History of the Day for:
February 1
- 1788: The first U.S. steamboat patent was issued by Georgia to Briggs & Longstreet.
- 1790: The Supreme Court met for the first time, one year after it was established under the Judiciary Act.
- 1840: The world's first dental college opened in Baltimore.
- 1861: Texas seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy.
- 1862: Julia Ward Howe's poem "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was first published in Atlantic Monthly.
- 1884: The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.
- 1887: Harvey Wilcox of Kansas subdivided 120 acres he owned in Southern California and started selling it off as a real estate development. His wife, Daeida, christened it Hollywood after the summer home of a woman she had met on a train.
- 1893: Thomas Edison opened the world's first film studio in West Orange, N.J.
- 1896: Giacomo Puccini's opera, "La Boheme," was first staged in Turin.
- 1898: The first automobile insurance policy was issued by Travelers Insurance Co. of Connecticut to Dr. Truman J. Martin for $11.05.
- 1906: The first federal penitentiary building was completed in Leavenworth, Kan.
- 1908: King Carlos I of Portugal was assassinated along with his son in Lisbon.
- 1914: The first motion picture censorship board was appointed in Pennsylvania.
- 1920: The first commercial armored car was introduced in St. Paul, Minn.; The Royal Canadian Mounted Police came into existence when the Royal Northwest Mounted Police merged with the Dominion Police.
- 1929: The first recorded "clean and jerk" in weightlifting was performed by Charles Rigoulet of France. He lifted 402 1/2 pounds.
- 1935: The first "March of Time" newsreel premiered at the Capitol.
- 1942:World War II: Vidkun Quisling is appointed Premier of Norway by the Nazi occupiers. .
- 1943: The German 6th Army surrenders at Stalingrad. .
- 1946: Trygve Lie of Norway is picked to be the first United Nations Secretary General..
- 1953: "You Are There," a new CBS series anchored by Walter Cronkite and featuring re-enactments of famous historical events, aired for the first time.
- 1960: In the first of many such protests throughout the United States, four black college students began a sit-in at an all-white Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., after they were refused service.
- 1964: Indiana Governor Matthew Welsh declared The Kingsmen's version of "Louie, Louie" to be "pornographic" and called for its ban.
- 1965: Peter Jennings became the anchor of ABC's nightly news report at the age of 26.
- 1966: U.S. silent film comedian and director Buster Keaton died.
- 1968: Saigon's police chief, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head in a scene captured in a photo that would become one of the most famous images of the Vietnam War.
- 1978: Harriet Tubman became the first African American woman honored with a U.S. postage stamp; director Roman Polanski skipped bail and fled to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.
- 1982: "Late Night With David Letterman" debuted on NBC, where it stayed for 11 years.
- 2003: Space Shuttle Columbia and its 7-person crew of STS-107 perish upon reentry from their 16-day mission.
- 2004: 251 people are trampled to death and 244 injured in a stampede at the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
- 2004: Janet Jackson's breast is exposed during the half-time show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, resulting in US broadcasters adopting a stronger adherence to FCC censorship guidelines.
- 2005: Nepal King Gyanendra exercises Coup d'état to capture the democracy becoming Chairman of the Councils of ministers.
- 2005: Canada introduces the Civil Marriage Act, making Canada the fourth country to sanction same-sex marriage.
- 2009: Jóhanna Sigurđardóttir is elected as the first female Prime Minister of Iceland, becoming the first openly gay Head of State in the modern world.