February 13
Italian philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, Galileo Galilei, arrives in Rome to face charges of heresy for advocating Copernican theory, which holds that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Galileo officially faced the Roman Inquisition in April of that same year and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. Put under house arrest indefinitely by Pope Urban VIII, Galileo spent the rest of his days at his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, before dying January 8, 1642. – 1633.
The earliest military action to be revered with a Medal of Honor award is performed by Colonel Bernard J.D. Irwin, an assistant army surgeon serving in the first major U.S.-Apache conflict. Near Apache Pass, in southeastern Arizona, Irwin, an Irish-born doctor, volunteered to go to the rescue of Second Lieutenant George N. Bascom, who was trapped with 60 men of the U.S. Seventh Infantry by the Chiricahua Apaches. Irwin and 14 men, initially without horses, began the 100-mile trek to Bascom’s forces by riding on mules. After fighting and capturing Apaches along the way and recovering stolen horses and cattle, they reached Bascom’s forces February 14 and proved instrumental in breaking the siege. – 1861.
Some 12,000 Hollywood writers return to work following a three-month strike against television and motion picture studios. They won compensation for their TV and movie work that gets streamed on the Internet. – 2008.
February 14
An expelled student enters Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. and opens fire and kills 17 individuals and wounds 17 others, in what became the deadliest shooting at a high school in United States history. Student survivors took to social media to make their anger known, which went viral. – 2018.
February 15
A disgruntled employee fatally shoots five individuals and wounds five officers in Aurora at the Henry Pratt Company warehouse. – 2019.
February 16
Diamond Mine disaster in Braidwood, Ill.. The coal mine was on a marsh-like tract of land with no natural drainage. Snow melted and forced a collapse on the east side of the mine and killed 74. – 1883.
February 17
Approximately 900 persons drown when a passenger ferry, the Neptune, overturns near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The ferry was dangerously overloaded, and carried no lifeboats or emergency gear. – 1993.
February 18
A man ignites a gasoline-filled container inside a subway train in Daegu, South Korea. The blaze engulfes the six-car train, before spreading to another train that had pulled into the station a few minutes later. In all, 198 persons were killed and nearly 150 others were injured. – 2003.
February 19
The first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound emigrants stranded by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. – 1847.
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 to initiate a controversial World War II policy with lasting consequences for Japanese Americans. The document ordered the removal of resident enemy aliens from parts of the West vaguely identified as military areas. Although Order 9066 affected Italian Americans and German Americans, the largest numbers of detainees were by far Japanese Americans who were systematically rounded up and placed in detention centers. – 1942.