Wednesday, February 29

Leap day (Gregorian calendar)

• 1704 – Joint French and Native American forces destroyed the English settlement at Deerfield, Massachusetts, during Queen Anne's War, killing over fifty colonists.
• 1720 – Unable to establish a joint sovereignty similar to England's William and Mary, Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden abdicated in favour of her husband, who became Frederick I.
  

Tuesday, February 28

• 1897 – Ranavalona III, the last sovereign ruler of the Kingdom of Madagascar, was deposed by a French military force.
• 1935 – Working with polyamides to developing a new viable fiber for the chemical company DuPont, American chemist Wallace Carothers invented nylon.
  

Monday, February 27

• 1801 – Under the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C., a new planned city and capital of the United States, was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
• 1812 – Manuel Belgrano raised the Flag of Argentina, which he designed, for the first time in the city of Rosario, during the Argentine War of Independence.
  

Sunday, February 26

• 1909 – The first films made with Kinemacolor, the earliest successful colour motion picture process, were shown to the British general public.
• 1917 – New Orleans' Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded "Livery Stable Blues", the first jazz single ever released.
• 1991 – British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee introduced WorldWideWeb, the world's first web browser and WYSIWYG HTML editor.
  

Saturday, February 25

• 1919 – Oregon places a 1 cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.
• 1951 – After being postponed since 1943 due to World War II, the first Pan American Games opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  

Friday, February 24

• 1809 – After standing only 15 years, London's Drury Lane theatre, the third building of that name, burned down.
• 1831 – The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek between the Choctaw and the United States government, the first removal treaty carried into effect under the Indian Removal Act, was proclaimed.
• 1875 – The steamship SS Gothenburg hit a section of the Great Barrier Reef at low tide and sank northwest of Holbourne Island, Queensland, Australia, with over 100 deaths.
  

Thursday, February 23

• 1739 – The identity of English highwayman Dick Turpin, who had been living under an alias in York, was uncovered by his former schoolteacher, who recognised his handwriting, leading to Turpin's arrest.
• 1945 – American photographer Joe Rosenthal took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima during the Battle of Iwo Jima, an image that was later reproduced as the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial.
• 1947 – The International Organization for Standardization, responsible for worldwide industrial and commercial standards, was founded.

Standard size paper?

What is the size of an A4 sheet of paper. Well it is half of half of half of half an A0 sheet, which is 1189 x 841 mm or 46.8 x 33.1 in

The A series paper sizes are defined in ISO 216 by the following requirements:

• The length divided by the width is 1.4142
• The A0 size has an area of 1 square metre.
• Each subsequent size A(n) is defined as A(n-1) cut in half parallel to its shorter sides.
• The standard length and width of each size is rounded to the nearest millimetre.

Wednesday, February 22

Ash Wednesday
Start of Lent in Western Christianity (2012)

• 1632 – Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, in which he advocated Copernican heliocentrism, was delivered to his patron, Grand Duke Ferdinando.
• 2006 – At least six men staged Britain's biggest cash robbery ever at a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
• 2011 – A magnitude 6.1 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, killed 184 people.

American South West visit

Came across a video with some lovely photographs from the USA south west, presented as several time lapse sequences.

Video link

Tuesday, February 21

Mardi Gras and Shrove Tuesday

• 1804 – Built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick, the first self-propelled steam locomotive first ran in Wales.
• 1948 – Bill France, Sr. and several other race car drivers founded NASCAR, the governing body of stock car racing in the United States.
  

Monday, February 20

• 1472 – James III of Scotland officially annexed Orkney and Shetland from Christian I of Denmark as part of a dowry payment Christian owed after his daughter Margaret married James.
• 1986 – It was announced that a tunnel under the English Channel would be built by France and Britain.
• 1998 – At the age of 15, American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest gold medal winner in the history of the Winter Olympic Games.
  

Sunday, February 19

• 1942 - Approximately 150 Japanese warplanes attacked the Australian city of Darwin.
• 1942 – A book-burning was held and politicians were arrested in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, as part of a simulated Nazi invasion.

Friday, February 17

• 
  1600 – Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, best-known as a proponent of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe, was burned at the stake as a heretic by the Roman Inquisition.
• 1859 – The French Navy captured the Citadel of Saigon, a fortress that was manned by 1,000 Nguyễn Dynasty soldiers, en route to conquering Saigon and other regions of southern Vietnam.
• 1936 - Temperature in McIntosh, South Dakota of  -58°F (-50°C), (state record).
  

