1001 Baronial insurrection forces Pope Silvester II and Emperor Otto III to flee Rome

1220 The Mongols capture Bokhara

1270 Battle of Karuse: The Lithuanians and Danes defeat the Livonian Knights

1349 Jews are expelled from Burgdorf, Switzerland

1495 French capture Gaeta (invested Dec 16, 1494) from Ferrante II of Naples

1495 The Colonna brothers capture Naples for Charles VIII of France

1512 Battle of Valeggio: the French defeat the Venetians

1559 Pope Paul IV calls for deposition of sovereigns supporting heresy

1646 Battle of Great Torrington (Devon): Parliamentarians defeat the Royalists in the last major engagement of the first English Civil War.

1804 Stephen Decatur retakes and burns the USS 'Philadelphia', which had been captured by the Dey of Tripoli

1815 USS 'Constitution' takes HMS 'Susannah'

1840 Charles Wilkes makes the first landfall in Antarctica, from USS 'Vincennes'

1846 Battle of Sobraon: British win the 1st Sikh War

1862 U.S. Grant captures Fort Donelson, Tennessee, after a five-day siege

1909 Serbia mobilizes against Austria-Hungary

1916 Russians capture Erzurum, Armenia, from the Turks

1923 Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon open King Tut's tomb

1934 Austrian civil war ends, as troops suppress a socialist workers' movement after four days' of fighting, confirming the Dollfuss dictatorship

1936 Popular Front wins Spanish elections

1940 'Altmark' Incident: HMS 'Cossack' violates Norwegian territoriality to free British prisoners held aboard a German tanker

1942 Aussie-US convoy bound for Timor is turned back by Japanese air attack

1942 German submarine shells Aruba

1942 Japanese secure Palembang.

1943 Munich: "White Rose" Resistance Group proclaims "Down with Hitler! Long live freedom!"

1943 Panzer Armee Afrika retires on the Mareth Line, in Tunisia

1943 USS 'Amberjack' (SS-219) sunk by Japanese torpedo boat 'Hiyodori' and 'SC-18' off Rabaul

1944 Eniwetok raided by TF 58

1945 US airborne forces land on Corregidor (fighting lasts until March 3)

1945 Venezuela declares war on Nazi Germany

1959 Fidel Castro becomes premier of Cuba (1959-1976), later President (1976-2008)