What Happened in February?

The music album "Music from Big Pink" by The Band is released, influencing the Americana music genre.

Fidel Castro becomes prime minister of Cuba, replacing José Miró Cardona who was the head of the country's new provisional government. Fidel Castro had led the guerrilla campaign that forced right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista into exile. Castro, had become commander in chief of Cuba’s armed forces after Batista was ousted on January 1, 1959. More

Four African American students at North Carolina, Agricultural and Technical College, stage a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, sparking similar protests. The “Greensboro Four,” were Ezell Blair Jr. (now known as Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil. Their protest led to the Woolworth Department Store chain ending its policy of racial segregation in its stores in the southern United States. More

President John F. Kennedy proclaimed an embargo on trade between the United States and Cuba, in response to certain actions taken by the Cuban Government, and directed the Departments of Commerce and the Treasury to implement the embargo, which remains in place today. More

John H. Glenn, Jr., one of NASA’s original seven Mercury astronauts, becomes the first American to orbit Earth, circling it three times. Glenn went on to become a U.S. Senator in 1974. More

The Beatles arrive in the United States for the first time, starting the "British Invasion" of music.

Canada adopts a new National flag. The new maple leaf flag originally proposed by George Stanley was made official was inaugurated in a public ceremony on Parliament Hill. More

Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City. More

The Soviet Union's Luna 9 (Lunik 9) makes the first soft landing on the moon and transmits photographic data from the Moon's surface to Earth. It was the first spacecraft to achieve a soft lunar landing, preceding the U.S. Surveyor 1 soft lander by about 4 months. The probe also proved that the lunar surface could support the weight of a lander and that an object would not sink into a loose layer of dust as some models predicted. Luna 9 launched on 31 January 1966 at 11:41 UT (14:41 Moscow time) from Baikonur Cosmodrome and reached the Moon on 3 February. More

Japan launches Ohsumi , it first man-made satellite, making Japan the fourth country in the world (after the former Soviet Union, the United States and France) to have launched a satellite without aid from outside sources. More

Apollo 14's Lunar module with astronauts, Alan B. Shepard Jr. (Commander) and Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot) descends to the lunar surface on the third U.S. moon landing. Expand +

The Sylmar earthquake strikes Los Angeles, registering a magnitude of 6.6 and causing significant damage.

The U.S. Senate votes to confirm Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford.

 The first 10 episodes of "Roots," a groundbreaking TV miniseries about slavery, air in the United States.

The first NAVSTAR satellite, Navstar 1, was launched. The U.S. Department of Defense previously launched the first experimental Block-I GPS satellite in February, 1977, which later also became part of the NAVSTAR GPS (Navigation Digital Timing and Ranging Global Positioning System.

1980, February 22 - The United States Olympic hockey team pulls off the "Miracle on Ice," defeating the Soviet team during the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

The "MAS*H" finale becomes the most-watched television episode in history at the time.

Navy captain Bruce McCandless II, on the Space Shuttle Challenger’s STS 41-B mission, becomes the first human being to do a spacewalk without a safety tether linked to a spacecraft. McCandless donned a backpack mobility device—the Manned Maneuvering Unit—and ventured about 320 ft (98 m) away from the vehicle, becoming the first human satellite. His solo ride lasted 1 hour and 22 minutes. More

Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, leaves his country with his family for Hawaii after a fraudulent electoral victory over Corazon Aquino. After Ferdinand Marcos's death1989, the remaining members of the family were allowed to return to the Philippines to face various corruption charges in 1992. However, they were able to return to political power that same year, to the dismay of many Filipino people, with the election of Bongbong Marcos (Son of Ferdinand E. Marcos) as congressman for the second district of Ilocos Norte. He was elected to president of the Philippines in June 30, 2022.

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme is gunned down in the street outside a cinema in Stockholm. His killer was never found.