran for 8 seasons until 1962. Reagan’s hosting role on the series helped establish him as a television personality and was a stepping stone to his later political career.

1964 – #1 Hit February 1, 1964 – March 20, 1964: The Beatles’ – I Want to Hold Your Hand

February 1, 19** – Willy Wonka took the Golden Ticket Winners on the famous tour of his factory. In Roald Dahl’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka, the eccentric and reclusive owner of the Wonka Chocolate Factory, holds a contest in which five Golden Tickets are hidden inside chocolate bars and distributed worldwide. Whoever finds these tickets will win a tour of the mysterious and magical factory. In the story, the contest’s five winners are Charlie Bucket, Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee, who their respective parents accompany. The factory tour is a wild and fantastical journey during which the children encounter strange and wonderful creations, such as the chocolate river, the Oompa-Loompas, and the Everlasting Gobstopper. The tour also serves as a test for the children, as Willy Wonka is looking for a worthy successor to take over his factory. The story has been adapted into various forms of media, including films, stage productions, and musicals.

1968 – The New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad are merged to form Penn Central Transportation. The merger was an effort to create a more efficient and financially stable rail system in the northeastern United States. The New York Central Railroad was primarily based in the Northeastern United States and operated in a region including New York, Ohio, and Michigan. The Pennsylvania Railroad was based in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States and operated in a region that included Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. The merger was one of the largest in American corporate history, creating a railroad system that operated in almost all of the Northeastern United States. It was the largest transportation company in the world. However, the merger was not successful and the company filed for bankruptcy in 1970. The government eventually took over it and became part of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) in 1976.

1969 – #1 Hit February 1, 1969 – February 14, 1969: Tommy James & the Shondells – Crimson and Clover

February 1, 1971 Birthday (fictional) Dexter Morgan, Dexter, TV. “Dexter” is a television series that premiered on Showtime in 2006. The show is based on the “Dexter” series of novels by Jeff Lindsay. The show follows the life of Dexter Morgan, the main character, who is a forensic blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department by day, and a vigilante serial killer by night. Dexter’s vigilante killings are motivated by his desire to kill criminals who have escaped justice. The show explores Dexter’s internal struggle between his “Dark Passenger,” his inner voice that compels him to kill, and his desire to lead a normal life as a father, brother, and friend. The show was both critically acclaimed and popular, it ran for eight seasons from 2006 to 2013, the show was created by James Manos Jr. Michael C. Hall played Dexter Morgan in the series. The series was known for its dark and complex themes and its portrayal of a sympathetic serial killer protagonist.

1974 – Good Times premiered on CBS.

1975 – #1 Hit February 1, 1975 – February 7, 1975: Neil Sedaka – Laughter in the Rain

1978 – Director Roman Polanski fled the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Roman Polanski, a Polish-French film director, pleaded guilty in 1977 to one count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles, California. After he pleaded guilty, Polanski was sent to prison for 42 days for psychiatric evaluation. The evaluation was completed and the judge indicated that Polanski would be sentenced to additional time in prison, but Polanski fled the United States before the sentencing. Since then, he has been living in France and has not returned to the United States for fear of being arrested and extradited. The United States has an extradition treaty with France, but the French government has refused to extradite Polanski for the crime. Polanski continued his career as a European filmmaker and directed several notable films such as “Chinatown” and “The Pianist.”

2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 exploded after liftoff, killing all seven crew members. The disaster occurred as the spacecraft returned from a successful 16-day mission to conduct scientific research in space. The accident was caused by a hole in the left wing’s leading edge, which had been damaged during launch by a piece of foam insulation that broke off from the external fuel tank. The hole allowed hot gases to penetrate the wing during re-entry, causing the wing’s structural failure and the spacecraft’s subsequent disintegration. The crew consisted of Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, and Ilan Ramon. The Columbia accident was a tragic loss for NASA, the crew members’ families, and the entire space community. The accident prompted NASA to make significant changes to its safety procedures and to the design of the space shuttle, and it led to a two-and-a-half-year break in shuttle flights.

1996 – The Communications Decency Act (CDA) was a law passed by the United States Congress as Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The CDA was intended to protect children from harmful material on the Internet by criminalizing the transmission of “indecent” or “patently offensive” messages to anyone under 18 years of age. The law also made it a crime to use an interactive computer service to display any material that, in context, depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way. The law faced strong opposition from civil liberties groups, Internet service providers, and technology companies, who argued that it violated the First Amendment rights of free speech. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the CDA, finding that the law was overbroad and vague. The court ruled that the act’s provisions against “indecent” and “patently offensive” speech were unconstitutional and that the government could not make laws that effectively ban free speech online.

2003 – #1 Hit February 1, 2003 – February 7, 2003: B2K featuring P. Diddy – Bump, Bump, Bump

2004 – The Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, which took place on February 1, 2004, was a controversial event that involved the performers Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. During the performance, Timberlake was supposed to reveal part of Jackson’s costume, revealing a “costume reveal” in which her right breast was briefly exposed. The incident, referred to as a “wardrobe malfunction,” generated widespread media coverage and public outrage. The exposure was broadcast live on television, and an estimated 143.6 million viewers saw it. The incident prompted the Federal Communications Commission to impose a $550,000 fine on CBS, the network that aired the halftime show, for violating indecency laws. The incident led to a crackdown on indecency in broadcasting and stricter regulation of live television events. The incident also increased public awareness of the potential dangers of live television, and it significantly impacted how networks and performers approached live events.

2013 – The Shard, also known as the Shard of Glass, is a skyscraper located in London, England. It was officially opened to the public on February 1, 2013. The Shard is the tallest building in the European Union, with a height of 310 meters (1,016 feet) and 72 floors. The Italian architect Renzo Piano designed the building, and the Sellar Property Group developed it. The Shard is a mixed-use building with offices, residential apartments, a hotel, restaurants, and an observation deck known as The View from The Shard. The building is considered a significant architectural and engineering achievement and it is a major landmark in the London skyline. It’s also an important tourist attraction, as visitors can go to the observation deck on the 72nd floor for a panoramic view of the city.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

In a few billion years Narwhals could evolve into Unicorns.

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.” – Steve Martin

Ettorre’s Observation: The other line moves faster.

A really well-known trivia fact is not very good trivia.

Charles Gemora was a makeup artist and costume designer who played a gorilla in 40 films in the 1930s and 40s, including 1932, Island of Lost Souls.

“Anyone Can Cook.” – Ratatouille #moviequotes

Eric Clapton – Real Name: Eric Clapp

We should all strive to be the type of person you would want to serve at a restaurant.

Not Googling to check your facts before you post on the Internet is the online version of not thinking before you speak. #factcheck

Being famous on Twitter is like being rich in Monopoly.

In the movie Armageddon, it probably would have been easier to train astronauts to be drillers, rather than drillers to be astronauts.
#majorplothole

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” – President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964

Biggest film of 1995: Toy Story (Action/Adventure) earned ~ $192,000,000

Say the secret word and win $100. #TVCatchphrase

If there were people who could read minds, they would hear an awful lot of songs, sung with incorrect words, and likely very out of tune or rhythm.

