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21 January 1911 – The first Monte Carlo Rally takes place.

Monte Carlo Rally

Annual rallying event held in Monaco and France

The Monte Carlo Rally or Rallye Monte-Carlo (officially Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo) is a rallying event organized each year by the Automobile Club de Monaco. From its inception in 1911 by Prince Albert I, the rally was intended to demonstrate improvements and innovations in automobiles, and promote Monaco as a tourist resort on the Mediterranean shore. Before the format changed in 1997,^[1] the event was a “concentration rally” in which competitors would set off from various starting points around Europe and drive to Monaco, where the rally would continue to a set of special stages. The rally now takes place along the French Riviera in Monaco and southeast France.

1. ^ "Rallies - Monte Carlo". Jonkka’s World Rally Archive. Retrieved 16 January 2023.

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22 January 1924 – Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Ramsay MacDonald

British prime minister in 1924 and 1929 to 1935

"Prime Minister MacDonald" redirects here. For the first prime minister of Canada, see John A. Macdonald.

James Ramsay MacDonald FRS (né James McDonald Ramsay; 12 October 1866 – 9 November 1937) was a British statesman^[1] and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 and again between 1929 and 1931. From 1931 to 1935, he headed a National Government dominated by the Conservative Party and supported by only a few Labour members. MacDonald was expelled from the Labour Party as a result.

MacDonald, along with Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson, was one of the three principal founders of the Labour Party in 1900. He was chairman of the Labour MPs before 1914 and, after an eclipse in his career caused by his opposition to the First World War, he was Leader of the Labour Party from 1922. The second Labour Government (1929–1931) was dominated by the Great Depression. He formed the National Government to carry out spending cuts to defend the gold standard, but it had to be abandoned after the Invergordon Mutiny, and he called a general election in 1931 seeking a "doctor's mandate" to fix the economy.

The National coalition won an overwhelming landslide and the Labour Party was reduced to a rump of around 50 seats in the House of Commons. His health deteriorated and he stood down as Prime Minister in 1935, remaining as Lord President of the Council until retiring in 1937. He died later that year.

MacDonald's speeches, pamphlets and books made him an important theoretician. Historian John Shepherd states that "MacDonald's natural gifts of an imposing presence, handsome features and a persuasive oratory delivered with an arresting Highlands accent made him the iconic Labour leader". After 1931, MacDonald was repeatedly and bitterly denounced by the Labour movement as a traitor to its cause. Since the 1960s, some historians have defended his reputation, emphasising his earlier role in building up the Labour Party, dealing with the Great Depression, and as a forerunner of the political realignments of the 1990s and 2000s.^[2]

1. ^ "James Ramsay MacDonald".
2. ^ Shepherd 2007, pp. 31–.

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23 January 1967 – Milton Keynes (England) is founded as a new town by Order in Council, with a planning brief to become a city of 250,000 people. Its initial designated area enclosed three existing towns and twenty one villages.

Milton Keynes

City in Buckinghamshire, England

For Milton Keynes, the original village, see Middleton, Milton Keynes. For the built-up area, see Milton Keynes urban area. For the local authority area, see City of Milton Keynes.

City in England

Milton Keynes (/kiːnz/ ^ⓘ KEENZ) is a city^[c] in Buckinghamshire, England, about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of London.^[b] At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was 264,349.^[2] The River Great Ouse forms the northern boundary of the urban area; a tributary, the River Ouzel, meanders through its linear parks and balancing lakes. Approximately 25% of the urban area is parkland or woodland and includes two Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs).

In the 1960s, the government decided that a further generation of new towns in the South East of England was needed to relieve housing congestion in London. Milton Keynes, was to be the biggest yet, with a population of 250,000 and area of 22,000 acres (9,000 ha). At designation, its area incorporated the existing towns of Bletchley, Fenny Stratford, Wolverton and Stony Stratford,^[d] along with another fifteen villages and farmland in between. These settlements had an extensive historical record since the Norman conquest; detailed archaeological investigations before development revealed evidence of human occupation from the Neolithic period, including the Milton Keynes Hoard of Bronze Age gold jewellery. The government established Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC) to design and deliver this new city. The Corporation decided on a softer, more human-scaled landscape than in the earlier English new towns but with an emphatically modernist architecture. Recognising how traditional towns and cities had become choked in traffic, they established a grid of distributor roads about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) between edges, leaving the spaces between to develop more organically. An extensive network of shared paths for leisure cyclists and pedestrians criss-crosses through and between them. Rejecting the residential tower block concept that had become unpopular, they set a height limit of three storeys outside Central Milton Keynes.

Facilities include a 1,400-seat theatre, a municipal art gallery, two multiplex cinemas, an ecumenical central church, a 400-seat concert hall, a teaching hospital, a 30,500-seat football stadium, an indoor ski-slope and a 65,000-capacity open-air concert venue. Seven railway stations serve the Milton Keynes urban area (one inter-city). The Open University is based here and there is a small campus of the University of Bedfordshire. Most major sports are represented at amateur level; Red Bull Racing (Formula One), MK Dons (association football), and Milton Keynes Lightning (ice hockey) are its professional teams. The Peace Pagoda overlooking Willen Lake was the first such to be built in Europe. The many works of sculpture in parks and public spaces include the iconic Concrete Cows at Milton Keynes Museum.

Milton Keynes is among the most economically productive localities in the UK, ranking highly against a number of criteria. It has the UK's fifth-highest number of business startups per capita (but equally of business failures). It is home to several major national and international companies. Despite economic success and personal wealth for some, there are pockets of nationally significant poverty. The employment profile is composed of about 90% service industries and 9% manufacturing.

1. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference longaz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference BUA2021 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference milestone was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference chains was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference viaM1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ Cite error: The named reference BUA2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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24 January 1984 – The first Apple Macintosh goes on sale.

Macintosh

Redirect to:

• Mac (computer)

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25 January 1995 – The Norwegian rocket incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.

Norwegian rocket incident

1995 incident

For the 2009 event thought to be a missile failure, see 2009 Norwegian spiral anomaly.

The Norwegian rocket incident, also known as the Black Brant scare, occurred on January 25, 1995 when a team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant XII four-stage sounding rocket from the Andøya Rocket Range off the northwestern coast of Norway. The rocket carried scientific equipment to study the aurora borealis over Svalbard, and flew on a high northbound trajectory, which included an air corridor that stretches from Minuteman III nuclear missile silos in North Dakota all the way to Moscow, the capital city of Russia.^[1] The rocket eventually reached an altitude of 1,453 kilometers (903 mi), resembling a US Navy submarine-launched Trident missile. Fearing a high-altitude nuclear attack that could blind Russian radar, Russian nuclear forces went on high alert, and the "nuclear briefcase" (the Cheget) was taken to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who then had to decide whether to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States.^[1][2][3] Russian observers determined that there was no nuclear attack and no retaliation was ordered.

1. ^ ^{a b} EUCOM History Office (23 January 2012). "This Week in EUCOM History: January 23–29, 1995". United States European Command. Archived from the original on 5 January 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
2. ^ Forden, Dr. Geoffrey (November 6, 2001). "False Alarms in the Nuclear Age". NOVA. Public Broadcasting System. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
3. ^ Pry, Peter (1999). "Black Brant XII". War scare: Russia and America on the nuclear brink. New York: Praeger. pp. 214–227. ISBN 0-275-96643-7.

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26 January 1961 – John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician. This is the first time a woman holds the appointment of Physician to the President.

Janet G. Travell

American physician

Janet Graham Travell (December 17, 1901 – August 1, 1997) was an American physician and medical researcher.^[1]

1. ^ Powell, Virginia (2003). "A Daughter's Recollection". Texas Heart Institute Journal. 30 (1): 8–12. PMC 152828. PMID 12638664.

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27 January 1973 – The Paris Peace Accords officially end the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde is killed in action becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.

Paris Peace Accords

1973 agreement between North and South Vietnam and the US to end the Vietnam War

For the treaties marking the official end of the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, see 1991 Paris Peace Agreements.

The Paris Peace Accords (Vietnamese: Hiệp định Paris về Việt Nam), officially the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam (Hiệp định về chấm dứt chiến tranh, lập lại hòa bình ở Việt Nam), was a peace agreement signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The agreement was signed by the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam); the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam); the United States; and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), which represented South Vietnamese communists.^[1] US ground forces had begun to withdraw from Vietnam in 1969, and had suffered from deteriorating morale during the withdrawal. By the beginning of 1972 those that remained had very little involvement in combat. The last American infantry battalions withdrew in August 1972.^[2] Most air and naval forces, and most advisers, also were gone from South Vietnam by that time, though air and naval forces not based in South Vietnam were still playing a large role in the war. The Paris Agreement removed the remaining US forces. Direct U.S. military intervention was ended, and fighting between the three remaining powers temporarily stopped for less than a day. The agreement was not ratified by the U.S. Senate.^[3][4]

The negotiations that led to the accord began in 1968, after various lengthy delays. As a result of the accord, the International Control Commission (ICC) was replaced by the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), which consisted of Canada, Poland, Hungary, and Indonesia, to monitor the agreement.^[5] The main negotiators of the agreement were U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese Politburo member Lê Đức Thọ. Both men were awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts, but Lê Đức Thọ refused to accept it.

The agreement's provisions were immediately and frequently broken by both North and South Vietnamese forces with no official response from the United States. Open fighting broke out in March 1973, and North Vietnamese offensives enlarged their territory by the end of the year. Two years later, a massive North Vietnamese offensive conquered South Vietnam on April 30, 1975, and the two countries, which had been separated since 1954, united once more on July 2, 1976, as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.^[1]

Part of the negotiations took place in the former residence of the French painter Fernand Léger; it was bequeathed to the French Communist Party. The street of the house was named after Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, who had commanded French forces in Vietnam after the Second World War.^[6]

1. ^ ^{a b} Ward & Burns 2017, pp. 508–513.
2. ^ Stanton, Shelby L. (2007-12-18). The Rise and Fall of an American Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1963-1973. Random House Publishing Group. pp. 358–362. ISBN 9780307417343.
3. ^ The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Twenty-five Years Later Archived 2019-09-01 at the Wayback Machine Conference Transcript, The Nixon Center, Washington, DC, April 1998. Reproduced on mtholyoke.edu. Accessed 5 September 2012.
4. ^ The Constitution - Executive agreements Accessed 29 July 2014.
5. ^ Rhéaume, Charles (30 July 2010). "Cautious neighbour policy: Canada's helping hand in winding down the Vietnam War". Cold War History. 11 (2): 223–239. doi:10.1080/14682740903527684. S2CID 154387299. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
6. ^ Breakthrough in Paris Blocked in Saigon, October 8–23, 1972 Retrieved December 11, 2021

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28 January 1846 – The Battle of Aliwal, India, is won by British troops commanded by Sir Harry Smith.

