Historical Events
Importance of Being Earnest
Feb 14 Oscar Wilde's play "Importance of Being Earnest" premieres at St James's Theatre in London
Frederick Douglass Honoured
Feb 21 North Caroline Legislature adjourns for the day to mark the passing of Frederick Douglass
- Feb 23 William Heard, AME minister and educator, named American minister to Liberia
- Feb 24 Cuban war for independence begins
Event of Interest
Feb 25 Groenkloof Nature Reserve in Pretoria established by President Paul Kruger as the first game sanctuary in Africa
- Feb 26 Michael Owens of Toledo, Ohio, patents a glass-blowing machine to make glass bottles
Famous Birthdays
- Feb 1 Conn Smythe, Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame team owner (Toronto Maple Leafs 1927-61; Stanley Cup x 8), born in Toronto, Ontario (d. 1980)
John Ford (1895-1973)
Feb 1 American director (Stagecoach, Air Mail, Quiet Man), born in Cape Elizabeth, Maine
George Halas (1895-1983)
Feb 2 American Pro Football HOF coach (NFL C'ship 1921, 32, 33, 40, 41, 43, 46, 63; NFL Coach of the Year 1963, 65 Chicago Bears) and executive (owner Chicago Bears 1921-83), born in Chicago, Illinois
- Feb 3 Nick Kenny, American columnist and songwriter (Nick Kenny Show), born in New York City (d. 1975)
- Feb 3 Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, Peruvian politician (founded APRA-Peru, drafted constitution), born in Trujillo, Peru (d. 1979) [or Feb 22]
- Feb 4 Annie Romein-Verschoor, Dutch historian and author (Low Countries by the Sea; Erflaters - both written with her husband Jan), born in Hatert, Netherlands (d. 1978)
- Feb 4 Lidj Jasu [Iyasu], Emperor of Ethiopia (1913-16), born in Dessie, Ethiopia (d. 1935)
- Feb 4 Nigel Bruce, British actor (Rebecca, Suspicion, Sherlock Holmes), born in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico (d. 1953)
- Feb 4 [Johann Baptist] Hanns Albin Rauter, German SS and Police leader in the occupied Netherlands, born in Klagenfurt, Austro-Hungarian Empire (d. 1949)
Babe Ruth (1895-1948)
Feb 6 American Baseball Hall of Fame slugger (MLB All-Star 1933, 34; 7 x World Series champion; 12 × AL home run leader 1918–21, 23-24, 1926–31; Boston RS, NY Yankees), born in Baltimore, Maryland
- Feb 7 Irving Aaronson, American jazz pianist and big band bandleader, born in New York City (d. 1963)
- Feb 9 Hermann Brill, German politician (d. 1959)
- Feb 11 Viktor Trambitsky, Russian composer, born in Brest-Litovsk, Russian Empire (d. 1970)
- Feb 13 Fred Essler, Austrian actor (Unsinkable Molly Brown, Saratoga Trunk), born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (d. 1973)
Max Horkheimer (1895-1973)
Feb 14 German philosopher and sociologist (Dialectic of Enlightenment, Eclipse of Reason), born in Zuffenhausen, Stuttgart, Germany
- Feb 15 Earl Thomson, Canadian athlete (d. 1971)
- Feb 17 Anita Stewart, American silent film actress (South of Hell Mountain), producer, and mystery novelist, born in Brooklyn, NYC (d. 1961)
- Feb 17 Edna Park Edwards, American stage and vaudeville actress, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (d. 1967)
- Feb 18 George "The Gipper" Gipp, American football player (Notre Dame), born in Laurium, Michigan (d. 1920)
- Feb 18 Semyon Timoshenko, Russian military officer (Marshal of the Soviet Union - Soviet-Finnish War, WWII Eastern Front), born in Orman, Bessarabia Governorate, Russian Empire (d. 1970)
- Feb 19 Louis Calhern, American actor (Julius Caesar, Blackboard Jungle), born in New York City (d. 1956)
- Feb 20 Jimmy Yancey, American boogie-woogie jazz and blues pianist, born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1951) [birth year disputed - documentation ranges from 1894-1903]
- Feb 21 Henrik Dam, Danish biochemist who discovered vitamin K and won the 1943 Nobel Prize in Medicine, born in Copenhagen, Denmark (d. 1976)
- Feb 22 Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Peruvian politician and author (founder of Peruvian Aprista Party), born in Trujillo, Peru (d. 1979)
- Feb 23 Richard Goolden, British actor (Two Days to Live, School for Husbands), born in London, England (d. 1981)
- Feb 25 Bert Bell, American Pro Football HOF executive (NFL Commissioner 1946-59; owner Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1959)
- Feb 25 Henri Martelli, French composer, born in Bastia, Corsica, France (d. 1980)
- Feb 27 Edward Brophy, American character actor (Champ, Dumbo, Great Guy, The Cameraman, Doughboys), born in New York City (d. 1960)
- Feb 28 Guiomar Novaes, Brazilian concert pianist (Brazilian Order of Merit), born in São João da Boa Vista, Brazil (d. 1979)
- Feb 28 Marcel Pagnol, French playwright, filmmaker (Topaze; The Baker's Wife), and novelist, born in Paris (d. 1974)
Famous Deaths
- Feb 2 Archduke Albert, Austrian general (b. 1817)
Theodore Dwight Weld (1803-1895)
Feb 3 American abolitionist and writer (American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses), dies at 91
Frederick Douglass (c. 1817/18-1895)
Feb 20 African-American abolitionist, lecturer and editor who was also an escaped slave, dies of a heart attack at 77
- Feb 24 Ignaz Lachner, German composer, dies at 87