More Pop Culture History Resources

February 1, 2026

February in Pop Culture History

February History, Facts and Trivia

About February

The Name of The Month: Februa was a Roman purification ritual and was considered as the early Rome Spring Cleaning Festival. Februs, the Roman god was named after this festival.
The original 10-month, 304-day Roman calendar didn’t work for long because it didn’t align with the seasons. King Numa Pompilius reformed the calendar around 713 BC by adding the months of January (Ianuarius) and February (Februarius) to the original 10 months, which increased the year’s length to 354 or 355 days.
When Julius Caesar remade the Roman calendar in 46 BC, the month was assigned 28 days during normal years and 29 days during leap years which occurred every four years.
Birthstone: Amethyst
Flower: Primrose
Zodiac signs: Capricorn: December 22 – January 19, Aquarius: January 20 – February 18
February is the third and last month of meteorological winter in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, February is summer’s third and last month.
In Old English, February was called Solmonath, sprout-kale, or Kale-monath.
February 1865 and 2018 are the only months in recorded history not to have a full moon in North America.
(January and March 2018 had 2 full moons)
Before 2002, Super Bowl Sunday was held the last Sunday in January, but since 2002 it is more commonly held the first Sunday of February.
February is of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language. People seem to forget the first “r”.

Traditional February Information – Leap Year

February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian calendar because when the Roman calendar was created, the Roman calendar originally consisted of 10 months, with the year beginning in March. It is named after the Roman festival of purification.

February was added to the Roman calendar in 713 BC by the Roman king Numa Pompilius. The original Roman calendar consisted of only ten months, with the year beginning in March. To align the calendar with the lunar year, about 11 days shorter than the solar year, Numa Pompilius added January and February to the calendar, making February the last month of the year. This resulted in the total number of days in a year being 304 days, with February having 28 days.

February sometimes has 29 days because it is a leap year in the Gregorian calendar. A leap year is a year that is divisible by 4, except for end-of-century years, which must be divisible by 400.

The concept of a leap day, or an extra day added to February every four years, was first introduced by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar in 45 BC. He introduced this system through his Julian calendar, which was used throughout the Roman Empire and for some time after its fall. The Julian calendar had a leap day added to February every four years, which helped to keep the calendar in line with the solar year.

However, the Julian calendar still had an error of about 11 minutes per year. This accumulated over time, and by the 16th century, the calendar was about ten days ahead of the solar year. To correct this error, the Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. This calendar refined the leap year rule by dropping three leap years every 400 years. This kept the calendar in line with the solar year with an error of less than one day in 3236 years.

The Gregorian calendar is used in most countries today, and the leap year rule of adding a day to February every four years still applies to it.

The leap year keeps the calendar year in sync with the solar year, the time it takes for the Earth to complete its orbit around the sun. The solar year is about 365.24 days long, so if we didn’t have leap years, the calendar would gradually drift out of sync with the seasons.

Adding an extra day to February every four years helps keep the calendar year aligned with the solar year and keeps the months and seasons from drifting.

Important events in February throughout history include the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC, the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 which ended the American Revolutionary War, and the 1992 signing of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union. Additionally, several significant historical figures, including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, have birthdays in February

Middle English – Februarius
Latin name – Februarius mensis – Month of February
Latin – dies februatus – Day of Purification
Old English – Solmonath – mud month

February is…

1st week of February: African Heritage & Health Week
3rd Weekend of February: National Margarita Weekend

American Heart Month
An Affair to Remember Month
Bird-Feeding Month
Black History Month
Canned Food Month
Cherry Month
Chocolate Lovers Month
Creative Romance Month
Free and Open Source Software Month
Grapefruit Month
Great American Pies Month
Hot Breakfast Month
National Bake for Family Fun Month
National Bird Feeding Month
National Cherry Month
National Children’s Dental Health Month
National Embroidery Month
National Grapefruit Month
National Heart Month
National Hot Breakfast Month
National Library Lover’s Month
National Snack Food Month
National Weddings Month
Potato Lovers Month
Retro Month
Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month
Snack Food Month
Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month

Pisces is the twelfth and final astrological sign in the Zodiac, represented by two Fish swimming in opposite directions. It is associated with the element of water and is considered a mutable sign. Those born under this sign are said to be compassionate, sensitive, and intuitive. Pisces is ruled by the planet Jupiter, and its corresponding astrological period is typically considered to be from February 19 to March 20. Pisces is known for being compassionate, sensitive, and intuitive. They are also known for their artistic and creative abilities. They can be emotional and have a hard time dealing with reality. They are also known for their adaptability and ability to go with the flow. Pisces is considered one of the zodiac’s most mystical and spiritually attuned signs.

February Quotes

“The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.
Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Afternoon in February

“Groundhog found fog. New snows and blue toes. Fine and dandy for Valentine candy. Snow spittin’; if you’re not mitten-smitten, you’ll be frostbitten! By jing-y feels spring-y.”
– The Old Farmer’s Almanac

“In the coldest February, as in every other month in every other year, the best thing to hold on to in this world is each other.”
– Linda Ellerbee

“There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the yet distant, but surely coming, summer.”
– Gertrude Jekyll

“February – the month of love?!! No wonder the shortest one in the calendar.”
– Dinesh Kumar Biran

“February is the uncertain month, neither black nor white but all shades between by turns. Nothing is sure.”
– Gladys Hasty Carroll

“Even though February was the shortest month of the year, sometimes it seemed like the longest.””
– JD Robb

“The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.”
– Joseph Wood Krutch

“Freezing
cold winds,
biting chills, and
white snow fluffed hills
Valentines day, oh how gay!
presidents’ day is coming our way.
February, sweet and small, greatest month of all.”
– Eric Lies – 28 Word Poem for February

The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.
– William C. Bryant

February History

February 1st is Decorating With Candy Day.
It is also Robinson Crusoe Day.

February 1 in Pop Culture History

1790 – First session of the U.S. Supreme Court, New York City

1851 – Evaporated milk was invented by Gail Borden.

1884 – The Oxford Dictionary debuted

1887 – The area known as Hollywood was founded.

1893 – Thomas A. Edison finished construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.

1896 – Puccini’s La bohème premiered in Turin, Italy.

1898 – Travelers Insurance Company began issuing car insurance.

1911 – Thomas Jennings was found guilty in Illinois with the first use of fingerprint evidence in the US.

1913 – Grand Central Terminal opened in New York as the world’s largest train station

1938 (Volcano Eruption) Banda Sea, Indonesia.

1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the US, begans broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers (later at the communist block).

1953 – You Are There premiered on CBS radio.

1960 – The Greensboro ‘Sit In’ took plane in North Carolina, protesting discrimination.

1964 – I Want To Hold Your Hand by The Beatles was number 1 on the Billboard music charts.

1974 – Good Times premiered on CBS.

1978 – Director Roman Polanski fled the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

1982 – Late Night with David Letterman debuted on NBC.

1996 – The US Congress passed the Communications Decency Act.