Battle of Aliwal

Part of the First Anglo-Sikh War (1846)

The Battle of Aliwal was fought on 28 January 1846 between the British and Sikh forces in northern India (now Punjab, India).^[6] The British were led by Sir Harry Smith,^[7] while the Sikhs were led by Ranjodh Singh Majithia. Britain's victory in the battle is sometimes regarded as the turning point in the First Anglo-Sikh War.

1. ^ Hernon, p. 564
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Tucker, Spencer C. (2009). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle ... p. 1174.
3. ^ "Battle of Aliwal, 28 January 1846 | Online Collection | National Army Museum, London". collection.nam.ac.uk. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
4. ^ Cassell, p. 104
5. ^ Perrett, p. 104
6. ^ Sidhu, Amarpal Singh (2016). "Chronology". The Second Anglo-Sikh War. John Chapple (1st ed.). United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781445650241.
7. ^ Smith, Sir Harry. ‘'The Autobiography of Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith Baronet of Aliwal on the Sutlej.'’ Publisher: John Murray, Albemarke Street, 1903 [1]

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29 January 2009 – The Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt rules that people who do not adhere to one of the three government-recognised religions, while not allowed to list any belief outside of those three, are still eligible to receive government identity documents.

Egyptian identification card controversy

Egyptian ID card dispute

The Egyptian identification card controversy is a series of events, beginning in the 1990s, that created a de facto state of disenfranchisement for Egyptian Baháʼís, atheists, agnostics, and other Egyptians who did not identify themselves as Muslim, Christian, or Jewish on government identity documents.

During the period of disenfranchisement, the people affected, who were mostly Baháʼís, were unable to obtain the necessary government documents to have rights in their country unless they lied about their religion, which conflicted with Baháʼí religious principle.^[1] Those affected could not obtain identification cards, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage or divorce certificates, or passports.^[2] Without those documents, they could not be employed, educated, treated in hospitals, or vote, among other things.^[1]

As of August 2009, the situation is apparently resolved, following a protracted legal process. Identification documents may now list a dash in place of one of the three recognized religions.^[3] Under this compromise solution, the Baháʼí Faith and other beliefs are still unrecognized by the government — Islam, Christianity, and Judaism remain the only recognized religions. The first identification cards were issued to two Baháʼís under the new policy on August 8, 2009.^[4]

1. ^ ^{a b} "Congressional Human Rights Caucus, House of Representatives". November 16, 2005. Retrieved December 29, 2006.
2. ^ Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (December 16, 2006). "Government Must Find Solution for Baha'i Egyptians". eipr.org. Archived from the original on February 9, 2007. Retrieved December 16, 2006.
3. ^ Editors of Baháʼí News Service (April 17, 2009). "Egypt officially changes rules for ID cards". Baháʼí News Service. Retrieved June 16, 2009. {{cite news}}: |last= has generic name (help)
4. ^ Editors of Baháʼí News Service (August 14, 2009). "First identification cards issued to Egyptian Baháʼís using a "dash" instead of religion". Baháʼí News Service. Retrieved August 16, 2009. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)

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30 January 1649 – King Charles I of England is beheaded.

Charles I of England

King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1625 to 1649

Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649)^[a] was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649.

Charles was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1603, he moved to England, where he spent much of the rest of his life. He became heir apparent to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1612 upon the death of his elder brother, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. An unsuccessful and unpopular attempt to marry him to Infanta Maria Anna of Spain culminated in an eight-month visit to Spain in 1623 that demonstrated the futility of the marriage negotiation. Two years later, shortly after his accession, he married Henrietta Maria of France.

After his succession in 1625, Charles quarrelled with the English Parliament, which sought to curb his royal prerogative. He believed in the divine right of kings, and was determined to govern according to his own conscience. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, and perceived his actions as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch. His religious policies, coupled with his marriage to a Roman Catholic, generated antipathy and mistrust from Reformed religious groups such as the English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters, who thought his views too Catholic. He supported high church Anglican ecclesiastics and failed to aid continental Protestant forces successfully during the Thirty Years' War. His attempts to force the Church of Scotland to adopt high Anglican practices led to the Bishops' Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments, and helped precipitate his own downfall.

From 1642, Charles fought the armies of the English and Scottish parliaments in the English Civil War. After his defeat in 1645 at the hands of the Parliamentarian New Model Army, he fled north from his base at Oxford. Charles surrendered to a Scottish force and after lengthy negotiations between the English and Scottish parliaments he was handed over to the Long Parliament in London. Charles refused to accept his captors' demands for a constitutional monarchy, and temporarily escaped captivity in November 1647. Re-imprisoned on the Isle of Wight, he forged an alliance with Scotland, but by the end of 1648, the New Model Army had consolidated its control over England. Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established as a republic. The monarchy would be restored to Charles's son Charles II in 1660.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

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31 January 1990 – The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opens in Moscow.

McDonald's

American fast food restaurant corporation

"McD" redirects here. For other uses, see MCD (disambiguation) and McDonald (disambiguation).

For technical reasons, "McDonald's #1 Store Museum" redirects here. For the museum, see McDonald's No. 1 Store Museum.

McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand, and later turned the company into a franchise, with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in 1953 at a location in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1955, Ray Kroc, a businessman, joined the company as a franchise agent and in 1961 bought out the McDonald brothers. Previously headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, it moved to nearby Chicago in June 2018.^{[9][10][11][12]} McDonald's is also a real estate company through its ownership of around 70% of restaurant buildings and 45% of the underlying land (which it leases to its franchisees).^[13][14]

McDonald's is the world's largest fast food restaurant chain,^[15] serving over 69 million customers daily in over 100 countries^[16] in more than 40,000 outlets as of 2021.^[17][18] McDonald's is best known for its hamburgers, cheeseburgers and french fries, although their menu also includes other items like chicken, fish, fruit, and salads. Their bestselling licensed item are their french fries, followed by the Big Mac.^[19] The McDonald's Corporation revenues come from the rent, royalties, and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. McDonald's is the world's second-largest private employer with 1.7 million employees (behind Walmart with 2.3 million employees), the majority of whom work in the restaurant's franchises.^[20][21] As of 2022^[update], McDonald's has the sixth-highest global brand valuation.^[22]

McDonald's has been subject to criticism over the health effects of its products,^[23][24] its treatment of employees,^[25] and its participation in various legal cases.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ Purdy, Chase (April 25, 2017). "McDonald's isn't just a fast-food chain—it's a brilliant $30 billion real-estate company". Quartz. Archived from the original on July 26, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
2. ^ Maze, Jonathan (February 26, 2015). "Why McDonald's won't ever get rid of its real estate". Nation's Restaurant News. Archived from the original on July 26, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
3. ^ "Enrique Hernandez, Jr". McDonalds.com. Archived from the original on February 11, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2020.
4. ^ Bomkamp, Samantha (June 13, 2016). "Mcdonald's HQ Move Is Boldest Step Yet in Effort to Transform Itself". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on June 28, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference FY21 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ "Why You're Technically Not Able To Order A Milkshake At McDonald's". Daily Meal. September 9, 2023. Archived from the original on September 13, 2023. Retrieved September 20, 2023.
7. ^ "MCDONALDS CORP, 10-K". February 22, 2019. Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
8. ^ "McDonald's Corporation 2023 Annual Report Form (10-K)". United States Securities and Exchange Commission. February 22, 2024. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
9. ^ "McDonald's future Near West Side neighbors air parking, traffic safety beefs". Chicago Tribune. June 23, 2016. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
10. ^ Hufford, Austen (June 14, 2016). "McDonald's to Move Headquarters to Downtown Chicago". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on November 22, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
11. ^ "McDonald's Headquarters Opening in West Loop, Offers Food From Around The World". April 24, 2018. Archived from the original on April 25, 2018. Retrieved April 25, 2018 – via CBS Chicago.
12. ^ "McDonald's Opens New Global Headquarters in Chicago's West Loop". July 4, 2018. Archived from the original on October 24, 2020. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
13. ^ "Who Owns More Land: Bill Gates, McDonald's or The Catholic Church?". Yahoo! Finance. September 13, 2022. Archived from the original on October 5, 2023. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
14. ^ Purdy, Chase (April 25, 2017). "McDonald's isn't just a fast-food chain—it's a brilliant $30 billion real-estate company". Quartz. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
15. ^ "McDonald's Is King Of Restaurants In 2017 – pg.1". Forbes. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved December 12, 2017.
16. ^ "McDonald's: 60 years, billions served". Chicago Tribune. April 15, 2015. Archived from the original on August 20, 2023. Retrieved July 30, 2017.
17. ^ "MCDONALDS CORP, 10-K filed on 2/22/2019". Archived from the original on March 29, 2019.
18. ^ "Data" (PDF). d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 12, 2017.
19. ^ Harris, William (April 7, 2009). "10 Most Popular McDonald's Menu Items of All Time". HowStuffWorks. Archived from the original on May 2, 2023. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
20. ^ "The World's Largest Employers". WorldAtlas. February 15, 2018. Archived from the original on June 23, 2023. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
21. ^ "The world's 30 largest employers will surprise you". www.msn.com. June 29, 2018. Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
22. ^ "BrandZ Global Top 100 Most Valuable Brands". BrandZ. December 11, 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 30, 2018. Retrieved December 11, 2022.
23. ^ Robbins, John (October 8, 2010). "How Bad Is McDonald's Food?". HuffPost. Archived from the original on August 19, 2021. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
24. ^ "McDonald's customer horrified after 3-year-old finds dangerous item in play area". Oh!mymag.co.uk. May 19, 2023. Archived from the original on May 22, 2023. Retrieved May 23, 2023 – via Microsoft News.
25. ^ "Behind the Arches: How McDonald's Fails to Protect Workers From Workplace Violence". National Employment Law Project. Archived from the original on September 29, 2022. Retrieved September 29, 2022.

