Historical Events on Tuesday, 10th February

10/02/2026

Shootings at a residence and a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, leave nine people dead and 27 injured.

On February 10, 2026, a mass shooting occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. Jesse Van Rootselaar killed her mother and half-brother at their home before going to Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, where she killed six people and injured twenty-seven others before killing herself. Van Rootselaar was a former student of the school.

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10/02/2021

The traditional Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is canceled for the first time because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is a festival held every year before Lent; it is considered the biggest celebration of Carnival in the world, with two million people per day on the streets. The first Carnival festival in Rio occurred in 1723.

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Texas' worst energy infrastructure failure, the 2021 Texas power crisis, starts.

In February 2021, the state of Texas suffered a major power crisis, which came about during three severe winter storms sweeping across the United States on February 10–11, 13–17, and 15–20. The storms triggered the worst energy infrastructure failure in Texas state history, leading to shortages of water, food, and heat. More than 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without power, some for several days. At least 246 people were killed directly or indirectly, with some estimates as high as 702 killed as a result of the crisis.

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10/02/2018

Nineteen people are killed and 66 injured when a Kowloon Motor Bus double decker on route 872 in Hong Kong overturns.

The Kowloon Motor Bus Company (1933) Limited (KMB) is a bus company operating franchised services in Hong Kong. It is the largest bus company in Hong Kong by fleet size and number of bus routes, with over 4,000 buses - mostly double deckers - and 420 routes. It is a subsidiary of Transport International.

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10/02/2016

South Korea decides to stop the operation of the Kaesong joint industrial complex with North Korea in response to the launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4.

South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and the Sea of Japan to the east. South Korea claims to be the sole legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. It has a population of about 52 million, of which half live in the Seoul metropolitan area, the ninth most populous metropolitan area in the world, with other major cities being Busan, Daegu, and Incheon.

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10/02/2013

Thirty-six people are killed and 39 others are injured in a stampede in Allahabad, India, during the Kumbh Mela festival.

On 10 February 2013, during the Hindu festival of Kumbh Mela, a stampede broke out at the train station in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, killing 42 people and injuring at least 45 people.

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10/02/2009

The communications satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 collide in orbit, destroying both.

A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. Communications satellites are used for television, telephone, radio, internet, and military applications. Some communications satellites are in geostationary orbit 22,236 miles (35,785 km) above the equator, so that the satellite appears stationary at the same point in the sky; therefore the satellite dish antennas of ground stations can be aimed permanently at that spot and do not have to move to track the satellite. However, most form satellite constellations in low Earth orbit, where ground antennas must track the satellites and switch between them frequently.

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10/02/2004

Forty-three people are killed and three are injured when a Fokker 50 crashes near Sharjah International Airport.

The Fokker 50 is a turboprop-powered airliner manufactured and supported by Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. It was designed as an improved version of the successful Fokker F27 Friendship. The Fokker 60 is a stretched freighter version of the Fokker 50.

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10/02/2003

France and Belgium break the NATO procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for Turkey in case of a possible war with Iraq.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance between 32 member states—30 in Europe and two in North America. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, NATO was established with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. The organization serves as a system of collective security, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any outside party. This is enshrined in Article 5 of the treaty, which states that an armed attack against one member shall be considered an attack against them all.

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10/02/1996

IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess for the first time.

International Business Machines Corporation, doing business as IBM, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is a publicly traded company and one of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research facilities across a dozen countries; for 29 consecutive years, from 1993 to 2021, it held the record for most annual U.S. patents generated by a business.

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10/02/1989

Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.

Ronald Harmon Brown was an American politician and lobbyist who served as the 30th United States secretary of commerce during the first term of President Bill Clinton. Before this, he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He was the first African American to hold these positions. He was killed, along with 34 others, in a 1996 plane crash in Croatia.

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10/02/1984

Kenyan soldiers kill an estimated 5,000 ethnic Somali Kenyans in the Wagalla massacre.

The Kenya Army is the land arm of the Kenya Defence Forces.

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10/02/1972

Ras Al Khaimah joins the United Arab Emirates, now making up seven emirates.

Ras Al Khaimah, often referred to its initials RAK, is an industrial port city and the largest city and capital of the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah in the U.A.E. The city had a population of 191,753 people in 2025, and is the sixth-most populous city in UAE after Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain and Ajman. The city is divided by a creek into two parts: old town in the west and Al Nakheel in the east. The town is the successor to the Islamic era port and trading hub of Julfar.

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10/02/1967

The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution addresses issues related to presidential succession and disability.