2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrated during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard over Texas.

2004 – The Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show Wardobe Malfunction controversy occurred

February 2 in Pop Culture History
It’s Groundhog’s Day.

1046 – The “Little Ice Age” began in Europe.

1653 – New Amsterdam (now the City of New York) was incorporated.

1876 – National League (now Major League Baseball) of baseball was founded

1887 – The first Groundhog Day was observed in Punxsutawney, PA

1892 – The bottle cap with cork seal was patented (#468,226) by William Painter, from Baltimore.

1893 – The Record of a Sneeze was filmed by Thomas Edison. It was the first filmed ‘close up.’

1914 – Charlie Chaplin’s first film appearance, Making a Living premiered in early theaters.

1922 – Ulysses by James Joyce was published.

1925 – Dog sleds, led by Gunnar Kasson, reached Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod Race.

1925 – Sears & Roebuck opened their first retail store, in Chicago.

1928 – Great Fall River Fire, Massachusetts

1950 – What’s My Line debuted on CBS.

1961 -Nearly 600 passengers aboard the hijacked Santa Maria liner were finally landed and released in Brazil.

1964 – G.I. Joe action figures (they are not ‘dolls’!) went on sale for the first time, featuring the four branches of the US military.

1979 – Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose in New York City.

1980 – An FBI operation called ABSCAM, an undercover operation regarding US congressional corruption was made known to the public.

1989 – Sky Television began broadcasting in the UK.

1990 – President De Klerk of South Africa lifted the 30-year ban on leading anti-apartheid group the African National Congress (ANC).

2000 – Oxygen debuted on cable

February 3 in Pop Culture History
1690 – The first paper money in America was issued today, in the Colony of Massachusetts.

1834 -Wake Forest University was established in North Carolina.

1870 – The 15th Amendment was ratified in the US, granting every citizen, regardless of race, the right to vote

1891 – The official electrical lighting of London streets commenced.

1889 – Outlaw Belle Starr was murdered in Oklahoma, shot twice in the back.

1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.

1923 (Volcano Eruption) Kamchatka.

1943 – The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive; the event is described in the the Four Chaplains Story.

1947 – The coldest weather ever recorded in the North America was at Snag, Yukon: -63 °C or -81 °F.

1953 – Jacques Cousteau’s book The Silent World was published.

1959 – The Day The Music Died: Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and Pilot Roger Peterson crashed in a cornfield near Clear Lake, Iowa.

1984 – The Challenger (STS-10) launched from the Kennedy Space Center.

2008 – The Naked Brothers Band premiered on Nickelodeon.

2009 – Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was made a knight of the Légion d’Honneur, which is France’s highest civilian award.

February 4 in Pop Culture History
World Cancer Day

1703 – In Edo (Japan), 46 of the Forty-seven Ronin committed seppuku (ritual suicide) for avenging their master’s death.

1783 – Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its American colonies, the United States.

1789 – George Washington was elected as the first president of the United States by the Electoral College.

1801 – John Marshall was sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.

1825 – The Ohio Legislature authorized the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal

1826 – The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper was published

1922 – Ford Motor Company acquired the failing luxury automaker Lincoln Motor Company for $8 million.

1932 – The Winter Olympics were held in the United States at Lake Placid, NY.

1935 – Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch premiered on CBS radio.

1936 – Radium (Ra) became the first radioactive element to be synthetically made.

1938 – Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs was released by Walt Disney.

1941 – Roy Plunkett received the patent (#2,230,654) for Tetrafluoroethylene Polymers’ (Teflon)

1941 – The USO (United Services Organization) was founded.

1957 – Smith-Corona began selling portable electric typewriters.

1961 – The Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift, was released by United Artists

1965 (Earthquake) Rat Islands, Alaska

1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army abducted 19 year-old Patty Hearst

1979 (Earthquake) Riobamba, Ecuador

1983 – Singer Karen Carpenter died of anorexia.

1985 – President Ronald Reagan’s defense budget called for a tripling of the expenditure on the “Star Wars” research program.

1991 – Pete Rose (aka Charlie Hustle) was banned ‘for life’ from the Baseball Hall of Fame due to the fact that he used to illegally gamble on games.

1992 – A coup d’état was led by Hugo Chávez against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez.

1997 – A civil jury in California found O.J. Simpson liable in the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Goldman’s parents were awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages.

2004 – Facebook launched as “TheFacebook.com”

February 5 in Pop Culture History
Weatherperson’s Day, named after the birthday (Feb 5, 1744) of early US weatherman, John Jeffries.

62 – Pompeii earthquake (not to be confused with the Great Earthquake of 79)

1783 (Earthquake) Calabria, Italy

1824 – Samuel Vaughan Merrick and William H. Keating founded “The Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts” in Philadelphia.

1846 – The Oregon Spectator became the first newspaper published on the Pacific coast, in Oregon City.

1883 – The Southern Pacific Railroad completed its transcontinental “Sunset Route” from New Orleans to California.

1917 – The Congress of the United States passed the Immigration Act of 1917. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, and it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.

1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.

1929 – A runner’s ‘starting blocks’ (Foot Support) patent (#1,701,026) was issued to George T. Bresnahan of Iowa City, Iowa

1936 – The last silent film of the era, Modern Times, was released by Charlie Chaplin.

1953 – Walt Disney film Peter Pan opened at the Roxy Theatre in New York City.

1958 – A hydrogen bomb, known as the Tybee Bomb, was lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, and was never found.

1972 – Bob Douglas became the first African America to be inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1988 – Manuel Noriega was indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

2000 – Kelly Ripa officially joined Regis Philbin on Live!

February 6 in Pop Culture History
Today is Bob Marley Day in Jamaica and Ethiopia. (He was born on Feb. 6, 1945)

1819 – Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore.

1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society left New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia.

1843 – The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opened at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.

1891 – The Dalton Gang’s first attempt at train robbery failed. Bob, Grat, and Bill Dalton unsucessfully tried to rob a Southern Pacific train near Alila, California.

1926 – The National Football League (NFL) adopted a rule that made players ineligible for competition until their college class graduated.

1933 – The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was declared in effect, making the start of presidential, vice-presidential and congressional terms from March to January.

1937 – John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men was published.

1952 – Queen Elizabeth II succeeded to the British throne.

1959 – The first patent for an integrated circuit (computer chip) was filed by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments.

1959 – At Cape Canaveral, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile.

1971 – Astronaut Alan B. Shepard used a six-iron that he had brought inside his spacecraft and swung at three golf balls on the surface of the moon. He said it went for “miles and miles.”

1978 (Blizzard) The Blizzard of 1978 – One of the worst Nor’easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of four inches an hour.

1985 – The French mineral water company, Perrier, debuted its first new product in 123 years. The new items were water with a twist of lemon, lime or orange.

1998 – Washington National Airport was renamed the Ronald Reagan National Airport.

2000 – First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton formally declared that she was a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from the state of New York.

2005 – American Dad premiered on FOX

February 7 in Pop Culture History
1497 – The Bonfire of the Vanities occurred in which supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burned thousands of objects like cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, Italy.