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1 February 1920 – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police begins operations.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Federal police service

"Mountie" redirects here. For other uses, see Mountie (disambiguation).

"RCMP" redirects here. For the TV series, see R.C.M.P. (TV series).

"Royal Mounted Police" redirects here. For the film, see Giubbe rosse.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; French: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; GRC) is the national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also delivers police services under contract to 11 provinces and territories, over 150 municipalities, and 600 Indigenous communities. The RCMP is commonly known as the Mounties in English (and colloquially in French as la police montée).

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was established in 1920 with the amalgamation of the Royal North-West Mounted Police and the Dominion Police. Sworn members of the RCMP have jurisdiction as a peace officer in all provinces and territories of Canada.^[14] Under its federal mandate, the RCMP is responsible for enforcing federal legislation; investigating inter-provincial and international crime; border integrity;^[15] overseeing Canadian peacekeeping missions involving police;^[16] managing the Canadian Firearms Program, which licenses and registers firearms and their owners;^[17] and the Canadian Police College, which provides police training to Canadian and international police services.^[18] Policing in Canada is considered to be a constitutional responsibility of provinces;^[19] however, the RCMP provides local police services under contract in all provinces and territories except Ontario and Quebec.^{[20][21][note 1]} Despite its name, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are no longer an actual mounted police service, and horses are only used at ceremonial events and certain other occasions.

The Government of Canada considers the RCMP to be an unofficial national symbol,^[22] and in 2013, 87 per cent of Canadians interviewed by Statistics Canada said that the RCMP was important to their national identity.^[23] However, the service has faced criticism for its broad mandate,^[24][25] and its public perception in Canada has gradually soured since the 1990s, worn down by workplace culture lawsuits, several high-profile scandals, staffing shortages, and the service's handling of incidents like the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks.^[26][27] The treatment of First Nations people by the RCMP has also been criticized.

1. ^ ^{a b} "Registration of a Badge". Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada. Official website of the Governor General. Retrieved November 8, 2021.
2. ^ "Grant of Flags and Badges". Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada. Official website of the Governor General. Retrieved November 8, 2021.
3. ^ Government of Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (April 19, 2018). "Tipstaff". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Retrieved April 27, 2019.
4. ^ "Royal Canadian Mounted Police – Badges and Insignia". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. February 16, 2005. Archived from the original on July 6, 2010. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
5. ^ Government of Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (January 24, 2020). "History of the RCMP | Royal Canadian Mounted Police". www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
6. ^ "Infographic for Royal Canadian Mounted Police". GC InfoBase. Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.
7. ^ Government of Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (July 20, 2016). "Historically relevant dates to the RCMP | Royal Canadian Mounted Police". www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
8. ^ "Auxiliary Constable Program". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Archived from the original on May 8, 2016. Retrieved May 5, 2016.
9. ^ "New RCMP National Headquarters Building: The M.J. Nadon Government of Canada Building". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. October 5, 2011. Archived from the original on April 8, 2016. Retrieved April 11, 2016.
10. ^ ^{a b c} Cite error: The named reference RCMP organisation was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
11. ^ "Find a detachment". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. May 6, 2016. Retrieved May 7, 2016.
12. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference TCFleet was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
13. ^ "About the RCMP". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. April 26, 2016. Archived from the original on July 27, 2017. Retrieved May 7, 2016.
14. ^ Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, RSC 1985, c R-10, s 11.1.
15. ^ "Border Law Enforcement". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. July 22, 2008. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
16. ^ "Peace operations". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. August 9, 2018. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
17. ^ "Firearms". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. October 10, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
18. ^ "Canadian Police College". June 25, 2018. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
19. ^ "Police in Canada". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
20. ^ "Community policing". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. April 15, 2009. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
21. ^ "Contract policing". Royal Canadian Mounted Police. August 30, 2019. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
22. ^ "Unofficial symbols of Canada". Government of Canada. June 5, 2020.
23. ^ "The Dark Side of the RCMP". The Walrus. October 20, 2021.
24. ^ "The RCMP is broken". Maclean's. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
25. ^ Hager, Mike (May 2, 2021). "RCMP's dismal record on investigating money laundering in B.C. is improving, Cullen Commission hears". Globe and Mail. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
26. ^ "Strained RCMP struggling with services as controversies erode trust". Global News.
27. ^ "Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)". The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).

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2 February 1848 – California Gold Rush: The first ship with Chinese immigrants arrives in San Francisco.

California Gold Rush

Redirect to:

• California gold rush

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3 February 1534 – Irish rebel Silken Thomas is executed by the order of Henry VIII in London, England.

Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare

Irish noble (1513–1537)

Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare (1513 – 3 February 1537), also known as Silken Thomas (Irish: Tomás an tSíoda), was a leading figure in 16th-century Irish history.

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4 February 1976 – In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000.

1976 Guatemala earthquake

February 1976 earthquake in Guatemala

The 1976 Guatemala earthquake struck on February 4 at 03:01:43 local time with a moment magnitude of 7.5. The shock was centered on the Motagua Fault, about 160 km northeast of Guatemala City at a depth of 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) near the town of Los Amates in the department of Izabal.^[1]

The earthquake ruptured a continuous length of 240 km along the Motagua fault and might have extended further to the east and west but was blocked by vegetation and swamps.

Cities throughout the country suffered damage, and most adobe type houses in the outlying areas of Guatemala City were destroyed. The earthquake struck during the early morning (at 3:01 am, local time) when most people were asleep. This contributed to the high death toll of 23,000. Approximately 76,000 were injured, and many thousands left homeless. Some of the areas affected went without electricity and communications for days.

The main shock was followed by thousands of aftershocks, some of the larger ones causing additional damage and loss of life.^[2]

1. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference NOAA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ Historic Earthquakes Archived 2007-04-10 at the Wayback Machine

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5 February 1971 – Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission.

Apollo 14

Third crewed Moon landing

Apollo 14 (January 31 – February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the "H missions", landings at specific sites of scientific interest on the Moon for two-day stays with two lunar extravehicular activities (EVAs or moonwalks).

The mission was originally scheduled for 1970, but was postponed because of the investigation following the failure of Apollo 13 to reach the Moon's surface, and the need for modifications to the spacecraft as a result. Commander Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell launched on their nine-day mission on Sunday, January 31, 1971, at 4:03:02 p.m. EST. En route to the lunar landing, the crew overcame malfunctions that might have resulted in a second consecutive aborted mission, and possibly, the premature end of the Apollo program.

Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February 5 in the Fra Mauro formation – originally the target of Apollo 13. During the two walks on the surface, they collected 94.35 pounds (42.80 kg) of Moon rocks and deployed several scientific experiments. To the dismay of some geologists, Shepard and Mitchell did not reach the rim of Cone crater as had been planned, though they came close. In Apollo 14's most famous event, Shepard hit two golf balls he had brought with him with a makeshift club.

While Shepard and Mitchell were on the surface, Roosa remained in lunar orbit aboard the Command and Service Module, performing scientific experiments and photographing the Moon, including the landing site of the future Apollo 16 mission. He took several hundred seeds on the mission, many of which were germinated on return, resulting in the so-called Moon trees, that were widely distributed in the following years. After liftoff from the lunar surface and a successful docking, the spacecraft was flown back to Earth where the three astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean on February 9.

1. ^ Orloff, Richard W. (September 2004) [First published 2000]. "Table of Contents". Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference. NASA History Series. Washington, D.C.: NASA. ISBN 0-16-050631-X. LCCN 00061677. NASA SP-2000-4029. Archived from the original on September 6, 2007. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
2. ^ ^{a b} Orloff & Harland 2006, p. 396.
3. ^ "Apollo 14 Command and Service Module (CSM)". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
4. ^ "Apollo 14 Lunar Module /ALSEP". NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Retrieved November 20, 2019.

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6 February 1840 – Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, establishing New Zealand as a British colony.

Treaty of Waitangi

1840 treaty between British Crown and people of New Zealand

Not to be confused with Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal.

The Treaty of Waitangi (Māori: Te Tiriti o Waitangi), sometimes referred to as Te Tiriti, is a document of central importance to the history of New Zealand, its constitution, and its national mythos. It has played a major role in the treatment of the Māori people in New Zealand by successive governments and the wider population, something that has been especially prominent from the late 20th century. The treaty document is an agreement, not a treaty as recognised in international law,^[1] and has no independent legal status, being legally effective only to the extent it is recognised in various statutes.^[2] It was first signed on 6 February 1840 by Captain William Hobson as consul for the British Crown and by Māori chiefs (rangatira) from the North Island of New Zealand.

The treaty was written at a time when the New Zealand Company, acting on behalf of large numbers of settlers and would-be settlers, were establishing a colony in New Zealand, and when some Māori leaders had petitioned the British for protection against French ambitions. It was drafted with the intention of establishing a British Governor of New Zealand, recognising Māori ownership of their lands, forests and other possessions, and giving Māori the rights of British subjects. It was intended by the British Crown to ensure that when Lieutenant Governor Hobson subsequently made the declaration of British sovereignty over New Zealand in May 1840, the Māori people would not feel that their rights had been ignored.^[3] Once it had been written and translated, it was first signed by Northern Māori leaders at Waitangi. Copies were subsequently taken around New Zealand and over the following months many other chiefs signed.^[4] Around 530 to 540 Māori, at least 13 of them women, signed the Māori language version of the Treaty of Waitangi, despite some Māori leaders cautioning against it.^[5][6] Only 39 signed the English version.^[7] An immediate result of the treaty was that Queen Victoria's government gained the sole right to purchase land.^[8] In total there are nine signed copies of the Treaty of Waitangi, including the sheet signed on 6 February 1840 at Waitangi.^[9]

The text of the treaty includes a preamble and three articles. It is bilingual, with the Māori text translated in the context of the time from the English.

• Article one of the Māori text grants governance rights to the Crown while the English text cedes "all rights and powers of sovereignty" to the Crown.
• Article two of the Māori text establishes that Māori will retain full chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures while the English text establishes the continued ownership of the Māori over their lands and establishes the exclusive right of pre-emption of the Crown.
• Article three gives Māori people full rights and protections as British subjects.

As some words in the English treaty did not translate directly into the written Māori language of the time, the Māori text is not an exact translation of the English text, particularly in relation to the meaning of having and ceding sovereignty.^[10][11] These differences created disagreements in the decades following the signing, eventually contributing to the New Zealand Wars of 1845 to 1872 and continuing through to the Treaty of Waitangi settlements starting in the early 1990s.