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10/02/1964

Melbourne–Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with and sinks the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, killing 82.

The Melbourne–Voyager collision, also known as the Melbourne–Voyager incident or simply the Voyager incident, was a collision between two warships of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN); the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and the destroyer HMAS Voyager.

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10/02/1962

Cold War: Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

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10/02/1954

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. Earlier, during World War II, he became a General of the Army, and was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of the War: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944.

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10/02/1947

The Paris Peace Treaties are signed by Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and the Allies of World War II.

The Paris Peace Treaties were signed on 10 February 1947 following the end of World War II in 1945. The Paris Peace Conference lasted from 29 July until 15 October 1946. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of peace treaties with those former Axis allies, namely Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland, of which all but Hungary had switched sides and declared war on Germany during the war. They were allowed to fully resume their responsibilities as sovereign states in international affairs and to qualify for membership in the United Nations.

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10/02/1943

World War II: Attempting to completely lift the Siege of Leningrad, the Soviet Red Army engages German troops and Spanish volunteers in the Battle of Krasny Bor.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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10/02/1940

The Soviet Union begins mass deportations of Polish citizens from occupied eastern Poland to Siberia.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

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10/02/1939

Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists conclude their conquest of Catalonia and seal the border with France.

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic and included socialists, anarchists, communists, and separatists, supported by the Soviet Union. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of fascist Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists, supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and initially led by a military junta, until General Francisco Franco was appointed supreme leader on 1 October 1936 for what he called the Spanish State. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war was variously viewed as class struggle, religious struggle, or struggle between republican democracy and dictatorship, revolution and counterrevolution, or fascism and communism. The Nationalists won the war in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

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10/02/1936

Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italian troops launch the Battle of Amba Aradam against Ethiopian defenders.

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Italy against Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Italian Invasion, and in Italy as the Ethiopian War. It is seen as an example of the expansionist policy that characterized the Axis powers and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations before the outbreak of World War II.

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10/02/1933

In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City's Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf. Schaaf dies four days later.

Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two opponents throwing punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time. It is usually done wearing protective equipment, such as protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards.

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10/02/1930

The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng launches the failed Yên Bái mutiny in hope of overthrowing French protectorate over Vietnam.

The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, also known as the Vietnamese Nationalist Party and abbreviated VNQDĐ or Việt Quốc, was a nationalist and democratic socialist political group that sought independence from French colonial rule in Vietnam during the early 20th century. Its origins lie in a group of young Hanoi-based intellectuals who began publishing revolutionary material in the mid-1920s. In 1927, after the publishing house failed because of French harassment and censorship, the VNQDĐ was formed under the leadership of Nguyễn Thái Học. Modelling itself on the Kuomintang of Nationalist China the VNQDĐ gained a small following among northerners, particularly teachers and intellectuals. The party, which was less successful among peasants and industrial workers, and was organised in small clandestine cells.

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10/02/1923

Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas.

Texas Tech University is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas, United States. Established in 1923 and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the flagship institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University System. As of fall 2025, the university enrolled 42,455 students, making it the sixth-largest university in Texas.

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10/02/1920

Józef Haller de Hallenburg performs the symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.

Józef Haller von Hallenburg was a Polish lieutenant general and legionary in the Polish Legions during the First World War. He was a harcmistrz, the president of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (ZHP), and a political and social activist. He was also the cousin of Stanisław Haller.

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About 75% of the population in Zone I votes to join Denmark in the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites.

Denmark is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark, also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the north Atlantic Ocean. Metropolitan Denmark, also called "continental Denmark" or "Denmark proper", consists of the northern Jutland peninsula and an archipelago of 406 islands. It is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying southwest of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany, with which it shares a short border. Denmark proper is situated between the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the east.

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10/02/1906

HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships, is christened.

HMS Dreadnought was a Royal Navy battleship, the design of which revolutionised naval power. The ship's entry into service in 1906 represented such an advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the dreadnoughts, as well as the class of ships named after her. Likewise, the generation of ships she made obsolete became known as pre-dreadnoughts. Admiral Sir John "Jacky" Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Board of Admiralty, is credited as the father of Dreadnought. Shortly after he assumed office in 1904, he ordered design studies for a battleship armed solely with 12 in (305 mm) guns and a speed of 21 knots. He convened a Committee on Designs to evaluate the alternative designs and to assist in the detailed design work.

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10/02/1862

American Civil War: A Union naval flotilla destroys the bulk of the Confederate Mosquito Fleet in the Battle of Elizabeth City on the Pasquotank River in North Carolina.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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10/02/1861

Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.

