#TodayInHistory – February 15

February 15 – Some important events on this day

399 BC 👉🏼 Philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death by the city of Athens for corrupting the minds of the youth of the city and for impiety
590 👉🏼 Khosrau II, the last great Sasanian king is crowned King of Persia
1763 👉🏼 Austria, Prussia & Saxony sign the Treaty of Hubertusburg, marking the end of the French and Indian War and of the Seven Years’ War
1903 👉🏼 1st Teddy Bear introduced in America, made by Morris & Rose Michtom
1918 👉🏼 Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania adopt Gregorian calendar
1936 👉🏼 Adolf Hitler announces construction of the Volkswagen Beetle (the People’s Car, aka the Käfer/Beetle)

1943 👉🏼 Wartime propaganda poster “We Can Do It!” produced by J. Howard Miller and posted on the walls of Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company’s plants in the Midwest.
An icon of WWII and christened “Rosie the Riveter” its artist J. Howard Miller originally produced it for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company in 1942. Its spirit of female patriotism was meant to encourage women to work in the defense industries in WWII. It is currently held at The National Museum of American History in Washington D.C.

1959 👉🏼 Antonio Segni forms Italian government
1965 👉🏼 Canada adopts maple leaf flag.
1967 👉🏼 Longest dream (REM sleep) on record, Bill Carskadon, Chicago (2:23)
1986 👉🏼 Ferdinand Marcos wins rigged presidential election in the Philippines

1989 👉🏼 Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan ends.
For ten years the Soviet Union was mired in a war in Afghanistan, from 1979 to 1989. So difficult was this war that it is often referred to as Soviet Union’s Vietnam. In 1978 Afghanistan experienced a coup which brought to power a communist regime – the brutality of this regime led to open rebellion by the following year, precipitating the Soviet intervention and their coup in December 1979.
The war was costly for Russia. They lost almost 15,000 troops and its failure to win the war was a contributing factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. In America, the government countered the Soviet effort by supporting the efforts of the Mujahideen – a decision that would come back to haunt the US, given that many members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban were former members of the Mujahideen.

1998 👉🏼 The Angel of the North, a large-scale steel sculpture 20m tall by Antony Gormley is installed at Gateshead, northern England.
Erected by Gateshead Council in 1998 the Angel of the North is situated very close to the A1, one of the UK’s major roadways in England’s North East. When sculptor Antony Gormley’s design was selected it initially caused an uproar but has since become a beloved local icon.
Gormley’s sculpture of an angel is the largest in the world and pays homage to the regions mining and industrial past. It is 20 meters tall and has a wingspan of 54 meters, almost the same as a Jumbo jet.

2001 👉🏼 First draft of the complete human genome is published in the journal “Nature”
2003 👉🏼 An estimated 6-11 million people around the world take to the streets to protest against war with Iraq
2005 👉🏼 YouTube, Internet site on which videos may be shared and viewed by others, is launched in the United States
2020 👉🏼 Beijing orders people returning to the city after Lunar New Year holiday to self-quarantine for 14 days to prevent spread of Covid-19