1783 (Earthquake) Calabria, Italy

1817 – The first public gas street light in the was lit in Baltimore, Maryland, the first in the United States.

1904 – 1500 buildings, in an 80block area of the downtown Baltimore was destroyed in a fire. No one was killed.

1914 – The silent film Kid Auto Races at Venice premiered in theaters, featuring Charlie Chaplin in his first screen appearance as The Little Tramp.

1932 – The ‘neutron’ was mentioned in an article in the journal Nature by its discoverer, James Chadwick,

1935 – ‘Monopoly’ was first sold by Charles Darrow. In December he sold the patented (#2,026,082) game to Parker Brothers.

1940 – The second full-length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premiered.

1962 – The United States banned all Cuban imports and exports.

1964 – The Beatles first arrive in the United States.

1964 – Pan Am Yankee Clipper flight 101 from London Heathrow landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport, bring The Beatles to America for the first time.

1979 – Ex-planet Pluto moved inside real planet Neptune’s orbit for the first time since both planets were known to science

1982 – Superman: The Movie was broadcast on American television for the first time. It was in two parts, continued the following night.

1984 – STS-41-B Challenger Mission: Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).

1985 – New York, New York became the official anthem of New York City.

1988 – America’s Most Wanted premiered on FOX.

1990 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power.

February 8 in Pop Culture History
1587 – Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded.

1692 – A doctor in Salem Village claimed three teenaged girls were possessed by Satan, which then lead to the chaotic Salem Witch Trials.

1693 – The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia was granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II.

1865 – Delaware voters rejected the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and vote to continue the practice of slavery, although in practice, it did not exist.. (Delaware finally ratifies the amendment on February 12, 1901.)

1898 – The first envelope folding and gumming machine patent (#598,716) was issued to John Ames Sherman of Worcester, Mass.

1910 – The Boy Scouts of America were founded.

1915 – The Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith’s controversial film, premiered. It was originally titled The Clansman.

1924 – The first state execution in the United States by gas chamber took place in Nevada.

1936 – The first National Football League (NFL) draft was held. The Philadelphia Eagles chose Jay Berwanger, the first to be selected.

1946 – The first portion of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the first serious challenge to the popularity of the Authorized King James Version, was published.

1950 – The Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, was established.

1952 – Elizabeth II was proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom.

1969 – Pieces of the large Allende meteorite were recovered in Chihuahua, Mexico. They were estimated to be over 4.6 billion years old.

1969 – The last issue of the “Saturday Evening Post” was published. It was revived in 1971 as a quarterly publication and eventually 6 times a year.

1971 – The NASDAQ stock market index opened.

1998 – The first female hockey game in Olympic history took place. Finland defated Sweden 6-0

February 9 in Pop Culture History
1825 – The U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president since no candidate had received a majority of electoral votes.

1870 – The weather service, now named the National Weather Service (NWS) was authorized by Congress.

1889 – The United States Department of Agriculture was established

1895 – William G. Morgan, a Holyoke, MA, YMCA physical education director, invented the game of volleyball.

1900 – The Davis Cup tennis competition was established.

1902 – Doctor Eugène-Louis Doyen of Paris, performed a successful operation separating Siamese freakshow twins (Radika and Dodika), from the Barnum and Bailey Circus, apart.

1913 – The 1913 Great Meteor Procession took place over the eastern section of North America.

1942 – ‘War Time’ Daylight-savings went into effect in the U.S.

1960 – Adolph Coors was kidnapped and later killed by Joe Corbett while driving to work from his Morrison, Colorado, home.

1961 – The Beatles debuted at Liverpool’s Cavern

1964 – The Beatles appeared in the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.

1969 – The Boeing 747 flew its inaugural flight.

1971 – Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1997- The Simpsons made television history with their episode “The Itchy, Scratchy and Pootchie Show” which they then surpassed the Flintstones as the longest running prime-time cartoon series in terms of episodes aired

February 10 in Pop Culture History
1763 – The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War and France ceded Canada to England.

1840 – Queen Victoria and her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha, married. They had 9 children – Victoria, Bertie, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold, and Beatrice.

1863 – General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren were married in NYC.

1870 – The YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) was formally founded in New York City.

1897 – All The News That’s Fit To Print Day – the phrase began permanantly on the front page of The New York Times.

1933 – In Round 13 of a infamous boxing match at Madison Square Garden; Primo Carnera knocked out Ernie Shaaf, killing him.

1933 – The singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegraph Company of New York City.

1942 – The first gold record was presented to Glenn Miller for Chattanooga Choo Choo for selling 1.2 million copies. There was no official rule set at the time to qualify.

1949 – Death of a Salesman by American playwright Arthur Miller, opened at the Morocco Theatre in New York City.

1953 – Romper Room premiered, in syndication.

1956 – My Friend Flicka debuted on CBS

1962 – Roy Lichtenstein’s first solo art exhibition opened at the Castelli Gallery in NYC.

1962 – The Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for the Soviet spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abe with the US.

1966 – Ralph Nader, the author of Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, testified before Congress for the first time about unsafe practices in the auto industry.

1992 – Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, Miss Black American contestant.

1993- Oprah Winfrey interviewed Michael Jackson at his home The Neverland Ranch. It was Jackson’s first televised interview since 1979.

1996 – World chess champion Gary Kasparov lost the first game of a six-game match against Deep Blue. He won three, and tied twice in the matchup.

February 11 in Pop Culture History
It’s National Pro Sport’s Wives Day

660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.

1534 – Henry VIII of England is recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.

1752 – The first hospital in the United States, Pennsylvania Hospital, opened.

1808 – As an experiment, anthracite coal was burned as a fuel by Judge Jesse Fell in Pennsylvania.

1812 – Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry gerrymandered for the first time.

1928 – The La-Z-Boy reclining chair was invented by Ed Shoemaker.

1929 – The Vatican was officially independant from Italy with the Lateran Treaty.

1939 – Nature published a theoretical paper on nuclear fission by Lise Meitner and Otto Fritsch.

1940 – NBC radio debuted The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street.

1963 – The French Chef, starring Jula Child debuted on WGBH in Boston, MA.

1989 – Rev. Barbara Harris became the first woman to be consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

1990 – Nelson Mandela, leader of the movement to end South African apartheid, was released from prison after 27 years

1990 – Buster Douglas (40 to 1 odds against him winning) defeated Mike Tyson, to become the new undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

2006 – Vice President Dick Cheney accidently shot his friend Harry Whittington while the two were hunting together

2012 – Singer Whitney Houston died in a hotel bathtub, the result of accidental drowning. Heart disease and cocaine, which was found in her system, were determined to be contributing factors.

February 12 in Pop Culture History
Feb 12 is Darwin Day, named after the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth (Feb 12, 1813)

881 – Charles the Fat was declared the Holy Roman Emperor.

1870 – Women were given the right to vote, in Utah.

1879 – The first artificial ice rink opened in Madison Square Garden in NYC.

