February 4

George Washington elected first president of the US (1789); Aviation innovator Charles Lindbergh born (1902); Rosa Parks born (1913); Feminist Betty Friedan is born (1921); Facebook launches (2004); Actor and playwright Ossie Davis dies (2005).

February 3

15th Amendment to US Constitution ratified, granting voting rights regardless of race (1870); American novelist Gertrude Stein born (1874); Luna 9 becomes first spacecraft to make soft landing on the moon (1966); Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot a space shuttle (1995).

February 2

City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is founded (1536); Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican-American War (1848); First Groundhog Day celebrated (1887); First Groundhog Day celebrated (1887); First Groundhog Day celebrated (1887); NYC's Grand Central Terminal opens (1913); James Joyce's "Ulysses" published (1922); Actor Paul Mescal born (1996)

February 1

 "Oxford English Dictionary" debuts (1884); Poet Langston Hughesborn (1901); Film legend Clark Gable born (1901); Harriet Tubman becomes first Black woman on US postage stamp (1978); Harry Styles born (1994); Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates on reentry, all seven astronauts killed (2003).

January 31

Guy Fawkes is executed (1606); 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, passes in Congress (1865); Jackie Robinson born (1919); Actress Kerry Washington born (1977); Justin Timberlake born (1981).

January 30

American flag maker Betsy Ross dies (1836); Franklin D. Roosevelt born (1882); Mahatma Gandhi assassinated (1948); The Beatles give their last public performance (1969); 14 killed on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland (1972).

January 29

President William McKinley born (1843); Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" first published (1845); Baseball Hall of Fame announces first inductees (1936); Oprah Winfrey born (1954); Robert Frost dies (1963).