This is a list of selected February 1 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
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| ← January 31 | February 2 → |
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Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
STS-107 launch
STS-107 Crew
Insignia of the Final Mission of Columbia
West facade of the United States Supreme Court Building
First Wankel engine at the Deutsches Museum in Bonn, Germany
Trygve Lie
King Edward III of England
Ruhollah Khomeini
The Shard, London
Mayon
Skyline of Kuala Lumpur
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir
Lunch counter from the Greensboro sit-ins
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| LGBT History Month begins in Hungary and the United Kingdom; | refimprove sesction |
| 1790 – The Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial body in the U.S. and the head of the judicial branch of the federal government, first convened at the Merchants' Exchange Building in New York City. | refimprove section |
| 1796 – The capital of Upper Canada was moved from Newark to York, which was judged to be less vulnerable to attack by the United States. | refimprove section |
| 1946 – As a result of a compromise between the major powers within the United Nations, Norwegian politician Trygve Lie was elected as its first Secretary-General. | lots of CN tags |
| 1964 – "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became The Beatles' first number-one single in the United States. | lots of CN tags |
| 1968 – The Government of Canada merged the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Air Force into a unified structure, the Canadian Armed Forces. | refimprove section |
| 1968 – American photographer Eddie Adams took his Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph of Viet Cong prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém's summary execution. | maintenance tags: {Contradiction inline} {Failed verification} {Unreliable source inline} |
| 1978 – After having served 42 days in prison for the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl, Polish film director Roman Polanski fled the United States before the formal sentencing hearing. | That's a WP:BLP violation for Roman Polanski and even more so for his victim, who is still alive and is annoyed by ongoing media coverage. |
| 1982 – Senegal and the Gambia formed the Senegambia Confederation to promote cooperation between the two countries. | lots of CN tags |
| 1985 – Aeroflot Flight 7841 crashed shortly after takeoff from Minsk National Airport, killing fifty-eight people on board. | "Additional sources needed" orange banner |
| 1991 – On final approach to Los Angeles International Airport, USAir Flight 1493 collided with a smaller aircraft and caught fire, killing 34 people. | refimprove |
| 2001 – The capital of Malaysia was moved from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya, although the government's legislative functions remained in the former Federal Territory. | Putrajaya: refimprove |
| 2013 – The Shard, located in Southwark, London, and the tallest building in the European Union, opened to the public. | trivia |
| Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix |d|1761| | "Original research" orange banner |
| Ștefan Luchian |b|1868| | Birthday not cited |
| N. D. Cocea |d|1949| | Deathday not cited |
| Ed Koch |d|2013 | too many {cn} tags (>10) |
Eligible
- 1327 – Fourteen-year-old Edward III was crowned King of England, but with the country ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
- 1411 – The First Peace of Thorn was signed, ending the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War.
- 1662 – Sino-Dutch conflicts: After besieging Fort Zeelandia for nine months, Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong secured the Dutch East India Company's surrender and the end of their rule in Taiwan.
- 1814 – More than 1,200 people died in the most destructive recorded eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
- 1896 – Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy, eventually becoming one of the most frequently performed operas internationally.
- 1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States federal government, began broadcasting to Germany during World War II.
- 1957 – Invented by German engineer Felix Wankel, the first working prototype of the Wankel rotary engine ran for the first time at the research and development department of NSU Motorenwerke AG.
- 1960 – Civil rights movement: Four African-American students staged the first of more than five months of sit-ins at an F. W. Woolworth lunch counter (pictured) in Greensboro, North Carolina, to protest the company's policy of racial segregation.
- 1972 – Kuala Lumpur (pictured), the capital of Malaysia, was granted city status.
- 1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile and soon led the Iranian Revolution to overthrow the Pahlavi dynasty.
- 2003 – All seven crew members aboard Space Shuttle Columbia were killed when the orbiter disintegrated over Texas during reentry.
- 2009 – Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (pictured) became the first female prime minister of Iceland.
- 2012 – Following an Egyptian Premier League match in Port Said, Al Masry fans rioted and violently attacked Al Ahly supporters, resulting in 74 deaths.
- 2021 – The Burmese military staged a coup d'état that deposed the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking nationwide protests and a civil war.
- Born/died this day: | Alexios I of Trebizond |d|1222| Menas of Ethiopia |d|1563| Erik Adolf von Willebrand |b|1870| Clara Butt |b|1872| Stanley Matthews |b|1915| Hassan Al-Turabi |b|1932 Marina Kondratyeva |b|1934| Madame Sul-Te-Wan |d|1959| Michelle Akers |b|1966|Yolanda González |d|1980|Harry Styles |b|1994 |Wojdan Shaherkani |b|1996| Hildegard Knef |d|2002
Notes
- Space Shuttle Challenger disaster/STS-51L appear on January 28, so Columbia should not appear in the same year.
- John Marshall appears on January 31, so US Supreme Court should not appear in the same year.
- Iranian Revolution appears on February 11, so Ruhollah Khomeini should not appear in the same year.
February 1: Imbolc / Saint Brigid's Day in Ireland; National Freedom Day in the United States; Black History Month begins in the United States
Medvėgalis hillfort in 2010
- 1329 – The Teutonic Knights successfully besieged the hillfort of Medvėgalis (pictured) in Samogitia, Lithuania, and baptised the defenders in the Catholic rite.
- 1884 – The first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary, a 352-page volume that covered words from A to ant, was published.
- 2001 – The Timor-Leste Defence Force was established from the erstwhile anti-Indonesian independence movement Falintil.
- 2004 – During the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, Janet Jackson's breast was exposed by Justin Timberlake in what was later referred to as a "wardrobe malfunction", resulting in an immediate crackdown and widespread debate on perceived indecency in U.S. broadcasting.
- Francesco Maria Veracini (b. 1690)
- Thomas Campbell (b. 1763)
- George Whipple (d. 1976)
- Sheila Heaney (d. 1991)
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