During the second half of the 19th century Māori generally lost control of much of the land they had owned, sometimes through legitimate sale, but often by way of unfair deals, settlers occupying land that had not been sold, or through outright confiscations in the aftermath of the New Zealand Wars. In the period following the New Zealand Wars, the New Zealand government mostly ignored the treaty, and a court judgement in 1877 declared it to be "a simple nullity". Beginning in the 1950s, Māori increasingly sought to use the treaty as a platform for claiming additional rights to sovereignty and to reclaim lost land, and governments in the 1960s and 1970s responded to these arguments, giving the treaty an increasingly central role in the interpretation of land rights and relations between Māori people and the state.

In 1975 the New Zealand Parliament passed the Treaty of Waitangi Act, establishing the Waitangi Tribunal as a permanent commission of inquiry tasked with interpreting the treaty, investigating breaches of the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi by the Crown or its agents, and suggesting means of redress.^[10] In most cases, recommendations of the tribunal are not binding on the Crown, but settlements with a total value of roughly $1 billion have been awarded to various Māori groups.^[10][12] Various legislation passed in the latter part of the 20th century has made reference to the treaty, which has led to ad hoc incorporation of the treaty into law.^[13] Increasingly, the treaty is recognised as a founding document in New Zealand's developing unwritten constitution.^[14][15][16] The New Zealand Day Act 1973 established Waitangi Day as a national holiday to commemorate the signing of the treaty.

1. ^ Cox, Noel (2002). "The Treaty of Waitangi and the Relationship Between the Crown and Maori in New Zealand". Brooklyn Journal of International Law. 28 (1): 132. Archived from the original on 4 October 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
2. ^ "The Status of the Treaty as a Legal Document". Treaty Resource Centre – He Puna Mātauranga o Te Tiriti. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
3. ^ "Additional Instructions from Lord Normanby to Captain Hobson 1839 – New Zealand Constitutional Law Resources". New Zealand Legal Information Institute. 15 August 1839. Archived from the original on 4 December 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
4. ^ "Treaty of Waitangi signings in the South Island". Christchurch City Libraries. Archived from the original on 18 February 2015.
5. ^ "Treaty of Waitangi". Waitangi Tribunal. Archived from the original on 6 July 2016. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
6. ^ Orange 1987, p. 260.
7. ^ Newman, Keith (2010) [2010]. Bible & Treaty, Missionaries among the Māori – a new perspective. Penguin. ISBN 978-0143204084. pp 159
8. ^ Burns, Patricia (1989). Fatal Success: A History of the New Zealand Company. Heinemann Reed. ISBN 0-7900-0011-3.
9. ^ "Treaty of Waitangi – Te Tiriti o Waitangi". Archives New Zealand. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
10. ^ ^{a b c} "Meaning of the Treaty". Waitangi Tribunal. 2011. Archived from the original on 8 July 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2011.
11. ^ Newman, Keith (2010) [2010]. Bible & Treaty, Missionaries among the Māori – a new perspective. Penguin. ISBN 978-0143204084. pp 20-116
12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Settlements was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
13. ^ Palmer 2008, p. 292.
14. ^ "New Zealand's Constitution". Government House. Archived from the original on 10 December 2017. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
15. ^ "New Zealand's constitution – past, present and future" (PDF). Cabinet Office. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 April 2017. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
16. ^ Palmer 2008, p. 25.

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7 February 1992 – The Maastricht Treaty is signed, leading to the creation of the European Union.

Maastricht Treaty

1992 founding treaty of the European Union

"Treaty of Maastricht" redirects here. For the 1843 treaty between Belgium and the Netherlands, see Treaty of Maastricht (1843).

The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the process of European integration"^[2] chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and (with less precision) for common foreign and security policies, and a number of changes to the European institutions and their decision taking procedures, not least a strengthening of the powers of the European Parliament and more majority voting on the Council of Ministers. Although these were seen by many to presage a "federal Europe", key areas remained inter-governmental with national governments collectively taking key decisions. This constitutional debate continued through the negotiation of subsequent treaties (see below), culminating in the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon.

In the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis unfolding from 2009, the most enduring reference to the Maastricht Treaty has been to the rules of compliance – the "Maastricht criteria" – for the currency union.

Against the background of the end of the Cold War and the re-unification of Germany, and in anticipation of accelerated globalisation, the treaty negotiated tensions between member states seeking deeper integration and those wishing to retain greater national control. The resulting compromise faced what was to be the first in a series of EU treaty ratification crises.

1. ^ "Founding agreements". European Union. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
2. ^ Council of European Communities, Commission of the European Communities (1992). Treaty on European Union. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. p. 2. ISBN 92-824-0959-7.

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8 February 1949 – Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary is sentenced for treason.

József Mindszenty

Hungarian cardinal (1892–1975)

The native form of this personal name is Mindszenty József. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

József Mindszenty (Hungarian pronunciation: [jo:ʒɛf mindsɛnti]; 29 March 1892 – 6 May 1975) was a Hungarian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Esztergom and leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from 1945 to 1973. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, for five decades "he personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary".^[1] During World War II, he was imprisoned by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party.^[2] After the war, he opposed communism and communist persecution in his country. As a result, he was tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial that generated worldwide condemnation, including a United Nations resolution.

After eight years in prison, Mindszenty was freed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and granted political asylum by the United States embassy in Budapest. He lived there for the next fifteen years.^[2] He was finally allowed to leave the country in 1971, and died in exile in 1975 in Vienna, Austria.

1. ^ "József Mindszenty". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
2. ^ ^{a b} Last, Alex (5 September 2012). "Fifteen years holed up in an embassy". BBC. Retrieved 12 March 2013.

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9 February 1654 – The Capture of Fort Rocher takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.

Capture of Fort Rocher

1654 siege of the French-held island of Tortuga by the Spanish

The Capture of Fort Rocher took place on 9 February 1654, during the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659). Equipped with one siege battery, a Spanish expedition of 700 troops attacked the buccaneer stronghold of Tortuga, capturing the Fort de Rocher and 500 prisoners including 330 buccaneers and goods valued at approximately 160,000 pieces-of-eight.^[2] The Spanish burned the colony to the ground and slaughtered its inhabitants, leaving behind a fort manned by 150 soldiers.^[3] They possessed the island for about eighteen months, but on the approach of the expedition under Penn and Venables were ordered by the Conde de Peñalva, Governor of Santo Domingo, to demolish the fortifications, bury the artillery and other arms, and retire to his aid in Hispaniola.^[4]

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Marley p.147
2. ^ Konstam p.107
3. ^ Harvey p.307
4. ^ Haring p.66

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10 February 1964 – Melbourne-Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with and sinks the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, killing 82.

Melbourne–Voyager collision

1964 collision between two Royal Australian Navy warships in Jervis Bay, Australia

The Melbourne–Voyager collision, also known as the Melbourne–Voyager incident or simply the Voyager incident, was a collision between two warships of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN); the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and the destroyer HMAS Voyager.

On the evening of 10 February 1964, the two ships were performing manoeuvres off Jervis Bay. Melbourne's aircraft were performing flying exercises, and Voyager had been given the task of plane guard, and was positioned behind and to port (left) of the carrier in order to rescue the crew of any ditching or crashing aircraft. After a series of turns effected to reverse the courses of the two ships, Voyager ended up ahead and to starboard (right) of the carrier. The destroyer was ordered to resume plane guard position, which would involve turning to starboard, away from the carrier, then looping around behind. Instead, Voyager began a starboard turn, but then came around to port. The bridge crew on Melbourne assumed that Voyager was zig-zagging to let the carrier overtake her, and would then assume her correct position. Senior personnel on Voyager were not paying attention to the manoeuvre. At 20:55, officers on both ships began desperate avoiding manoeuvres, but by then a collision was inevitable.

Melbourne struck Voyager at 20:56, with the carrier's bow striking just behind the bridge and cutting the destroyer in two. Of the 314 aboard Voyager, 82 were killed, most of whom died immediately or were trapped in the heavy bow section, which sank after 10 minutes. The rest of the ship sank after midnight. Melbourne, although damaged, suffered no fatalities, and was able to sail to Sydney the next morning with most of the Voyager survivors aboard – the rest had been taken to the naval base HMAS Creswell.

The RAN proposed a board of inquiry to investigate the collision, but a series of incidents during the 1950s and 1960s had led to a public mistrust of Navy-run investigations, and as proposals for an inquiry supervised by a federal judge were not acted upon, a full royal commission became the only avenue for an externally supervised inquiry. The four-month Royal Commission, headed by Sir John Spicer,^{[note 1]} concluded that Voyager was primarily at fault for failing to maintain effective situational awareness, but also criticised Melbourne's captain, John Robertson, and his officers for not alerting the destroyer to the danger they were in. Robertson was posted to a shore base and banned from serving again at sea; he resigned soon afterwards. Opinions were that the Royal Commission had been poorly handled and Robertson had been made a scapegoat.

Increasing pressure over the results of the first Royal Commission, along with allegations by former Voyager executive officer Peter Cabban that Captain Duncan Stevens was unfit for command, prompted a second Royal Commission in 1967: the only time in Australian history that two Royal Commissions have been held to investigate the same incident. Although Cabban's claims revolved primarily around Stevens' drinking to excess, the second Royal Commission found that Stevens was unfit to command for medical reasons. Consequently, it was argued the findings of the first Royal Commission were based on incorrect assumptions, and Robertson and his officers were not to blame for the collision.
Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).

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11 February 1997 – Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble Space Telescope

NASA/ESA space telescope launched in 1990

"Hubble" redirects here. For the astronomer, see Edwin Hubble. For other uses, see Hubble (disambiguation).

The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versatile, renowned as a vital research tool and as a public relations boon for astronomy. The Hubble telescope is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is one of NASA's Great Observatories. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) selects Hubble's targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) controls the spacecraft.^[8]

Hubble features a 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in) mirror, and its five main instruments observe in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to capture extremely high-resolution images with substantially lower background light than ground-based telescopes. It has recorded some of the most detailed visible light images, allowing a deep view into space. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923, and the Hubble telescope was funded and built in the 1970s by the United States space agency NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency. Its intended launch was in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the 1986 Challenger disaster. Hubble was finally launched in 1990, but its main mirror had been ground incorrectly, resulting in spherical aberration that compromised the telescope's capabilities. The optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mission in 1993.

