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date-a-base

You may wish to write about the following historical events. Dates are given 3 months in advance to allow you time for research and writing.

Dates and facts are taken from a reliable source, but we cannot guarantee their accuracy. Please cross-check all information as part of your research and let us know of any errors.

In 3 months (February 2009):
300 years ago
(2 Feb 1709)
Or 12th?

Scottish seaman Alexander Selkirk was rescued from Isla Más a Tierra, Juan Fernandez Islands, South Pacific after being marooned there for four years. Daniel Defoe’s novel 'Robinson Crusoe' is based on his adventures

200 years ago
(3 Feb 1809)
Birth of Felix Mendelssohn, German composer and conductor
200 years ago
(11 Feb 1809)
American engineer and inventor Robert Fulton patented the steamboat
200 years ago
(12 Feb 1809)
Birth of Charles Darwin, British naturalist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection
200 years ago
(12 Feb 1809)
Birth of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States
150 years ago
(3 Feb 1859)
Birth of Hugo Junkers, German engineer and aircraft designer
150 years ago
(15 Feb 1859)
Oregon became the 33rd state of the USA
150 years ago
(15 Feb 1859)
Birth of George Ferris, American engineer who invented the Ferris wheel
100 years ago
(9 Feb 1909)
Birth of Carmen Miranda, Portuguese-Brazilian samba singer and actress
100 years ago
(11 Feb 1909)
Birth of Joseph Mankiewicz, American film director, producer and writer
100 years ago
(12 Feb 1909)
The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) was founded in the USA
100 years ago
(17 Feb 1909)
Death of Geronimo, Native American Apache leader
100 years ago
(20 Feb 1909)
'The Futurist Manifesto' by Italian ideologist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was published in the French newspaper 'Le Figaro'
100 years ago
(23 Feb 1909)
The 'Silver Dart', an early experimental aircraft, was flown in Nova Scotia, Canada, making the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire
100 years ago
(24 Feb 1909)
The Hudson Motor Car Company was founded in Detroit, Michigan
100 years ago
(26 Feb 1909)
Birth of King Talal of Jordan
100 years ago
(28 Feb 1909)
Birth of Stephen Spender, British poet, novelist, essayist and critic
80 years ago
(11 Feb 1929)
Italy and the Vatican signed the Lateran Treaty, which recognised the Vatican City’s independence and sovereignty
80 years ago
(14 Feb 1929)
The St Valentine's Day Massacre took place in Chicago
75 years ago
(23 Feb 1934)
Léopold III became King of Belgium
75 years ago
(23 Feb 1934)
Death of Edward Elgar, British composer
60 years ago
(14 Feb 1949)
Israel's Knesset (the legislative branch of government) met for the first time in Jerusalem
50 years ago
(3 Feb 1959)
The day the music died: American rock-and-roll performers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper died in a plane crash in Iowa
50 years ago
(6 Feb 1959)
American electrical engineer Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed the first ever patent for an integrated circuit
50 years ago
(7 Feb 1959)
Death of Daniel Malan, South African Prime Minister who formed the first exclusively Afrikaner government
50 years ago
(16 Feb 1959)
Fidel Castro was sworn in as President of Cuba
50 years ago
(20 Feb 1959)
America's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that rival political candidates must be given equal time on TV news programmes
50 years ago
(22 Feb 1959)
The first 'Daytona 500' NASCAR race took place at Daytona Beach, Florida
40 years ago
(3 Feb 1969)
Yasser Arafat was appointed leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) at the Palestinian National Congress in Cairo
40 years ago
(9 Feb 1969)
The Boeing 747 'Jumbo Jet' made its first flight, near Seattle, Washington
40 years ago
(15 Feb 1969)
The first successful in vitro fertilisation of human egg cells was announced by British physiologist Robert G. Edwards of Cambridge University
30 years ago
(1 Feb 1979)
Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 16 years in exile
30 years ago
(2 Feb 1979)
Death of Sid Vicious, British punk rock star ('Sex Pistols'), drug overdose
30 years ago
(7 Feb 1979)
Death of Josef Mengele, German physician at Auschwitz, Nazi war criminal
30 years ago
(12 Feb 1979)
Death of Jean Renoir, French film director
25 years ago
(4 Feb 1984)
Death of Anna Anderson, claimed to be Anastasia, daughter of Russian Tsar Nicholas II whose family were killed by the Bolsheviks in July 1918
25 years ago
(7 Feb 1984)
American space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless and Robert L. Stewart carried out the first untethered spacewalk
25 years ago
(9 Feb 1984)
Death of Yuri Andropov, Soviet leader
25 years ago
(12 Feb 1984)
British figure skaters Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, scoring the first perfect 6.0 in Olympic ice dancing history
25 years ago
(15 Feb 1984)
Death of Ethel Merman, American singer and actress
25 years ago
(26 Feb 1984)
The last remaining US troops occupying Beirut, Lebanon were withdrawn
25 years ago
(29 Feb 1984)
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced his resignation
20 years ago
(5 Feb 1989)
Sky TV was launched in Britain
20 years ago
(14 Feb 1989)
Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian Government for causing the 1984 Bhopal Disaster
20 years ago
(14 Feb 1989)
The first of 24 satellites that make up the Global Positioning System (GPS) was launched by the US Department of Defence
20 years ago
(14 Feb 1989)
Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a 'fatwa' calling for the death of British author Salman Rushdie, whose novel 'The Satanic Verses' was condemned as blasphemous against Muslims
10 years ago
(7 Feb 1999)
Death of King Hussein of Jordan
10 years ago
(8 Feb 1999)
Death of Iris Murdoch, Irish-born British writer and philosopher
10 years ago
(9 Feb 1999)
Death of Bryan Mosley, British actor (Alf Roberts in 'Coronation Street')
10 years ago
(12 Feb 1999)
After a five-week impeachment trial, US President Bill Clinton was acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice

Do you want more historic anniversaries?

Would you like to see them months before everyone else? Would you like to get your articles onto editors' desks ahead of everyone else, and boost your success rate?

Then you need The Date-A-Base Book 2009!

The Date-A-Base Book 2009You'll never run out of ideas for magazine and newspaper articles, short stories, radio and television features, books, poems, or special events. And you'll have these dates long before other writers, giving you more time for research and writing and enabling you to get your finished work onto editors' desks ahead of everyone else.

The book lists over 1,200 historic anniversaries (more than twice as many as our standard lists such as the one above), and covers the whole year from January to December 2009.

Just one article sale will pay for your copy many times over.

Printed copies £6.99 each (members £5.99)
e-books £4.99 each (members £3.99)

Click here for more details and a sample chapter

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