1898 – The first car crash resulting in a fatality happened to Henry Lindfield, in England.

1914 – The first stone of Washington DC’s Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

1924 – Rhapsody In Blue, by George Gershwin, performed for first time at the Aeolian Hall in New York City. Paul Whitman conducted the now classic piece of American music.

1931 – Dracula premiered in theaters.

1935 – The patent (#1,991,236) was issued to Robert Jemison Van de Graaff for his Electrostatic Generator.

1963 – Construction began on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

1999 – President Bill Clinton was acquitted on both articles of impeachment against him: perjury and obstruction of justice.

2004 – The city and county of San Franciso began to issue marriage license to same-sex couples

2004 – Mattel officially announced the split of Barbie and Ken

February 13 in Pop Culture History
It’s World Whale Day

1633 – Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome to face charges of heresy by the Catholic Church for advocating Copernican theory, which held that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

1741 – The first magazine was published in America – The American Magazine.

1906 -The patent (#812,554) was issued to Alfred Einhorn for his synthesis of procaine, which was given the tradename of Novocain.

1914 -The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP ) was established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

1915 – The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), headed by Victor Herbert, was founded.

1993 – Double Dare game show ended

2000 – Two days after Charles M Schulz died, February 11, the last original Peanuts comic strip was printed in newspapers

February 14 in Pop Culture History
Ferris Wheel Day, named after George Ferris, born Feb. 14, 1859.
It is also National Donor Day & St. Valentine’s Day.

278 – Valentine, a priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was beheaded for performing (illegal at the time) marragige ceremonies.

1779 – Captain James Cook, the great English explorer and surveyor in the Royal Navy, was murdered by natives of Hawaii during his third visit to the Pacific island group.

1822 – The patent (#X003456) was issued for the first practical grass mowing machine to Jeremiah Bailey of Chester county, Pennsylvania.

1876 – Both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied for a telephone patent. Alexander’s was later approved.

1903 – The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (it was later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor).

1912 – Arizona was admitted at the 48th state of the United States.

1920 – The League of Women Voters formed in Chicago, IL.

1929 – Four men came in, dressed as police at Bugs Moran’s headquarters on North Clark Street in Chicago, killing seven of Bugs’s men in what is called the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Moran was a rival of of Al Capone.

1938 – Former silent film actress Hedda Hopper began her gossip column in The Los Angeles Times.

1961 – Element 103, Lawrencium, was first synthesized at the University of California.

1970 – Live at Leeds by The Who was recorded.

1989 – Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

2000 – NEAR Shoemaker became the first spacecraft to orbit around an asteroid, 433 Eros

2002 – The final Family Guy episode aired after Fox announced its cancellation. It came back after DVD sales indicated a huge auduence for the show.

2005 – Youtube.com was launched.

February 15 in Pop Culture History
1758 – Mustard was first advertised for sale in America, by Benjamin Jackson, in Philadelphia, PA.

1764 – The city of St. Louis was established in Spanish Louisiana (now in Missouri, USA).

1898 – An explosion sank the battleship USS Maine in Cuba’s Havana harbor, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American crew members aboard, sparking the Spanish-American war.

1903 – The first Teddy Bear was introduced in Brooklyn, NY.

1946 – ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

1950 – Disney’s Cinderella cartoon feature opened in theaters. It was one of the biggest films of the year, and was theatrically re-released several time s- 1957, 1965, 1973, 1981 and 1987.

1965 – The flag we know today, the red and white maple leaf was designed as the new flag of Canada. Prior to that, the official flag was Britain’s Union Jack.

1992 – Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison.

2003 – It was estimated that between 8,000,000-30,000,000 people in 600 cities worldwide, the protest of the Iraq War was the largest protest in the history of the world.

2005 – YouTube was activated online.

2013 – A meteor exploded in the sky over Russia’s Ural Mountains, near Chelyabinsk, shattering glass and setting off car alarms for miles. Also, asteroid DA14 came with 18,000 miles of Earth.

February 16 in Pop Culture History
1852 – Studebaker Brothers wagon company was established.

1923 – In Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter entered the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen. He had been looking for King Tut’s tomb since his first trip the Egypt in 1891. The outer chambers were discovered in November, 1922.

1959 – Fidel Castro was sworn in as prime minister of Cuba after leading a Communist guerrilla campaign that forced dictator Fulgencio Batista into exile.

1964 – The Beatles appeared in the Ed Sullivan Show for the second time.

1968 – Haleyville, Alabama was the first town to use the 911 emergency number.

1983 – The Ash Wednesday brushfires in Southern Austalia took the lives of 71 people, becoming Australia’s worst fire ever.

2005 – The National Hockey League canceled the entire 2004-2005 regular season and playoffs.

February 17 in Pop Culture History
1621 – Myles Standish was appointed as first commander of the English Plymouth Colony in North America.

1859 – Dmitri Mendeleev began creating what we now call The Periodic Table.

1904 – Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly premiered at the La Scala theatre in Milan, Italy. It was one of the firts world-wide pop culture event ‘hits’.

1933 – The magazine Newsweek was published for the first time. In October 2012, it was announced that Newsweek would cease print publication with the December 31, 2012.

1958 – Pope Pius XII designated St. Clare of Assisi the patron saint of television.

1959 – Vanguard 2 – The first weather satellite waslaunched to measure cloud-cover distribution.

1968 – The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opened in Springfield, MA

1979 – A Prairie Home Companion premiered on Minnesota Public Radio.

1995 – Colin Fergson was convicted of the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings and received a 200+ year sentence to jail

2009 – 368 US Television stations permanently shut off their analog transmission signals, becoming digital.

February 18 in Pop Culture History
1856 – The “Known-Nothing Party,” convened in Philadelphia to nominate its first presidential candidate. The Know-Nothing movement began in the 1840s, when an increasing rate of immigration led to the formation of a number of groups to combat “foreign” influences in American society.

1861 – Jefferson Davis became the provisional president of the Confederate States of America. He was ‘provisional’ becuase he was not elected by the people, but appointed by the Confederate Congress.

1885 – Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckberry Finn was published for the first time.

1913 – Pedro Lascuráin becomes President of Mexico for 45 minutes, the shortest term to date of any person as president of any country.

1929 – The first Academy Awards were announced in 1929 for 1928’s films.

1930 – A cow named Ollie was milked over St. Louis, MO. Her milk was cartoned and parachuted down.

1930 – Ex-planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh.

1954 – The first Church of Scientology was established in Los Angeles.

1978 – The first Ironman Triathlon competition took place on the island of Oahu and is won by Gordon Haller.

2001 – Race car legend Ralph Dale Earnhardt was killed in a crash in the last lap of the Daytona 500 . Richard Petty won the race.

February 19 in Pop Culture History
1600 (Volcano Eruption) Huaynaputina

1847 – Of the 89 original members of the Donner Party, only 45 reached California. They had been trapped, with no provisions and little survival skills since late October of 1848, about 13 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe.

1864 – The Kights of Pythias was established in Washington, DC.

1884 – More than sixty tornadoes struck the Southern United States in one of the largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history.