Hubble is the only telescope designed to be maintained in space by astronauts. Five Space Shuttle missions have repaired, upgraded, and replaced systems on the telescope, including all five of the main instruments. The fifth mission was initially canceled on safety grounds following the Columbia disaster (2003), but after NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin approved it, the servicing mission was completed in 2009. Hubble completed 30 years of operation in April 2020^[1] and is predicted to last until 2030–2040.^[4]

Hubble is the visible light telescope in NASA's Great Observatories program; other parts of the spectrum are covered by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope (which covers the infrared bands).^[9] The mid-IR-to-visible band successor to the Hubble telescope is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which was launched on December 25, 2021, with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope due to follow in 2027.^[10][11][12]

1. ^ ^{a b} "Hubble Marks 30 Years in Space with Tapestry of Blazing Starbirth". HubbleSite.org. Space Telescope Science Institute. April 24, 2020. Archived from the original on May 10, 2020. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
2. ^ ^{a b c d} "Hubble Essentials: Quick Facts". HubbleSite.org. Space Telescope Science Institute. Archived from the original on July 6, 2016.
3. ^ Ryba, Jeanne. "STS-31". NASA. Archived from the original on May 7, 2017. Retrieved May 7, 2017. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
4. ^ ^{a b} Cite error: The named reference cbsnews20130530 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ "Hubble Space Telescope—Orbit". Heavens Above. August 15, 2018. Archived from the original on August 17, 2018. Retrieved August 16, 2018.
6. ^ ^{a b} Nelson, Buddy (2009). "Hubble Space Telescope: Servicing Mission 4 Media Reference Guide" (PDF). NASA/Lockheed Martin. pp. 1–5. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 27, 2011. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
7. ^ NASA. "FAQ for Scientists Webb Telescope". Archived from the original on February 10, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
8. ^ "Hubble Essentials". HubbleSite.org. Space Telescope Science Institute. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2016. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
9. ^ Canright, Shelley. "NASA's Great Observatories". NASA. Archived from the original on June 20, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2008. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
10. ^ "NASA Announces New James Webb Space Telescope Target Launch Date". NASA. July 16, 2020. Archived from the original on July 18, 2020. Retrieved September 10, 2020. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
11. ^ Overbye, Dennis (July 16, 2020). "NASA Delays James Webb Telescope Launch Date, Again – The universe will have to wait a little longer". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 14, 2021. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
12. ^ "Hubble successor given mid-December launch date". BBC News. September 9, 2021. Archived from the original on September 9, 2021. Retrieved September 10, 2021.

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12 February 1814 – Battle of La Victoria (1814)

Battle of La Victoria (1814)

The battle of La Victoria took place during the Venezuelan War of Independence when Royalist forces under José Tomás Boves tried to take the city of La Victoria, held by General José Félix Ribas.

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Pérez Vila, Manuel. Batalla de La Victoria. Historia para nosotros.
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Julián Fuentes-Figueroa Rodríguez (2003). La Segunda República de Venezuela (1812–1814). Caracas: Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República, pp. 122. ISBN 978-9-80030-330-6.

   Boves no pudo dirigir la Batalla de La Victoria por encontrarse en Villa de Cura, postrado en cama, a raíz de haber sido herido en la Primera Batalla de la Puerta (3 de febrero del año 1814). El ejército patriota republicano contaba sólo 1,500 hombres, incluyendo el Batallón La Guaira que comandaba el señor coronel Ramón Ayala. Los efectivos realistas sumaban 4.000 hombres, a saber: 2,200 lanceros y 1,800 fusileros.

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13 February 1955 – Israel obtains four of the seven Dead Sea scrolls.

Dead Sea Scrolls

Ancient Jewish manuscripts

The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE,^[1] the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, along with extra-biblical and deuterocanonical manuscripts from late Second Temple Judaism. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism.^[2] Almost all of the 15,000 scrolls and scroll fragments are held in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, located in the city of Jerusalem. The Israeli government's custody of the Dead Sea Scrolls is disputed by Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on territorial, legal, and humanitarian grounds—they were mostly discovered following the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and were acquired by Israel after Jordan lost the 1967 Arab–Israeli War^[3]—whilst Israel's claims are primarily based on historical and religious grounds, given their significance in Jewish history and in the heritage of Judaism.^[4]

Many thousands of written fragments have been discovered in the Dead Sea area. They represent the remnants of larger manuscripts damaged by natural causes or through human interference, with the vast majority holding only small scraps of text. However, a small number of well-preserved and near-intact manuscripts have survived—fewer than a dozen among those from the Qumran Caves.^[1] Researchers have assembled a collection of 981 different manuscripts (discovered in 1946/1947 and in 1956) from 11 caves,^[5] which lie in the immediate vicinity of the Hellenistic Jewish settlement at the site of Khirbet Qumran in the eastern Judaean Desert, in the West Bank.^[6] The caves are located about 1.5 kilometres (1 mi) west of the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, whence they derive their name. Archaeologists have long associated the scrolls with the ancient Jewish sect known as the Essenes, although some recent interpretations have challenged this connection and argue that priests in Jerusalem, or Zadokites, or other unknown Jewish groups wrote the scrolls.^[7][8]

Most of the manuscripts are written in Hebrew, with some written in Aramaic (for example the Son of God Text; in different regional dialects, including Nabataean) and a few in Greek.^[9] Discoveries from the Judaean Desert add Latin (from Masada) and Arabic (from Khirbet al-Mird).^[10] Most of the texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper.^[11] Though scholarly consensus dates the Dead Sea Scrolls to between the 3rd century BCE and the 1st century CE,^[12] there are manuscripts from associated Judaean Desert sites that are dated to as early as the 8th century BCE and as late as the 11th century CE.^[12] Bronze coins found at the same sites form a series beginning with John Hyrcanus, a ruler of the Hasmonean Kingdom (in office 135–104 BCE), and continuing until the period of the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), supporting the paleography and radiocarbon dating of the scrolls.^[13]

Owing to the poor condition of some of the scrolls, scholars have not identified all of their texts. The identified texts fall into three general groups:

1. About 40% are copies of texts from Hebrew scriptures.
2. Approximately another 30% are texts from the Second Temple period that ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155, etc.
3. The remainder (roughly 30%) are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular sect or groups within greater Judaism, like the Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk, and The Rule of the Blessing.^[14]

1. ^ ^{a b} "The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls: Nature and Significance". Israel Museum Jerusalem. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
2. ^ "Dead Sea Scrolls | Definition, Discovery, History, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
3. ^ Lash, Mordechay; Goldstein, Yossi; Shai, Itzhaq (2020). "Underground-Archaeological Research in the West Bank, 1947–1968: Management, Complexity, and Israeli Involvement". Bulletin of the History of Archaeology. 30. doi:10.5334/bha-650. S2CID 229403120.
4. ^ Duhaime, Bernard; Labadie, Camille (18 September 2020). "Intersections and Cultural Exchange: Archaeology, Culture, International Law and the Legal Travels of the Dead Sea Scrolls". Canada's Public Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p. 146. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-62015-2_6. ISBN 978-3-319-62014-5. ISSN 2731-3883. S2CID 236757632. Thus, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan base their claims on territorial aspects (places of discovery of the scrolls), humanitarian (illegal deprivation following the occupation of East Jerusalem by Israel) and legal (they claim to have proof of purchase of several scrolls) while, for its part, Israel's claims are primarily based in religious notions, invoking the sacred history of the Jewish people and recalling that the scrolls discovered in Qumran are, for the majority, the oldest known copies of biblical texts and are therefore of fundamental importance for the historical and religious heritage of Judaism.
5. ^ "Hebrew University Archaeologists Find 12th Dead Sea Scrolls Cave". The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Archived from the original on 2 June 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
6. ^ Donahue, Michelle Z. (10 February 2017). "New Dead Sea Scroll Find May Help Detect Forgeries". nationalgeographic.com. Archived from the original on 15 June 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
7. ^ Ofri, Ilani (13 March 2009). "Scholar: The Essenes, Dead Sea Scroll 'authors,' never existed". Ha'aretz. Archived from the original on 6 January 2018. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
8. ^ Golb, Norman (5 June 2009). "On the Jerusalem Origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls" (PDF). University of Chicago Oriental Institute. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 June 2010. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
9. ^ Vermes, Geza (1977). The Dead Sea Scrolls. Qumran in Perspective. London: Collins. p. 15. ISBN 978-0002161428.
10. ^ "Languages and Scripts". Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
11. ^ McCarthy, Rory (27 August 2008). "From papyrus to cyberspace". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 December 2016. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
12. ^ ^{a b} "The Digital Library: Introduction". Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
13. ^ Leaney, A. R. C. From Judaean Caves: The Story of the Dead Sea Scrolls. p. 27, Religious Education Press, 1961.
14. ^ Abegg, Jr., Martin; Flint, Peter; Ulrich, Eugene (2002). The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English. San Francisco: Harper. pp. xiv–xvii. ISBN 0060600640. Retrieved 24 November 2023.

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14 February 1779 – James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

James Cook

British explorer, cartographer and naval officer (1728–1779)

"Captain Cook" redirects here. For other uses, see Captain Cook (disambiguation) and James Cook (disambiguation).

Captain James Cook FRS (7 November [O.S. 27 October] 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, cartographer and naval officer famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to New Zealand and Australia in particular. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He served during the Seven Years' War and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec, which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a crucial moment for the direction of British overseas exploration, and it led to his commission in 1768 as commander of HMS Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.

In these voyages, Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale not previously charted by Western explorers. He surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.

During his third voyage in the Pacific, Cook encountered the Hawaiian islands in 1779. He was killed while attempting to take hostage Kalaniʻōpuʻu, chief of the island of Hawaii, during a dispute. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge that influenced his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. He remains controversial as an enabler of British colonialism and for his occasionally violent encounters with indigenous peoples.

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15 February 2001 – First draft of the complete human genome is published in Nature.

Human genome

Complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans

For a non-technical introduction to the topic, see Introduction to genetics.

