| February 11, 1858 | February 11, 1945 |
| • In southern France, Marie-Bernarde Soubirous , a 14 year old French peasant girl, first claims to have seen the Virgin Mary in a grotto near Lourdes. After years of mistreatment at the hands of the authorities, she was finally allowed to enter a convent, where she died of ill health at the age of 35. | • President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Yalta Agreement during World War II. |
| February 12, 1909 | February 12, 1973 |
| • The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, America's oldest civil rights organization, was founded. | • The first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam conflict took place. |
| February 13, 1914 | February 13, 1990 |
| • The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, is formed in New York. ASCAP was the first U.S. group to help protect copyrighted music against illegal public performances for profit, and it lobbied for the collection of license fees for each public performance of a copyrighted song. | • The United States and its European allies forged an agreement with the Soviet Union and East Germany during a conference in Ottawa on a two-stage formula to reunite Germany. |
| February 14, 1929 | February 14, 1989 |
| • The "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone's gang were gunned down. | • Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salmon Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, a novel condemned as blasphemous. |
| February 15, 1898 | February 15, 1933 |
| • The U.S. battleship Maine blew blew up in Havana harbor, killing more than 260 crew members. The explosion, never satisfactorily explained, brought the United States closer to war with Spain over the issue of Cuban independence. | • President elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that claimed the life of Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak. |
| February 16, 1862 | February 16, 1942 |
| • During the Civil War, about 1,400 Confederate soldiers surrendered at Fort Donelson, Tennessee. General Ulysses S. Grant 's victory earned him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. | • German U-boats shelled important oil installations at Aruba in the Caribbean and sank seven Allied tankers in the Atlantic theater. |
| February 17, 1801 | February 17, 1972 |
| • After one tie vote in the Electoral college and 35 indecisive ballot votes in the House of Representatives, Vice President, Thomas Jefferson is elected the third president of the United States over his running mate, Aaron Burr. Burr became Vice President. | • The 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle rolls out of the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, surpassing the Ford Model T's previous production record to become the most heavily produced car in history. |