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the Channel Tunnel treaty was signed between United Kingdom and France.

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      2001 NEAR Shoemaker touched down on 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

13 FEBRUARY

      1542 Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, was executed for adultery.

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      1601 John Lancaster led the first East India Company voyage from London.

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      1689 William III and Mary II acceded to the throne of England.

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      1692 the MacDonalds were massacred by the Campbells at Glencoe.

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      1917 the spy Mata Hari was arrested by the French.

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      1945 Dresden was devastated when RAF bombers attacked the city.

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      1959 the Barbie doll went on sale.

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      1960 France exploded its first atomic bomb.

14 FEBRUARY

      1477 John Paston received the first recorded valentine letter in English, from Margery Brews.

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      1838 Margaret Knight, inventor of the square-bottom paper bag, was born in York, Maine.

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      1852 the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, fitted with ten beds, admitted its first patient, George Parr, who was suffering from catarrh and diarrhoea.

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      1895 Oscar Wilde’s final play, The Importance of Being Earnest, opened in London.

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      1922 Marconi began regular broadcasting transmissions from Writtle in Essex.

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      1939 the German battleship Bismarck was launched at Hamburg.

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      2005 three PayPal workers started a video-sharing website, calling it YouTube.

15 FEBRUARY

      1882 the first cargo of frozen meat left New Zealand for Britain on the SS Dunedin.

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      1942 Singapore surrendered to Japanese forces.

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      1944 the Allies bombed Monte Cassino monastery in Italy to prevent the Germans fortifying it.

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      1965 Canada flew its newly adopted red maple leaf flag for the first time.

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      1965 Nat King Cole, singer and jazz pianist who sold more than 50 million records, died of cancer aged 45.

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      1971 Britain adopted decimal currency.

16 FEBRUARY

      1659 the first known British cheque (for £400) was written by Nicholas Vanacker.

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      1824 the first meeting of the Athenaeum Club — for “Literary and Scientific men and followers of the Fine Arts” — took place in London.

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      1923 the archaeologist Howard Carter entered the sealed burial chamber of Tutankhamun in Thebes, Egypt. (The ruins of Thebes are found within the modern city of Luxor.)

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      1959 Fidel Castro became prime minister of Cuba, and would govern until 2008.

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      1960 the US nuclear submarine Triton set off on the first underwater round-the-world voyage.

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      1998 the Angel of the North, a sculpture by Antony Gormley, was unveiled in Gateshead.

17 FEBRUARY

      1600 the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome for heresies including maintaining that Earth was not the only inhabited planet.

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      1818 German inventor Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun patented the draisine, forerunner of the bicycle.

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      1864 AB (Banjo) Paterson, poet (Waltzing Matilda), was born in Orange, New South Wales.

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      1880 Tsar Alexander II of Russia survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded at the Winter Palace, St Petersburg.

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      1909 Geronimo, Apache leader, died in captivity aged 79.

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      1972 the House of Commons voted to join the European Common Market.

18 FEBRUARY

      1478 George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III, was said to have been drowned in a butt of malmsey at the Tower of London.

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      1678 John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was published, much of it having been composed while he was in prison for illegal preaching.

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      1929 the winners of the first Academy Awards (known as Oscars from 1931) were announced, with the presentation being held later that year. (See 16 May.)

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      1930 Pluto was discovered by the American astronomer Clyde W Tombaugh.

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      1979 snow fell in the Sahara Desert.

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      2005 a law banning hunting with dogs came into force in England and Wales.

19 FEBRUARY

      1473 Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer who proposed that the sun not the Earth was the centre of the Universe, was born in Poland.

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      1861 Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia.

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      1878 the patent for Thomas Edison’s phonograph (the original gramophone) was issued.

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      1897 the Women’s Institute was founded by Adelaide Hoodless in Ontario, Canada, and came to Britain during the First World War.

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      1945 US marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima, whose capture created a forward air base in the war against Japan.

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      1985 the BBC televised the first episode of EastEnders.

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