February 19: What Happened on This Day in History (Elementary Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1600 - The Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America.
2. 1674 - England and the Netherlands sign the Treaty of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. A provision of the agreement transfers the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, and it is renamed New York.
3. 1878 - Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.
4. 2002 - NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.
5. 2011 - The debut exhibition of the Belitung shipwreck, containing the largest collection ofTang Dynasty artefacts found in one location, begins in Singapore.
6. Famous Birthdays: Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish mathematician and astronomer), élie Ducommun (Swiss journalist, Nobel Prize laureate), Svante Arrhenius (Swedish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate), David Gross (American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate), Tim Hunt (English biochemist, Nobel laureate)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: February 18

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: February 20

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.