The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria. These are usually treated separately as the nuclear genome and the mitochondrial genome.^[1] Human genomes include both protein-coding DNA sequences and various types of DNA that does not encode proteins. The latter is a diverse category that includes DNA coding for non-translated RNA, such as that for ribosomal RNA, transfer RNA, ribozymes, small nuclear RNAs, and several types of regulatory RNAs. It also includes promoters and their associated gene-regulatory elements, DNA playing structural and replicatory roles, such as scaffolding regions, telomeres, centromeres, and origins of replication, plus large numbers of transposable elements, inserted viral DNA, non-functional pseudogenes and simple, highly repetitive sequences. Introns make up a large percentage of non-coding DNA. Some of this non-coding DNA is non-functional junk DNA, such as pseudogenes, but there is no firm consensus on the total amount of junk DNA.

Although the sequence of the human genome has been completely determined by DNA sequencing in 2022, it is not yet fully understood. Most, but not all, genes have been identified by a combination of high throughput experimental and bioinformatics approaches, yet much work still needs to be done to further elucidate the biological functions of their protein and RNA products (in particular, annotation of the complete CHM13v2.0 sequence is still ongoing^[2]).

1. ^ Brown TA (2002). The Human Genome (2nd ed.). Oxford: Wiley-Liss.
2. ^ "Homo sapiens Annotation Report". www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 17 April 2022.

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16 February 1962 – Flooding in the coastal areas of West Germany kills 315 and destroys the homes of about 60,000 people.

North Sea flood of 1962

Natural disaster affecting mainly the coastal regions of Germany

The North Sea flood of 1962 was a natural disaster affecting mainly the coastal regions of West Germany and in particular the city of Hamburg in the night from 16 February to 17 February 1962. In total, the homes of about 60,000 people were destroyed, and the death toll amounted to 315 in Hamburg. The extratropical cyclone responsible for the flooding had previously crossed the United Kingdom as the Great Sheffield Gale, devastating the city of Sheffield and killing nine people.^[3]

1. ^ "Historical storm surge events" (PDF). Munich Re. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 September 2013. Retrieved 24 March 2012.
2. ^ "Rückblick auf Hamburger Flutkatastrophe, Hamburg, 15 February 2012". radiohamburg.de (in German). Archived from the original on 15 August 2019. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
3. ^ Eden, Philip. "THE SHEFFIELD GALE OF 1962" (PDF). Royal Meteorological Society. Retrieved 1 February 2022.

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17 February 1933 – Newsweek magazine is first published.

Newsweek

Weekly magazine based in New York City

For the 1978–1989 Australia North Queensland current affairs television program, see Newsweek (TV program).

Newsweek is a weekly news magazine. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, Newsweek was widely distributed during the 20th century and had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev Pragad, the president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis who sits on the board; they each own 50% of the company.^[7]

Revenue declines prompted The Washington Post Company to sell the publication in August 2010, to the audio pioneer Sidney Harman a purchase price of one dollar and an assumption of the magazine's liabilities.^[8] Later in the year, Newsweek merged with the news and opinion website The Daily Beast, forming The Newsweek Daily Beast Company. Newsweek was jointly owned by the estate of Harman and the diversified American media and Internet company IAC.^[9][10] Newsweek continued to experience financial difficulties leading to the cessation of print publication and a transition to an all-digital format at the end of 2012.

In 2013, IBT Media acquired Newsweek from IAC; the acquisition included the Newsweek brand and its online publication, but did not include The Daily Beast.^[11] IBT Media, which also owns the International Business Times, rebranded itself as Newsweek Media Group, and in 2014, relaunched Newsweek in both print and digital form.

In 2018, IBT Media split into two companies, Newsweek Publishing and IBT Media. The split was accomplished one day before the District Attorney of Manhattan indicted Etienne Uzac, the co-owner of IBT Media, on fraud charges.^[12][13][14]

Under Newsweek's current co-owner and CEO, Dev Pragad, it is profitable growing 20-30% per year : between May 2019 and May 2022, its monthly unique visitors rose from about 30 million to 48 million, according to Comscore. Pragad became CEO in 2016; readership has grown to 100 million readers per month, the highest in its 90-year history.^[15][16] The operations of the company were researched by the Harvard Business School; they published a case study in 2021.^[17]

1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kelly_20180306 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Elliott_Obit_20080929 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference JonMeacham_dot_com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference DevPragad_HBS_Interview was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Cite error: The named reference KingsCollege_2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kelly_20150306 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
7. ^ Newsweek shareholders resolve litigation Archived September 16, 2023, at the Wayback Machine. newsweek.com.
8. ^ Cite error: The named reference nytsale was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
9. ^ Cite error: The named reference merger was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
10. ^ "The Daily Beast and Newsweek confirm merger". The Spy Report. November 12, 2010. Archived from the original on November 16, 2010. Retrieved November 12, 2010.
11. ^ Cite error: The named reference ibtpr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
12. ^ "DA Vance Announces Indictment of Newsweek and Christian Media Chiefs in Long-Running $10 Million Fraud Probe". Manhattan District Attorney's Office. October 11, 2018. Archived from the original on July 19, 2021. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
13. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
14. ^ Cite error: The named reference PressRelease2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
15. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
16. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
17. ^ Applegate, Linda M.; Srinivasan, Surja (February 14, 2022) [October 18, 2021]. "Newsweek: Driving a Digital First Strategy". Harvard Business School Case Study. Archived from the original on October 24, 2023. Retrieved October 17, 2023.

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18 February 1969 – Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 crashes into Mount Whitney killing all on board.

Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708

1969 aviation accident

Hawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 was a domestic non-scheduled passenger flight between Hawthorne Industrial Airport, Nevada (HTH) and Hollywood-Burbank Airport, California (BUR/KBUR) that crashed into terrain near the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, near Lone Pine, on February 18, 1969, killing all 35 passengers and crew on board.

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19 February 1986 – Akkaraipattu massacre: the Sri Lankan Army massacres 80 Tamil farm workers the eastern province of Sri Lanka.

Akkaraipattu massacre

1986 killing of Tamil farmers by the Sri Lankan Army in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka

Akkaraipattu massacre happened on 19 February 1986 when approximately 80 Tamil farm workers were killed by the Sri Lankan Army personnel and their bodies burned in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka.^[1][2] The incident came to light a few days later when community leaders visited the remote location near the town of Akkaraipattu, where the farm workers were shot.

1. ^ Frerks, George; Bart Klem (2004). Dealing with diversity: Sri Lankan Discourses on Peace and Conflict. Netherlands Institute of International Relations. ISBN 90-5031-091-5.p.118
2. ^ Humphrey, Hawksley (February 22, 1986). "Massacre in Akkaraipattu". The Guardian.

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20 February 1943 – The Parícutin volcano begins to form in Parícutin, Mexico

Parícutin

Dormant volcano in Michoacán, Mexico

Parícutin (or Volcán de Parícutin, also accented Paricutín) is a cinder cone volcano located in the Mexican state of Michoacán, near the city of Uruapan and about 322 kilometers (200 mi) west of Mexico City. The volcano surged suddenly from the cornfield of local farmer Dionisio Pulido in 1943, attracting both popular and scientific attention.

Paricutín presented the first occasion for modern science to document the full life cycle of an eruption of this type. During the volcano's nine years of activity, scientists sketched and mapped it and took thousands of samples and photographs. By 1952, the eruption had left a 424-meter-high (1,391 ft) cone and significantly damaged an area of more than 233 square kilometers (90 sq mi) with the ejection of stone, volcanic ash and lava. Three people were killed, two towns were completely evacuated and buried by lava, and three others were heavily affected. Hundreds of people had to permanently relocate, and two new towns were created to accommodate their migration. Although the larger region still remains highly active volcanically, Parícutin is now dormant and has become a tourist attraction, with people climbing the volcano and visiting the hardened lava-covered ruins of the San Juan Parangaricutiro Church.

In 1997, CNN named Parícutin one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.^[3] The same year, the disaster film Volcano mentioned it as a precedent for the film's fictional events.

1. ^ "Elevaciones principales – Michoacán de Ocampo" (in Spanish). Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. 2005. Archived from the original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved February 4, 2012.
2. ^ SRTM data
3. ^ Alonso, Nathalie. "7 Natural Wonders of the World Today". USA Today Travel Tips. Retrieved April 13, 2017.

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21 February 1948 – NASCAR is incorporated.

NASCAR

American automobile racing company

"Nascar racing" redirects here. For the 1994–2003 Papyrus video game series, see NASCAR Racing. For other NASCAR video game titles, see List of NASCAR video games.

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing.^[1] It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in the world and is one of the largest spectator sports in America. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948,^[2] and his son, Jim France, has been the CEO since August 2018.^[3] The company is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida.^[4] Each year, NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 48 US states, as well as in Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Europe.

NASCAR, and stock car racing as a whole, traces its roots back to moonshine runners during Prohibition, who grew to compete against each other in a show of pride. This happened notably in North Carolina. In 1935, Bill France Sr. established races in Daytona Beach, with the hope that people would come to watch races and that racers would race for him, as other organizers tended to fleece the winners of their payouts. This was a success, and the series was founded in 1948. Races were held in several divisions, which eventually morphed into what is the "ladder:" the Cup Series at the top, the Xfinity Series second, and the Truck Series third, with smaller series spread out below. Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota compete in each series.

The vast majority of NASCAR drivers are American, but drivers from Canada, Mexico, Europe, and other places have competed. All Cup Series races are held across America. There are 36 points-paying races in a season, along with the pre-season Clash and mid-season All-Star race. NASCAR runs races primarily on ovals, including superspeedways, short tracks, and dirt tracks, but also road courses and street circuits.

Richard Petty holds the Cup Series wins record with 200. He is tied with Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson for the championship record, with seven each. Entering the 2024 season, Ryan Blaney is the defending Cup Series champion.

1. ^ "History of Stock Car Racing". Stock Car Racing Collection at Belk Library. Appalachian State University. 2015. Archived from the original on July 10, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
2. ^ "History of NASCAR". NASCAR Media Group. August 17, 2010. Archived from the original on May 30, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
3. ^ "Jim France assumes role of interim NASCAR Chairman, CEO | NASCAR.com". Official Site Of NASCAR. August 6, 2018. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
4. ^ "Racing FAQ, NASCAR Trivia and TECH Questions". Jayski LLC; owned and served by ESPN. February 15, 2009. Archived from the original on April 4, 2009. Retrieved April 18, 2009.

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22 February 1848 – The French Revolution of 1848, which would lead to the establishment of the French Second Republic, begins.

French Revolution of 1848

End of the reign of King Louis Philippe and start of the Second Republic

For previous revolutions in France, see French Revolution and July Revolution.

