Today:
303: Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, marking the beginning of the Diocletianic Persecution.
1455: This is the traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first book in the West printed with movable type.
1836: The Siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas, as Mexican forces led by General Santa Anna surrounded the mission.
1868: The U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President Andrew Johnson, the first such proceeding in American history.
1898: French writer Émile Zola was imprisoned after publishing J’Accuse…!, an open letter exposing government antisemitism and the wrongful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus.
1903: Cuba signed an agreement to lease Guantanamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity.”
1917: The February Revolution began in Russia with demonstrations and strikes in Petrograd, eventually leading to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.
1945: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines reached the summit of Mount Suribachi and raised the American flag, a moment captured in an iconic photograph by Joe Rosenthal.
1954: The first mass inoculation of children against polio using the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1987: The light from Supernova 1987A, the closest observed supernova since the invention of the telescope, reached Earth.