1778 – The United States Flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte rendered a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.In a couple of decades we’d be at war with the French, but it was DIFFERENT French, them being a ‘republic’ and all that.

1779 – James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii. Before tourism becomes a big thing, we have to iron some stuff out…

1803 – Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void. What a quaint and outmoded idea…

1855 – Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas. If Texas gets closer to cutting that link, I’m moving to Texas…

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray. Court battle follows. Bell wins.

1899 – Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections, immediately confusing dimmocrat voters.

1903 – The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into the Department of Commerce, which gets in the way of commerce, and the Department of Labor, which supports Big Labor).

1912 – In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned. Diesel is a lot less explody than gasoline…

1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

1929 – St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s gang, are murdered in Chicago, Illinois. Seven? That’s a slow weekend in Chicago now…

1943 – World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated has control exchanged between the armies of one murderous dictator for the armies of another murderous dictator.

1945 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations. Good ol’ FDR – gave have of Europe to the Soviets, gave the Mid-East to the Saudis.

1956 – The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union begins in Moscow. On the last night of the meeting, Premier Nikita Khrushchev condemns Joseph Stalin’s crimes in a secret speech. Stalin killed more of his people than the Germans did.

1962 – First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House. “And this is the bed where Jack did Marilyn Monroe while I was in Paris. And over here, he was getting hummers from a teen intern…”

1989 – Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. The Left pays close attention, employs the same tactic for anybody wearing a Trump shirt.

2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source for viral videos.

2011 – As a part of Arab Spring, that stunning display of the Clinton-Obama foreign policy acumen, the Bahraini uprising begins with a ‘Day of Rage’.