The French Revolution of 1848 (French: Révolution française de 1848), also known as the February Revolution (Révolution de février), was a period of civil unrest in France, in February 1848, that led to the collapse of the July Monarchy and the foundation of the French Second Republic. It sparked the wave of revolutions of 1848.

The revolution took place in Paris, and was preceded by the French government's crackdown on the campagne des banquets. Starting on 22 February as a large-scale protest against the government of François Guizot, it later developed into a violent uprising against the monarchy. After intense urban fighting, large crowds managed to take control of the capital, leading to the abdication of King Louis Philippe on 24 February and the subsequent proclamation of the Second Republic.

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23 February 1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.

Jonas Salk

American inventor of the polio vaccine (1914–1995)

"Salk" redirects here. For other uses, see Salk (disambiguation).

Jonas Edward Salk (/sɔːlk/; born Jonas Salk; October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995) was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine.^[2]

In 1947, Salk accepted a professorship at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he undertook a project beginning in 1948 to determine the number of different types of poliovirus. For the next seven years, Salk devoted himself to developing a vaccine against polio.

Salk was immediately hailed as a "miracle worker" when the vaccine's success was first made public in April 1955, and chose to not patent the vaccine or seek any profit from it in order to maximize its global distribution.^[2] The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and the University of Pittsburgh looked into patenting the vaccine, but since Salk's techniques were not novel, their patent attorney said, "If there were any patentable novelty to be found in this phase it would lie within an extremely narrow scope and would be of doubtful value."^[3][4] An immediate rush to vaccinate began in the United States and around the world. Many countries began polio immunization campaigns using Salk's vaccine, including Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium. By 1959, the Salk vaccine had reached about 90 countries.^[5] An attenuated live oral polio vaccine was developed by Albert Sabin, coming into commercial use in 1961. Less than 25 years after the release of Salk's vaccine, domestic transmission of polio had been eliminated in the United States.

In 1963, Salk founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, which is today a center for medical and scientific research. He continued to conduct research and publish books in his later years, focusing in his last years on the search for a vaccine against HIV. Salk campaigned vigorously for mandatory vaccination throughout the rest of his life, calling the universal vaccination of children against disease a "moral commitment".^[6] Salk's personal papers are today stored in Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego.^[7][8]

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} "Dr. Jonas Salk, Whose Vaccine Turned Tide on Polio, Dies at 80". The New York Times. June 24, 1995. Retrieved October 23, 2020.
2. ^ ^{a b} "About Jonas Salk – Salk Institute for Biological Studies". Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
3. ^ Cite error: The named reference latimes.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
4. ^ Cite error: The named reference bio.org was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. ^ Tan, Siang Yong; Ponstein, Nate (January 2019). "Jonas Salk (1914–1995): A vaccine against polio". Singapore Medical Journal. 60 (1): 9–10. doi:10.11622/smedj.2019002. ISSN 0037-5675. PMC 6351694. PMID 30840995.
6. ^ Jacobs, Charlotte DeCroes. "Vaccinations have always been controversial in America: Column", USA Today, August 4, 2015
7. ^ "UC San Diego Library Receives Personal Papers of Jonas Salk", Newswise, March 20, 2014
8. ^ San Diego Union Tribune, 20 March 2014: "UCSD to house Salk's papers", accessed July 3, 2015.

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24 February 1920 – The Nazi Party is founded.

Nazi Party

Far-right political party active in Germany (1920–1945)

This article is about the political party that existed in Germany from 1920 to 1945. For the ideology, see Nazism. For Germany under their control, see Nazi Germany. For other uses, see Nazi Party (disambiguation).

The Nazi Party,^[b] officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ^[c] or NSDAP), was a far-right^[10][11][12] political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist ("Völkisch nationalist"), racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany.^[13] The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism.^[14] Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes.^[15] The party had little popular support until the Great Depression, when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism.^[12]

Central to Nazism were themes of racial segregation expressed in the idea of a "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft).^[16] The party aimed to unite "racially desirable" Germans as national comrades while excluding those deemed to be either political dissidents, physically or intellectually inferior, or of a foreign race (Fremdvölkische).^[17] The Nazis sought to strengthen the Germanic people, the "Aryan master race", through racial purity and eugenics, broad social welfare programs, and a collective subordination of individual rights, which could be sacrificed for the good of the state on behalf of the people. To protect the supposed purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to disenfranchise, segregate, and eventually exterminate Jews, Romani, Slavs, the physically and mentally disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and political opponents.^[18] The persecution reached its climax when the party-controlled German state set in motion the Final Solution – an industrial system of genocide that carried out mass murders of around 6 million Jews and millions of other targeted victims in what has become known as the Holocaust.^[19]

Adolf Hitler, the party's leader since 1921, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, and quickly seized power afterwards. Hitler established a totalitarian regime known as the Third Reich and became dictator with absolute power.^{[20][21][22][23]}

Following the military defeat of Germany in World War II, the party was declared illegal.^[24] The Allies attempted to purge German society of Nazi elements in a process known as denazification. Several top leaders were tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trials, and executed. The use of symbols associated with the party is still outlawed in many European countries, including Germany and Austria.

1. ^ Kershaw 1998, pp. 164–65.
2. ^ Steves 2010, p. 28.
3. ^ T. W. Mason, Social Policy in the Third Reich: The Working Class and the "National Community", 1918–1939, Oxford: UK, Berg Publishers, 1993, p. 77.
4. ^ McNab 2011, pp. 22, 23.
5. ^ Davidson 1997, p. 241.
6. ^ Orlow 2010, p. 29.
7. ^ Pfleiderer, Doris (2007). "Volksbegehren und Volksentscheid gegen den Youngplan, in: Archivnachrichten 35 / 2007" [Initiative and Referendum against the Young Plan, in: Archived News 35 / 2007] (PDF). Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg (in German). p. 43. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
8. ^ Jones, Larry E. (Oct., 2006). "Nationalists, Nazis, and the Assault against Weimar: Revisiting the Harzburg Rally of October 1931". 'German Studies Review. Vol. 29, No. 3. pp. 483–94. Johns Hopkins University Press.
9. ^ Jones 2003.
10. ^ Fritzsche 1998, pp. 143, 185, 193, 204–05, 210.
11. ^ Eatwell, Roger (1997). Fascism : a history. New York: Penguin Books. pp. xvii–xxiv, 21, 26–31, 114–40, 352. ISBN 0-14-025700-4. OCLC 37930848.
12. ^ ^{a b} "The Nazi Party". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
13. ^ Grant 2004, pp. 30–34, 44.
14. ^ Mitchell 2008, p. 47.
15. ^ McDonough 2003, p. 64.
16. ^ Majer 2013, p. 39.
17. ^ Wildt 2012, pp. 96–97.
18. ^ Gigliotti & Lang 2005, p. 14.
19. ^ Evans 2008, p. 318.
20. ^ Arendt 1951, p. 306.
21. ^ Curtis 1979, p. 36.
22. ^ Burch 1964, p. 58.
23. ^ Maier 2004, p. 32.
24. ^ Elzer 2003, p. 602.

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25 February 1947 – The State of Prussia ceases to exist.

Prussia

European state, existing from 1525 to 1947

"Prussian" redirects here. For other uses, see Prussia (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Russia.

Prussia (/ˈprʌʃə/, German: Preußen, German: [ˈpʁɔʏsn̩] ^ⓘ; Old Prussian: Prūsa or Prūsija) was a German state located on most of the North European Plain, also occupying southern and eastern regions. It formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army. Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg and then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany.

The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians; in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights – an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders – conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Danzig. Their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany, and, in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The imposed Second Peace of Thorn (1466) split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, becoming a province of Poland, and the eastern part, called the Duchy of Prussia from 1525, a feudal fief of the Crown of Poland up to 1657. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.

Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom.^[3][4] It became increasingly large and powerful in the 18th and 19th centuries. It had a major voice in European affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great (1740–1786). At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleon's defeat, Prussia acquired rich new territories, including the coal-rich Ruhr. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians.

The Kingdom ended in 1918 along with other German monarchies that were terminated by the German Revolution. In the Weimar Republic, the Free State of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. Subsequently, it was effectively dismantled into Nazi German Gaue in 1935. Nevertheless, some Prussian ministries were kept and Hermann Göring remained in his role as Minister President of Prussia until the end of World War II. Former eastern territories of Germany that made up a significant part of Prussia lost the majority of their German population after 1945 as the Polish People's Republic and the Soviet Union both absorbed these territories and had most of its German inhabitants expelled by 1950. Prussia, deemed "a bearer of militarism and reaction" by the Allies, was officially abolished by an Allied declaration in 1947. The international status of the former eastern territories of the Kingdom of Prussia was disputed until the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in 1990, but its return to Germany remains a cause among far-right politicians, the Federation of Expellees and various political revanchists and irredentists.

The terms "Prussian" and "Prussianism" have often been used, especially outside Germany, to denote the militarism, military professionalism, aggressiveness, and conservatism of the Junker class of landed aristocrats in the East who dominated first Prussia and then the German Empire.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ Fischer, Michael; Senkel, Christian (2010). Klaus Tanner (ed.). Reichsgründung 1871: Ereignis, Beschreibung, Inszenierung. Münster: Waxmann Verlag.
2. ^ ^{a b c} "Population of Germany". tacitus.nu.
3. ^ Vesna Danilovic, When the Stakes Are High – Deterrence and Conflict among Major Powers, (University of Michigan Press, 2002), pp 27, 225–228.
4. ^ H. M. Scott, "Aping the Great Powers: Frederick the Great and the Defence of Prussia's International Position 1763–86", German History 12#3 (1994) pp. 286–307 online

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26 February 1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

Treaty of Versailles

One of the treaties that ended World War I

See also: Rue Nitot, Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), and Diplomatic history of World War I

This article is about the Treaty of Versailles of 28 June 1919, at the end of World War I. For other uses, see Treaty of Versailles (disambiguation).

The Treaty of Versailles^[i] was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war. The other Central Powers on the German side signed separate treaties.^[ii] Although the armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, and agreed certain principles and conditions including the payment of reparations, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. Germany was not allowed to participate in the negotiations before signing the treaty.

