Historical Events
- Feb 8 1st US Vice-President chosen by Senate, Richard Johnson (Van Buren admin)
- Feb 10 Russian poet Alexander Pushkin is fatally injured in a duel with French officer Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès (1/29 OS)
- Feb 11 American Physiological Society organizes in Boston
- Feb 13 Riot in New York due to a combination of poverty and increase in the cost of flour
Historic Discovery
Feb 17 Charles Lyell makes his presidential address to the Geographical Society, London and announces that Richard Owen has concluded from Darwin's fossils that extinct species were related to current species in the same locality
- Feb 25 1st US electric printing press patented by Thomas Davenport
Famous Birthdays
- Feb 5 Dwight Lyman Moody, American evangelist (Moody Church), born in Northfield, Massachusetts (d. 1899)
- Feb 7 James Murray, Scottish lexicographer and philologist (Oxford English Dictionary), born in Denholm, Scotland (d. 1915)
- Feb 9 José Burgos, Filipino Catholic priest (advocated for greater Filipino self-determination), born in Vigan, Philippines (d. 1872)
- Feb 13 Valentin Zubiaurre, Spanish composer (Ferdinand Set), and educator, born in Garay, Biscay, Spain (d. 1914)
- Feb 17 Francis Jay Herron, American Major General (Union Army), born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (d. 1902)
- Feb 17 Samuel van Houten, Dutch politician and philosopher (child labor laws), born in Groningen, Netherlands (d. 1930)
- Feb 24 Rosalía de Castro, Santiago de Compostela Galician writer and poet ('Séculos Escuros') (d. 1885)
- Feb 26 Charles Woeste, Belgian count, Minister of Justice, born in Brussels, Belgium (d. 1922)
Famous Deaths
- Feb 10 Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet and writer (Eugene Onegin), killed in a duel at 37
- Feb 12 Ludwig Borne [Loeb Baruch], German-Jewish writer, dies at 50
- Feb 13 Mariano José de Larra, Spanish journalist and romantic writer, commits suicide by gunshot at 27
- Feb 19 Georg Büchner, German playwright (b. 1813)
