Shimla, Feb
2018
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket had its first test flight; on board was a Tesla automobile owned by SpaceX’s founder, Elon Musk.
2014
American comedian Jay Leno hosted his last episode of The Tonight Show; he had previously retired in 2009 but returned the following year.
2012
Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies, who was credited with introducing contemporary abstract painting in Spain, died in Barcelona.
1993
American tennis player Arthur Ashe, who was the first black man to win a Grand Slam championship, died of AIDS-related pneumonia; he had likely contracted the virus through a tainted blood transfusion received during coronary bypass surgeries.
1945
Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley—who achieved stardom by blending early ska, rock steady, and reggae forms into an electrifying rock-influenced hybrid—was born.
1932
French film director François Truffaut, whose attacks on established filmmaking techniques paved the way for the movement known as New Wave, was born.
1919
A German constitutional assembly met to form the Weimar Republic.
1895
Baseball player Babe Ruth, whose home-run hitting helped make him one of the most-celebrated athletes in American sports, was born.
1862
Union naval commodore Andrew Foote, leading a flotilla of ironclads, captured Fort Henry, Tennessee, a strategic Confederate position during the American Civil War.
1840
Maori tribes of New Zealand signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Great Britain, a historic agreement purported to protect Maori rights that was the immediate basis of the British annexation of New Zealand.
1611
Chongzhen, the 16th and last emperor (1627–44) of the Ming dynasty, was born in Beijing.
46 bce
Julius Caesar’s forces delivered the final blow against supporters of Pompey the Great at the Battle of Thapsus.
