BIRTHS

Cecil de Vere (Valentine Brown- 1845-09.02.1875), an English Master who won the first official British Championship in 1866.
Bosko Abramovic (1951), a Serbian Grandmaster and coach.
Smbat Lputian (1958), an Armenian Grandmaster and 4 times Champion of Armenian. He has been the founder-president of Chess Academy of Armenia since 2002.
Petar Popovic (1959), a Serbian Grandmaster who participated in few Olympiads in the late 1980s.
Sergei Tiviakov (1973), a Dutch Grandmaster born in Russian who became the World U18 Champion in 1990 and twice Dutch Champion.
Yaroslav Zinchenko (1987), a Ukrainian Grandmaster.
Adam Tukhaev (1988), a Ukrainian Grandmaster.

DEATHS

Esteban Canal (19.04.1896-1981), An Italian International Master born in Peru.
Ludwig Rellstab (23.11.1904-1983), a German International Master who won the German Chess Championship in 1942.

WORLD EVENTS

1014 Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry of Bavaria, King of Germany and of Italy, as Holy Roman Emperor.
1400 Richard II of England dies, most probably from starvation.
1530 Spanish conquistadores, led by Nuño de Guzmán, overthrow and execute Tangaxuan II, the last independent monarch of the Tarascan state in present-day central Mexico.
1689 English parliament placed Mary Stuart and Prince William III on the throne.
1778 The American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Star and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.
1859 Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
1896 Theodor Herzl published “Der Judenstaat,” in which he called for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
1912 Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.
1918 The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (on 1 February according to the Julian calendar).
1924 The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
1929 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s gang, are murdered in Chicago.
1939 The Reich launched the battleship Bismarck.
1945 521 American heavy bombers flew daylight raids over Dresden, Germany following the British assault. The firestorm killed an estimated 135,000 people
1949 The Knesset (Israeli parliament) convenes for the first time.
2005 Lebanese self-made billionaire and business tycoon Rafic Hariri is assassinated in Beirut,
2008 Zimbabwe’s inflation rate, already the highest in the world, soared to a new high of 66,212.3%.

(Source: Wikipedia-Timeline)

GAME OF THE DAY