1878 – The patent (#200,521) for Thomas Edision’s phonograph was granted.

1942 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable.” This was the basis for the Japanses Internment camps, which held over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans until January 2, 1945. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill to repay every surviving internee with a tax-free payment of$20,000 and an apology from the U.S. government.

1963 – The Feminine Mistique by Betty Friedan was published.

1980 – AC/DC vocalist Bon Scott died from alcohol poisoning

1982 – Rock legend Ozzy Ozbourne was arrested for urinating on the Alamo

1985 – William J. Schroeder became the first articifial heart patient to leave the hospital.

1985 – The Eastenders premiered in the UK.

1986 – The US Senate approved a treaty that outlawed genocide

1994 – Martin Lawrence made a sexually explicit joke during his opening monologue during his appearance on Saturday Night Live. The joke was in reference to female genitalia and feminine hygiene. He ended up being banned from the NBC network for a year and from SNL for life. During re-broadcast of the episode the joke is replaced by a title card read off-screen and the joke nearly cost everyone at SNL their jobs.

2006 – The Rolling Stones performed in front of the largest open show for the public in Copacabana Beach in Brazil,1.3 Million people attended

2010 – Golfer Tiger Woods admitted to having several affairs, which were brought to light after an incident in Windermere, Florida, an Orlando suburb, around 2:30 a.m. on November 27, 2009. His car crashed, reportedly, but several eyewitness accounts said it looked like it was attacked by someone with a golf club. Ironically, his wife, Elin Nordegren, was reportedly informed about his infidelities shortly before the ‘crash.’

February 20 in Pop Culture History
1792 – The United States Post Office became a cabinet postion under President George Washington. In 1971, the Post Office became an indepedendent corporation.

1816 – Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.

1872 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City.

1872 – Luther Childs Crowell (#123,811) received the patent for a machine for manufacturing square-bottom paper bags. We still use the design today.

1877 – Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake gave its premiere performance at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

1931 – San Franciso got approval from the US Congress to build the San Franciso-Oakland Bay Bridge.

1943 – American movie studio executives agreed to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.

1962 – Launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Hershel Glenn Jr. successfully went into space aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut.

1979 – This Old House premiered on PBS.

1986 – The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station into orbit.

1986 – After about a century of planning and a millennium of wishing, it was announced that the “Chunnel” bewteen the UK and France would be built. Construction began in December 1987 and the “chunnel” was finally completed in 1994

1995- A short called “Changes” which was the pilot for Dexter’s Laboratory aired on Cartoon Network. It was a huge success and is credited with helping launch the animation careers of Butch Hartman, Craig McCracken and Seth McFarlane.

1996- VH1 Storytellers debuted on VH1

1998 – American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest gold-metal winner at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan

2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested and charged with spying for the Russians for 15 years

2003 – Great White’s pyrotechnics went out of control, burning down Rhode Island’s ‘The Station’ nightclub, and took 100 lives.

2005 – Robot Chicken premiered on Adult Swim.

2013 – The smallest extrasolar planet, Kepler-37b was discovered.

February 21 in Pop Culture History
1848 – The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, was published in London by a group of German-born revolutionary known as the Communist League.

1878 – The first telephone directory in the US, listing about 50 names, was issued by the New Haven Telephone Company, in New Haven, Connecticut.

1885 – The Washington Monument was dedicated. It was opened to the public about three years later. At 555 feet 5 1/8 inches, it was the tallest structure in the world until the Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889. The 555-foot-high marble obelisk was first proposed in 1783, and had countless delays, including the American Civil War.

1925 – The New Yorker magazine began publication.

1948 – The National Association for Stock Car Racing – NASCAR – was founded.

1953 – The structure of the DNA molecule was discovered by Francis Crick and James D. Watson

1965 – Malcom X was assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam in the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.

1991 – Lost in Yonkers premiered in NYC at the Richard Rodger Theatre.

1997 – The all digital Wheel of Fortune board was introduced.

February 22 in Pop Culture History
1620 – Popcorn was introduced to the English colonists by an Indian named Quadequina.

1632 – Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was published.

1759 – Today is the day that middle class 27 year old George Washington married rich widow (also 27) Martha Dandridge Curtis, and became a wealthy man (he was already a war hero).

1819 – Spanish minister Do Luis de Onis and U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams signed the Florida Purchase Treaty, giving the United States control of all of Florida.

1855 – Pennsylvania State University was founded in State College, Pennsylvania (as the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania)

1879 – The first F.W. Woolworth’s 5 & Dime opened in Utica, NY. It became the first chain store.

1934 – It Happened One Night premiered in theaters.

1956 – Elvis Presley debuted on the music charts with Heartbreak Hotel.

1959 – Lee Petty defeated Johnny Beauchamp in a photo finish at the brand new Daytona International Speedway in Florida to win the first-ever Daytona 500.

1974 – Samuel Byrck unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate President Richard Nixon

1978 – Rock band The Police appeared in a television commercial for Wrigley’s chewing gum

1980 – The ‘Miracle on Ice’ – The US Men’s Hockey Team won a 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Two days later, the Americans went on to beat Finland and take home the gold medal.

1990 – Best New Artist Grammy was awarded to song and dance performers Milli Vanilli.

2006 – iTunes sold it’s BILLIONTH music download. 16 year old Alex Ostrovsky of West Bloomfield, bought “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay. He later got a phone call from Steve Jobs and won a lot of iPod and Mac stuff.

2006 – At least six men staged Britain’s biggest bank robbery ever stealing the equilvalent of 92 million American dollars from a security depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

February 23 in Pop Culture History
1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with movable type. Ironically, if there were newspapers at the time, we could be more confident about the date.

17389 – Richard Palmer was identified by his former schoolteacher, as the outlaw Dick Turpin.

1896 – The Tootsie Roll was introduced by Leo Hirshfield, in New York.

1903 – Cuba leased Guantanamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity”.

1905 – Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen met for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world’s first service club.

1941 – Plutonium was first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg

1945 – During the Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak, and raised the U.S. flag. The photo would later become world-famous as well as win a Pulitzer Prize.

1947 – The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was founded.

1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with Jonas Salk’s vaccine began in Pittsburgh, PA.

1955 – First meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

1964 – The Beatles appeared in the Ed Sullivan Show for the third time.

1967 – The Beatles made a taped appearance on American Bandstand, where they premiered their new music videos for the songs “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever”

1975 – There was an energy crisis in the US in 1975, so daylight savings time started two months early – Feb 23rd instead of April.

1978 -Both Barbra Streisand’s Love Theme from A Star Is Born (Evergreen) and Debby Boone’s You Light Up My Life were awarded the Best Song Grammy – the first and only tie in that category in Grammy history.

1987 – Supernova 1987a was seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

1991 – Operation Desert Storm began in Iraq.

1997 – Scientists announced the first successful cloning of an animal, a lamb named Dolly.

February 24 in Pop Culture History
1582 – The Gregorian Calendar, which most of the world uses today, was introduced.