The treaty required Germany to disarm, make territorial concessions, extradite alleged war criminals, agree to Kaiser Wilhelm being put on trial, recognise the independence of states whose territory had previously been part of the German Empire, and pay reparations to the Entente powers. The most critical and controversial provision in the treaty was: "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies." The other members of the Central Powers signed treaties containing similar articles. This article, Article 231, became known as the "War Guilt" clause.

Critics including John Maynard Keynes declared the treaty too harsh, styling it as a "Carthaginian peace", and saying the reparations were excessive and counterproductive. On the other hand, prominent Allied figures such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch criticized the treaty for treating Germany too leniently. This is still the subject of ongoing debate by historians and economists.

The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the victors was a compromise that left no one satisfied. In particular, Germany was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened. The United States never ratified the Versailles treaty and made a separate peace treaty with Germany, albeit based on the Versailles treaty. The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European powers. The reparation system was reorganized and payments reduced in the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan. Bitter resentment of the treaty powered the rise of the Nazi Party, and eventually the outbreak of a second World War.

Although it is often referred to as the "Versailles Conference", only the actual signing of the treaty took place at the historic palace. Most of the negotiations were in Paris, with the "Big Four" meetings taking place generally at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d'Orsay.

Cite error: There are <ref group=n.> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=n.}} template (see the help page).

1. ^ Slavicek 2010, p. 114.
2. ^ Slavicek 2010, p. 107.
3. ^ Boyer et al. 2009, p. 153.

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27 February 1940 – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14.

Carbon-14

Isotope of carbon

"Radiocarbon" redirects here. For the scientific journal, see Radiocarbon (journal). For the dating technique, see Radiocarbon dating.

Carbon-14, C-14, ¹⁴
C or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and colleagues (1949) to date archaeological, geological and hydrogeological samples. Carbon-14 was discovered on February 27, 1940, by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California. Its existence had been suggested by Franz Kurie in 1934.^[3]

There are three naturally occurring isotopes of carbon on Earth: carbon-12 (¹²
C), which makes up 99% of all carbon on Earth; carbon-13 (¹³
C), which makes up 1%; and carbon-14 (¹⁴
C), which occurs in trace amounts, making up about 1 or 1.5 atoms per 10¹² atoms of carbon in the atmosphere. Carbon-12 and carbon-13 are both stable, while carbon-14 is unstable and has a half-life of 5700±30 years.^[4] Carbon-14 has a maximum specific activity of 62.4 mCi/mmol (2.31 GBq/mmol), or 164.9 GBq/g.^[5] Carbon-14 decays into nitrogen-14 (¹⁴
N) through beta decay.^[6] A gram of carbon containing 1 atom of carbon-14 per 10¹² atoms will emit ~0.2^[7] beta particles per second. The primary natural source of carbon-14 on Earth is cosmic ray action on nitrogen in the atmosphere, and it is therefore a cosmogenic nuclide. However, open-air nuclear testing between 1955 and 1980 contributed to this pool.

The different isotopes of carbon do not differ appreciably in their chemical properties. This resemblance is used in chemical and biological research, in a technique called carbon labeling: carbon-14 atoms can be used to replace nonradioactive carbon, in order to trace chemical and biochemical reactions involving carbon atoms from any given organic compound.

1. ^ Kondev, F. G.; Wang, M.; Huang, W. J.; Naimi, S.; Audi, G. (2021). "The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear properties" (PDF). Chinese Physics C. 45 (3): 030001. doi:10.1088/1674-1137/abddae.
2. ^ ^{a b} Waptstra AH, Audi G, Thibault C. "AME atomic mass evaluation 2003". IAEA.org. Archived from the original on 5 May 2023.
3. ^ Kamen MD (May 1963). "Early History of Carbon-14: Discovery of this supremely important tracer was expected in the physical sense but not in the chemical sense". Science. 140 (3567): 584–590. Bibcode:1963Sci...140..584K. doi:10.1126/science.140.3567.584. PMID 17737092.
4. ^ Godwin H (1962). "Half-life of radiocarbon". Nature. 195 (4845): 984. Bibcode:1962Natur.195..984G. doi:10.1038/195984a0. S2CID 27534222.
5. ^ Babin V, Taran F, Audisio D (June 2022). "Late-Stage Carbon-14 Labeling and Isotope Exchange: Emerging Opportunities and Future Challenges". JACS Au. 2 (6): 1234–1251. doi:10.1021/jacsau.2c00030. PMC 9241029. PMID 35783167.
6. ^ "What is carbon dating?". National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility. Archived from the original on July 5, 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-11.
7. ^ (1 per 10¹²) × (1 gram / (12 grams per mole)) × (Avogadro constant) / ((5,730 years) × (31,557,600 seconds per Julian year) / ln(2))

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28 February 1939 – The erroneous word "dord" is discovered in the Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigatio

Dord

Ghost word created as a dictionary error

This article is about a lexicographic error. For other uses, see Dord (disambiguation).

The word dord is a dictionary error in lexicography. It was accidentally created, as a ghost word, by the staff of G. and C. Merriam Company (now part of Merriam-Webster) in the New International Dictionary, second edition (1934). That dictionary defined the term as a synonym for density used in physics and chemistry in the following way:^[1]

dord (dôrd), n. Physics & Chem. Density.^[2]

Philip Babcock Gove, an editor at Merriam-Webster who became editor-in-chief of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, wrote a letter to the journal American Speech, fifteen years after the error was caught, in which he explained how the "dord" error was introduced and corrected.^[3]

On 31 July 1931, Austin M. Patterson, the dictionary's chemistry editor, sent in a slip reading "D or d, cont./density." This was intended to add "density" to the existing list of words that the letter "D" can abbreviate. The phrase "D or d" was misinterpreted as a single, run-together word: Dord. This was a plausible mistake because headwords on slips were typed with spaces between the letters, so "D or d" looked very much like "D o r d". The original slip went missing, so a new slip was prepared for the printer, which assigned a part of speech (noun) and a pronunciation. The would-be word was not questioned or corrected by proofreaders.^[3] The entry appeared on page 771 of the dictionary around 1934, between the entries for Dorcopsis (a type of small kangaroo) and doré (golden in color).^[1]

On 28 February 1939, an editor noticed "dord" lacked an etymology and investigated, discovering the error. An order was sent to the printer marked "plate change/imperative/urgent". The non-word "dord" was excised; "density" was added as an additional meaning for the abbreviation "D or d" as originally intended,^[4] and the definition of the adjacent entry "Doré furnace" was expanded from "A furnace for refining Doré bullion" to "a furnace in which Doré bullion is refined" to close up the space. Gove wrote that this was "probably too bad, for why shouldn't dord mean 'density'?"^[3] In 1940, bound books began appearing without the ghost word, although inspection of printed copies well into the 1940s shows "dord" still present.^[5] The entry "dord" was not completely removed until 1947.^[6]

1. ^ ^{a b} Eschner, Kat (28 February 2017). "As "Dord" Shows, Being in the Dictionary Doesn't Always Mean Something's a Word". Smithsonian. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
2. ^ Mikkelson, David (4 January 2015). "Dord: The Word That Didn't Exist". Snopes.com. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
3. ^ ^{a b c} Gove, Philip Babcock (1954). "The History of 'Dord'". American Speech. 29 (2): 136–138. doi:10.2307/453337. JSTOR 453337.
4. ^ "Erroneous word "Dord" is discovered in dictionary". History Channel. Archived from the original on 18 March 2017. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
5. ^ Neilson, William Allan, ed. (1943). "dord". Webster's New International Dictionary (Second ed.). G. & C. Merriam Company.
6. ^ Brewster, Emily. "Ask the Editor: Ghost Word". Merriam-Webster.com.

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1 March 1966 – The Ba'ath Party takes power in Syria.

Ba'ath Party

Syrian political party (1947–1966)

For the party which governed Iraq, see Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region. For the party which governs Syria, see Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region. For other uses, see Ba'ath Party (disambiguation).

The Arab Socialist Baʿth^[1] Party (also anglicized as Ba'ath in loose transcription; Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي Ḥizb al-Baʿth al-ʿArabī al-Ishtirākī [ˈħɪzb alˈbaʕθ alˈʕarabiː alɪʃtɪˈraːkiː]) was a political party founded in Syria by Mishel ʿAflaq, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Bīṭār, and associates of Zakī al-ʾArsūzī. The party espoused Baʿathism (from Arabic بعث baʿth meaning 'resurrection'), which is an ideology mixing Arab nationalist, pan-Arab, Arab socialist, and anti-imperialist interests. Baʿthism calls for unification of the Arab world into a single state. Its motto, "Unity, Liberty, Socialism", refers to Arab unity, and freedom from non-Arab control and interference.

The party was founded by the merger of the Arab Ba'ath Movement, led by ʿAflaq and al-Bitar, and the Arab Ba'ath, led by al-ʾArsūzī, on 7 April 1947 as the Arab Baʿth Party. The party quickly established branches in other Arab countries, although it would only hold power in Iraq and Syria. The Arab Baʿth Party merged with the Arab Socialist Movement, led by Akram al-Hawrani, in 1952 to form the Arab Socialist Baʿth Party. The newly formed party was a relative success, and it became the second-largest party in the Syrian parliament in the 1954 election. This, coupled with the increasing strength of the Syrian Communist Party,^{[citation needed]} led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union of Egypt and Syria, in 1958. The UAR would prove unsuccessful, and a Syrian coup in 1961 dissolved it.

Following the break-up of the UAR, the Baʿth Party was reconstituted. However, during the UAR period, military activists had established the Military Committee that took control of the Baʿath Party away from civilian hands. In the meantime, in Iraq, the local Ba'ath Party branch had taken power by orchestrating and leading the Ramadan Revolution, only to lose power a couple of months later. The Military Committee, with Aflaq's consent, took power in Syria in the 8th of March Revolution of 1963.

A power struggle quickly developed between the civilian faction led by ʿAflaq, al-Bitar, and Munīf ar-Razzāz and the Military Committee led by Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad. As relations between the two factions deteriorated, the Military Committee initiated the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which ousted the National Command led by al-Razzāz, ʿAflaq, and their supporters. The 1966 coup split the Ba'ath Party between the Iraqi-dominated Ba'ath movement and the Syrian-dominated Ba'ath movement.

1. ^ Mohammed Shafi Agwani (January 1961). "The Baʻth: A Study in Contemporary Arab Politics". International Studies. 3 (1): 6–24. doi:10.1177/002088176100300102. S2CID 154673494.

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