#TodayInHistory – February 18

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February 18 – Some important events on this day

1519 👉🏼 Hernán Cortés leaves Cuba for the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico with 11 ships and 500 men
1678 👉🏼 John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” is published in Holborn, London, by Nathaniel Ponder
1685 👉🏼 Fort St. Louis is established by a Frenchman at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France’s claim to Texas.
1861 👉🏼 King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia becomes first King of Italy
1968 👉🏼 X Winter Olympic Games close in Grenoble, France
1879 👉🏼 Sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi is awarded a patent for his design for the Statue of Liberty
1885 👉🏼 Mark Twain publishes the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in the US
1917 👉🏼 1st major strike of the Russian “February Revolution” starts at the giant Putilov factory in Petrograd [NS=Mar 3]
1930 👉🏼 Pluto, once believed to be the ninth planet, is discovered at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, by astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh.

1966 👉🏼 The casket that carried assassinated President John F. Kennedy buried at sea.
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2014 👉🏼 Ukrainian Revolution of 2014 begins as protesters, riot police and unknown shooters take part in violent events in the capital, Kiev, culminating after five days in the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych.
During late 2013 and early 2014 protests in Ukraine erupted after the country’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, refused to sign a new treaty with the European Union in favor of one with Russia.
The protests widened in scope dramatically to general anger toward the government, corruption and human rights abuses. Protests were centered on Independence Square in Kiev, which became known as “Euromaidan” (European Square).
On this day the protests turned into a revolution with widespread clashes at the square. This would lead the to the ouster of Yanukovych on 22 February and to the present crisis in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.