1711 – The London premiere of Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel. It was the first Italian opera written for the London stage.

1863 – Arizona was organized as a United States territory.

1892 (Earthquake) Imperial Valley, California

1938 – A nylon-bristled toothbrush became the first commercial product to be made with nylon yarn.

1938 – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) had bought the rights to adapt L. Frank Baum’s beloved children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as reported by Variety magazine.

1938 – DuPont began commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles for the so-called “Miracle Tuft Toothbrush.”

1942 – In what may or may not have been a UFO attack, The Battle of Los Angeles lasted into the early hours of February 25.

1952 – The Reputed ‘Battle of LA’ in Los Angeles, California

1970 – The National Public Radio was founded in the US.

1980 – The United States Olympic Hockey team completed its Miracle on Ice by defeating Finland 4–2 to win the gold medal.

1981- The engagement of Charles, Price of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer was announced

1982 – The U.S. Supreme Court voted 8-0 to overturn the $200,000 settlement awarded to the Reverend Jerry Falwell for his emotional distress at being parodied in Hustler, a pornographic magazine. Basically the Supreme Court ruled that you can mock public figures.

1993- Michael Jackson received the Grammy Legend award which was presented to him by his sister Janet at the 35th annual Grammy Awards.

2011 – The final Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103).

February 25 in Pop Culture History
National Chili Day

1836 – Samuel Colt was granted a United States patent (#9430X) for his Colt revolver.

1901 – J.P. Morgan incorporated the United States Steel Corporation.

1919 – Oregon became the first US state to levy a gasoline tax by placing 1 cent tax on every gallon of gas.

1932 – Adolf Hitler obtaind German citizenship by naturalization, which allows him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident.

1950 – Your Show of Shows, hosted by Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca premiered on NBC.

1964 – Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali), age 22, defeated champion Sonny Liston in a technical knockout to win the world heavyweight boxing crown.

1967 – Gene Kelly starred in Jack and the Beanstalk on NBC(produced by Hanna-Barbera) it was the first TV special to combine live action and animation.

1991 – The Warsaw Pact officially disbanded.

2000 – Max Steel premiered on Kid’s WB

2004 – The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s film about the last 44 hours of Jesus of Nazareth’s life, opened in theaters, eventually earning over $370,700,000.

2006 – The world’s population reached an estimated 6.5 billion people

February 26 in Pop Culture History
1616 – Galileo Galilei was formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba.

1829 – Levi Strauss was born. He never married, so, ironically, he didn’t get to pass his genes on to the next generation.

1870 – New York City’s first pneumatic-powered subway line, created by Alfred Beach, was opened to the public.

1909 – Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, was first shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London with 21 short films.

1919 – 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon, already a national monument, was designated a national park under President Woodrow Wilson

1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signed into law a bill establishing the Grand Teton National Park, in Wyoming.

1946 – Finnish observers reported the first of thousands of sightings of ghost rockets.

1993 – The first of the World Trade Bombings occured , the bomb went off in a parked truck under the North Tower. The bombing killed six and injured over a thousand people

1995 – Selena Quintanilla-Perez performed her last concert in Houston before being shot by her manager.

2005 – Halle Berry accepted her Razzie Award at the 25th annual ceremony at Hollywood’s historic Ivar Theatre.

2012 – Trayvon Martin, an African-American teen walking home from a trip to a convenience store, was fatally shot in an altercation with George Zimmerman, a hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer patrolling the townhouse community of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida.

February 27 in Pop Culture History
1703 – The first Mardi Gras was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703.

1801 – District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 – Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. ‘Taxation without representation.’

1827- Masked and costumed students danced through the streets of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the first of the city’s famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

1879 – Saccharin, the artificial sweetener, was discovered by Constantin Fahlberg,

1900 – German chemist Felix Hoffmann was issued the patent (#644,077) for ‘Acetyl Salicylic Acid’. We now call it Aspirin.

1936 – Shirley Temple received a new contract from 20th Century Fox that paid the seven-year-old star $50,000 per film.

1960 – The US Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviet Union in the semifinals at the Winter Games in Squaw Valley, California. The next day, the US team beat Czechoslovakia to win its first-ever Olympic gold medal in hockey.

1973 – The American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

1974 – People magazine was published for the first time

1980 – There was only one Grammy for Best Disco Recording ever, and it was awarded to Gloria Gaynor for I Will Survive.

1999 – Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in a hot air balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.

2010 (Earthquake) Coastal Maule, Chile

February 28 in Pop Culture History
National Tooth Fairy Day

1784 – John Wesley chartered the first Methodist Church in the United States. An Anglican, Wesley wanted a church structure for his followers after the Anglican Church abandoned its American believers during the American Revolution.

1827 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was incorporated. It was the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1885 – The American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) was incorporated in New York, as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone.

1935 – Wallace Carothers discovered Nylon while working at DuPont.

1839 – The non-existent word “dord” was publsihed in the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition.

1940 – Basketball was televised for the first time. The game was Fordam University vs. University of Pittsberg

1953 – Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Frances H.C. Crick announced that they had found the double-helix structure of DNA, the molecule containing human genes.

1983 – CBS sitcom M*A*S*H ended after 11 seasons, airing a special two-and-a-half hour episode watched by 77% of the television viewing audience.

1993 – Near Mount Carmel in Waco, Texas, agents of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) launch a raid against the Branch Davidian compound. At least 80 people, including 22 children, were killed.

1996 – KISS reunited at the Grammys in full makeup and costume.

2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigned as the pope of the Catholic Church – the first pope to do so since 1415.

February 29 in Pop Culture History
Bachelors Day
Leap Year Day
Underlings Day

46 BC – Julius Caesar declared the first Leap Day.

1288 – The concept of allowing women to propose marraige to men may have begun, in Scotland.

1692 – The first witches were arrested in Salem Massachusetts.

1936 – Baby Snooks, played by Fanny Brice, debuted on the radio show The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.

1940 – Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award, for her role as Mammy in Gone With The Wind. It won 8 Oscars overall.

1944 – Dorothy McElroy Vredenburgh of Alabama became the first woman to be appointed secretary of a national political party. She was appointed to the Democratic National Committee.

1960 (Eathquake) Agadir , Morocca, killed over 3,000 people.

1960 – The Family Circus comic strip by Bil Keane debuted.

