Today:
1600 – Philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome for heresy by the Roman Catholic Church.
1753 – Sweden moved from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar by skipping February 17 and 18.
1801 – The U.S. House of Representatives resolved a tied presidential election, selecting Thomas Jefferson as the third President of the United States over Aaron Burr.
1819 – The United States and Spain signed the Adams-Onís Treaty, in which Spain ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain.
1864 – The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley became the first submarine to sink an enemy warship, the USS Housatonic, during the American Civil War.
1904 – Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in Milan, Italy.
1933 – The magazine Newsweek was first published in the United States.
1959 – Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, was launched to measure cloud cover and weather patterns.
1972 – The Volkswagen Beetle surpassed the Ford Model T as the most-produced car in history, with over 15 million units manufactured.
2008 – Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, a move recognized by some countries but disputed by others.