Thursday, February 16

• 1918 – The Council of Lithuania signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania, proclaiming the restoration of an independent Lithuania governed by democratic principles. Then Lithuania became part of the Soviet Union, before regaining independence.
• 1946 – The Sikorsky S-51, the first helicopter to be built for civilian instead of military use, made its first flight.
• 1972 – Miners' strike means many homes and businesses in Great Britain will be without electricity for up to nine hours a day from today, the Central Electricity Generating Board has announced.
  

Wednesday, February 15

• 1493 – Christopher Columbus wrote an open letter describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World, which was widely distributed upon his return to Portugal.
• 1946 – ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
• 2005 – Three former PayPal employees launched the popular website YouTube, where individuals and companies can upload, view and share videos.

Monday, February 13

• 1692 – The Glencoe Massacre took place in the Scottish Highlands, when about 78 MacDonalds were murdered by their traditional enemies, the Campbells.
• 1867 – Work began on the covering of the Senne, burying the polluted main waterway in Brussels to allow urban renewal in the centre of the city.
• 1981 – Sewer explosions caused by the ignition of hexane vapors destroyed more than two miles (3 km) of streets in Louisville, Kentucky, US.
  

Sunday, February 12

• 1818 – On the first anniversary of its victory in the Battle of Chacabuco, Chile formally declared its independence from Spain.
• 1870 – Women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote.
• 1935 – The USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sank.

Saturday, February 11

• 1826 – University College London was founded as the first secular university in England.
• 1990 – Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, was released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, South Africa.
  

Friday, February 10

• 1862 – American Civil War: A Union naval flotilla destroyed the bulk of the Confederate Mosquito Fleet in the Battle of Elizabeth City on the Pasquotank River in North Carolina.
• 1906 – The Royal Navy battleship HMS Dreadnought was launched, representing such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships.
  

Thursday, February 9

• 1913 – A group of meteors was visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America, leading astronomers to conclude that the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.
• 1942 – Daylight-saving "war time" went into effect in the United States, with clocks turned one hour forward.
• 1971 – A 6.6 Mw earthquake struck the northern San Fernando Valley near the Los Angeles district of Sylmar, killing 65 people.

Wednesday, February 8

• 1915 – Film director D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation was released, becoming one of the most influential and controversial films in the history of American cinema.
• 2010 – A freak storm in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan triggered a series of at least 36 avalanches that buried over two miles (3.2 km) of road, killed at least 172 people and trapped over 2,000 travellers.
  

Tuesday, February 7

• 1904 – The Great Baltimore Fire in Maryland began, and would destroy over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours.
• 1907 – More than 3,000 women in London participated in the Mud March, the first large procession organized by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, seeking women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.
  

Monday, February 6

• 1819 – British official Stamford Raffles signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, establishing Singapore as a trading post for the British East India Company.
• 1840 – Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, establishing New Zealand as a British colony.
• 1952 – Elizabeth II ascended to the thrones of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries upon the death of her father, George VI.
  

Sunday, February 5

• 1869 – Prospectors in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, discovered the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found, known as the "Welcome Stranger".
• 1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the "BBC pips".
• 1982 – Pioneering budget airliner Laker Airways collapses owing £270 million to banks and other creditors.
  

Saturday, February 4

• 1899 – The Philippine–American War opened when an American soldier, under orders to keep insurgents away from his unit's encampment, fired upon a Filipino soldier in Manila.
• 1957 - Smith-Corona Manufacturing Inc., of New York, began selling portable electric typewriters. The first machine weighed 19 pounds.
  

Friday, February 3

• 1690 - The first paper money in America was issued by the Massachusetts colony. The currency was used to pay soldiers that were fighting in the war against Quebec.
• 1947 – Snag, Yukon records the lowest temperature for North America of −63C (−81.4F).
  

Thursday, February 2

• 1207 – Terra Mariana, comprising present-day Estonia and Latvia, was established as a principality of the Holy Roman Empire.
• 1848 – The Mexican–American War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave 1.36 million square kilometres (530,000 sq mi) of Mexican territory known as the Mexican Cession to the United States in exchange for US$15 million.
• 1887 – Punxsutawney, Pa., held its first Groundhog Day festival.
  

I wouldn’t know  about ground hogs, but temperature has been too close to freezing for me to want to be out and about.

Wednesday, February 1

• 1327 – Fourteen-year old Edward III became King of England, but the country was ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
• 1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States federal government, began broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers during World War II.
• 1968 – The Government of Canada merged the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Air Force into a unified structure, the Canadian Forces.