842 The Strasbourg Oath: Charles the Bald & Louis the German form an alliance against their brother, Emperor Lothair I.

1014 Henry II "the Saint" is crowned Holy Roman Emperor (1014-1024)

1076 Pope Gregory VII excommunicates HRE Henry IV, who later undergoes the "Humiliation of Canosa"

1130 Gregorio Papereschi elected Pope as Innocent II (1130-1143)

1130 Pietro Pierleone becomes Anti-Pope as "Anacletus II" (1130-1138)

1349 2,000 Jews burned at the stake in Strasbourg

1540 Emperor Charles V enters Ghent without resistance, executes rebels

1639 Battle of Turriff: a drawn fight between the Marquis of Huntly and the Covenanters

1661 The troops of George Monk's Regiment of Foot lay their arms on the ground, and then resume them to swear allegiance to Charles II, who dubs them the Coldstream Guards

1670 Jews ordered expelled from Vienna

1778 The First Foreign Salute to the "Stars & Stripes": A French squadron under Adm Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte salutes John Paul Jones' USS 'Ranger'

1797 Battle of Cape St. Vincent: A British squadron under Adm. John Jervis defeats the Spanish

1804 Djorde Petrovic "Karadorde" initiates the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottomans (1804-1813)

1806 The French capture Naples

1807 The 74 gun ship-of-the-line HMS 'Ajax' burns off the Dardanelles, 250 of 681 crewmembers die

1814 Battle of Vauchamps: Napoleon defeats the Russo-Prussians

1814 USS 'Constitution' captures the British merchantmen 'Lovely Ann' and 'Pictou'

1862 The Confederate Congress authorizes a "Territory of Arizona"

1879 The Chileans occupy Antofagasta, initiating the War of the Pacific (1879-1883)

1896 Battle of Seeta: Abyssinians defeat the Italians

1912 US sub 'E-1' (SS-24) commissioned, the first American diesel boat

1918 The Gregorian calendar, introduced in Catholic countries in 1582, and adopted in Protestant countries by the mid-1700s, goes into effect in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars

1929 St Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, 7 die

1940 British merchant ships are armed against German submarines and raiders

1941 German Afrika Korps begins landing at Tripoli, Libya

1942 A combined American-British-Dutch-Australian naval squadron is attacked by Japanese aircraft in Javanese waters and retires

1942 Japanese Navy paratroopers land on Sumatra near Palembang

1943 The Soviets liberate Rostov from the Germans

1944 Anti-Japanese revolt on Java

1945 King Abd al-`Aziz of Saudi Arabia & Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt confer aboard the USS 'Murphy' (DD 603)

1945 US troops reach the Bataan peninsula outside Manila

1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin at the Soviet Communist Party Congress

1989 Iran's Khomeini orders the murder of novelist Salmon Rushdie