1960 – The first Playboy Club opened, in Chicago.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

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January 31, 2026

February 22 in Pop Culture History

February 22nd History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 22nd History Highlights

1651 – St. Peter’s Flood (I): A storm surge flooded the Frisian (Germany/Netherlands) coast, drowning 15,000 people.
1856 – The United States Republican Party opened its first national convention in Pittsburgh.
1878 – In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opened the first five-and-dime Woolworth store.
1956 – Montgomery, Alabama arrested several civil rights protestors and bus boycotters, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and E.D. Nixon.
1980 – Winter Olympics: Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3.
February 22, 2012 – PlayStation Vita released, Video Game Console.
If you were born on February 22nd,
You were likely conceived the week of… June 1st (prior year)

February 22nd Is…

Cook a Sweet Potato Day
George Washington’s (real) Birthday
National Margarita Day
National Wildlife Day
Recreational Sports and Fitness Day
Walk The Dog Day

February 22nd Birthday Quotes

“I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.”
– George Washington

“An artist will sooner and with more certainty, establish the character of skeletons, than the most learned anatomist, whose eye has not been accustomed to seize on every peculiarity.”
– Rembrandt Peale

I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t’other half for the freedom to speak,
Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store,
Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower.
– James Russell Lowell

“People who live in the past generally are afraid to compete in the present. I’ve got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There’s no future in it.”
– Sparky Anderson

“Life is very interesting… in the end, some of your greatest pains, become your greatest strengths.”
– Drew Barrymore

“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay

“You have a Happiness Switch in you that you can switch on at any time. All you have to do is stop switching it off in order to blackmail yourself or others.”
– Robert Young

“Having the presence of mind to react to any situation on stage is what makes the best performers keep their spontaneity intact.”
– Marni Nixon

February 22nd Birthdays

1732 – George Washington, American patriot, general and politician, 1st President of the United States (died in 1799)
1778 – Rembrandt Peale, American painter (died in 1860)
1788 – Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (died in 1860)
1819 – James Russell Lowell, American poet (died in 1891)
1839 – Francis Pharcellus Church, American writer/editor (died in 1906)
1857 – Robert Baden-Powell, British founder of the boy Scouts (and Girl Guides) (died in 1941)
1892 – Edna St. Vincent Millay (aka Nancy Boyd), American poet and playwright (died in 1950)
1907 – Sheldon Leonard, American actor, director and producer (died in 1997)
1907 – Robert Young, American actor (died in 1998)
1908 – Sir John Mills, English actor (died in 2005)
1917 – Reed Crandall, American comic book and magazine illustrator (died in 1982)
1918 – Don Pardo, American radio and television announcer (died in 2014)
1918 – Robert Wadlow, American, tallest man ever recorded at 8 feet, 11.1 inches tall (died on 1940)
1927 – Guy Mitchell, American singer (died in 1999)
1928 – Texas Johnny Brown, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died in 2013)
1930 – Marni Nixon, American soprano and actress (died in 2016)
1932 – Edward Kennedy, American politician (died in 2009)
1933 – Ernie K-Doe, American R&B singer (died in 2001)
1934 – Sparky Anderson, American baseball manager (died in 2010)
1945 – Oliver (William Oliver Swofford), American pop singer (died in 2000)
1950 – Julius Erving, American basketball player and sportscaster
1953 – Nigel Planer, English actor
1959 – Kyle MacLachlan, American actor
1962 – Steve Irwin, Australian zoologist and television host (died in 2006)
1964 – Ed Boon, American video game designer, co-created Mortal Kombat
1968 – Jeri Ryan, American model and actress
1974 – James Blunt, English singer-songwriter
1975 – Drew Barrymore, American actress, director, producer and screenwriter

February 22nd History

1620 – Popcorn was introduced to the English colonists by an Indian named Quadequina.

1632 – Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was published.

1651 – St. Peter’s Flood (I): A storm surge flooded the Frisian (Germany/Netherlands) coast, drowning 15,000 people.

1759 – Today is the day that middle class 27-year-old George Washington married a rich widow (also 27) Martha Dandridge Curtis, and became a wealthy man (he was already a war hero).

1819 – Spanish minister Do Luis de Onis and U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams signed the Florida Purchase Treaty, giving the United States control of all of Florida.

1853 – Washington University in St. Louis was founded as Eliot Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

1855 – Pennsylvania State University was founded in State College, Pennsylvania (as the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania)

1872 – The Prohibition Party held its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.

1879 – The first F.W. Woolworth’s Five& Dime opened in Utica, NY. It became the first chain store.

1892 – Lady Windermere’s Fan, by Oscar Wilde, was first performed at the St James’s Theatre in London.

1893 – The Record of a Sneeze was filmed by Thomas Edison. It was the first film ‘close up‘.

1924 – President Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.

1934 – It Happened One Night premiered in theaters.

1956 – Elvis Presley debuted on the music charts with Heartbreak Hotel.

1959 – Lee Petty defeated Johnny Beauchamp in a photo finish at the brand new Daytona International Speedway in Florida to win the first-ever Daytona 500.

1960 – #1 Hit February 22, 1960 – April 24, 1960: Percy Faith – Theme from ‘A Summer Place’

1974 – Samuel Byrck unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate President Richard Nixon.

1975 – #1 Hit February 22, 1975 – February 28, 1975: Average White Band – Pick Up the Pieces

1978 – Rock band The Police appeared in a television commercial for Wrigley’s chewing gum

1983 – Broadway Flop: Moose Murders opened and closes on the same night at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.

1990 – Best New Artist Grammy was awarded to song and dance performers Milli Vanilli.

1997 – #1 Hit February 22, 1997 – March 21, 1997: Spice Girls – Wannabe

2006 – iTunes sold its BILLIONTH music download. 16-year-old Alex Ostrovsky of West Bloomfield bought “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay. He later got a phone call from Steve Jobs and won a lot of iPod and Mac stuff.

2006 – At least six men staged Britain’s biggest bank robbery ever stealing the equivalent of 92 million American dollars from a security depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

February 22, 2012 – PlayStation Vita released, Video Game Console.

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

The Blues Brothers Bluesmobile is a 1974 Dodge Monaco.

During Matha Stewart’s incarceration at Alderson Federal Prison Camp, her prison nickname was “M. Diddy”

If Home Alone were made today, the film would be over in 20 minutes thanks to cell phones and the internet.

The Commodore 64 is the best selling computer in history.

Pizza Uno first created the first Deep-Dish Pizza in 1943.

After watching so many movies, if a guy pulled up and said “No time to explain, get in” – I would.

“Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won’t taste good.” – Joe Paterno

Roulette Odds: Red: Payoff: 1:1 True Odds: 47.37%

Earth has about 760 thunderstorms every hour.

The 1895 Chicago Times-Herald race was the first automobile race held in the US. Only two of the six cars finished.

I went to recall something from my memory bank, however, it had collected a significant amount of interest and now I can’t stop thinking about it.

The official definition of 1 second is based on a quantum mechanical phenomenon: “the duration of 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a Caesium 133 atom’s outermost electron”.

Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world.

In a future Superman movie, there should be a scene where Superman has to hurry to get somewhere and when he gets there, realizes he put on his underwear outside his pants.

The Capital of Uruguay is Montevideo

Ten percent of all the photos ever taken were taken in the last 12 months. #ireadthatonline

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February 22, 2025

Tag: February

February 29th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 29th History Highlights

Is Leap Day Every Four Years?

February 29th is…

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February 28th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

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February 27th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

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February 26th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

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February 25th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

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February 24th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 24th History Highlights

GOLF

February 24th is…

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February 23rd History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

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February 21st History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

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February 20th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

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February 19th History, Trivia, and Fun Facts

February 19th History Highlights

Internment Camps in the United States

February 19th is…

February 19th Birthday Quotes