Jefferson F. Davis was the only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, leading the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Before the war, he was a member of the Democratic Party who represented Mississippi in the House of Representatives from 1845 to 1846 and in the United States Senate from 1857 to 1861. From 1853 to 1857, he served as the 23rd United States secretary of war during the administration of President Franklin Pierce.

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10/02/1846

First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon: British defeat Sikhs in the final battle of the war.

The First Anglo-Sikh War was fought between the Sikh Empire and the British Empire from 1845 to 1846 around the Firozpur district of Punjab. It resulted in the defeat and partial subjugation of the Sikh Empire and cession of Jammu & Kashmir as a separate princely state under British suzerainty.

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10/02/1840

Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days, which was longer than those of any of her predecessors, constituted the Victorian era, a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.

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10/02/1814

Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a global series of conflicts fought by a fluctuating array of European coalitions against the French First Republic (1803–1804) under the First Consul followed by the First French Empire (1804–1815) under the Emperor of the French, Napoleon I. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.

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10/02/1763

French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.

The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a conflict in North America between Great Britain and France, along with their respective Indigenous allies. Historians generally consider it part of the global Seven Years' War, which lasted from 1756 to 1763, although in the United States it is often viewed as a distinct conflict unassociated with any larger European war.

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10/02/1712

Huilliches in Chiloé rebel against Spanish encomenderos.

The Huilliche uprising of 1712 was an Indigenous uprising against the Spanish encomenderos of the Chiloé Archipelago, which was then a part of the Captaincy General of Chile. The rebellion took place in the central part of the archipelago.

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10/02/1567

Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is found strangled following an explosion at the Kirk o' Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland, a suspected assassination.

Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley was King of Scotland as the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, from 29 July 1565 until his murder. Darnley had one child with Mary, James VI of Scotland and I of England. Less than a year after the birth of his son, Darnley was murdered at Kirk o' Field in 1567. Many contemporary narratives describing his life and death refer to him as simply Lord Darnley, his title as heir apparent to the Earldom of Lennox.

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10/02/1502

Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.

Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese mariner, explorer and nobleman. His discovery of the first direct maritime route between Europe and India via the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean from Malindi in Kenya to Kozhikode was to open up European exploration of, and commerce with, India, and is considered a landmark event and a turning point in world history.

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10/02/1392

Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos marries Helena Dragaš, daughter of the Serbian Prince Constantine Dragaš. She is crowned as empress the following day.

Manuel II Palaiologos or Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor from 1391 to 1425. Shortly before his death he was tonsured a monk and received the name Matthaios (Ματθαίος). Manuel was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, which sometimes threatened to capture his territory outright. Accordingly he continued his father's practice of soliciting Western European aid against the Ottomans, and personally visited several foreign courts to plead his cause. These efforts failed, although an Ottoman civil war and Byzantine victories against Latin neighbors helped Manuel's government survive and slightly expand its influence. His wife Helena Dragaš saw to it that their sons, John VIII and Constantine XI, became emperors. He is commemorated by the Greek Orthodox Church on 21 July.

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10/02/1355

The St Scholastica Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.

The St Scholastica Day riot began in Oxford, England, on 10 February 1355, the feast day of St Scholastica. The disturbance began when two students from the University of Oxford complained about the quality of wine served to them in the Swindlestock Tavern, which stood at the crossroads now known as Carfax, in the centre of the town. The students quarrelled with the taverner; the argument quickly escalated to blows. The inn's customers joined in on both sides, and the resulting mêlée turned into a riot. The violence started by the bar brawl continued over three days, with armed gangs entering the town from the countryside to assist the townspeople. University halls and students' accommodation were raided and the inhabitants murdered; there were some reports of scholars being scalped. Around twenty townsfolk were killed, as were up to sixty-three members of the university.

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10/02/1306

In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn, sparking the revolution in the Wars of Scottish Independence.

Dumfries is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, 25 miles (40 km) from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the historic county of Dumfriesshire.

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10/02/1258

The Siege of Baghdad ends with the surrender of the last Abbasid caliph to Hulegu Khan, a prince of the Mongol Empire.

The Siege of Baghdad, also known as the Sack of Baghdad, took place in early 1258. A large army commanded by Hulegu, a prince of the Mongol Empire, attacked the historic capital of the Abbasid Caliphate after a series of provocations from its ruler, caliph al-Musta'sim. Within a few weeks, Baghdad fell and was sacked by the Mongol army—al-Musta'sim was killed alongside hundreds of thousands of his subjects. The city's fall has traditionally been seen as marking the end of the Islamic Golden Age; in reality, its ramifications are uncertain.

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