10 February 2025 (MIA)

1258 – Baghdad falls to the Mongols, and the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed.

1306 – In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn sparking revolution in the Scottish Wars of Independence.

1355 – The St. Scholastica’s Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.

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.

1763 – French and Indian War: The 1763 Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.

1798 – Louis Alexandre Berthier invades Rome, proclaims a Roman Republic on February 15 and then on February 20 takes Pope Pius VI prisoner.

1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians.

1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1846 – First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon – British defeat Sikhs in final battle of the war

1861 – Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.

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.

1870 – The YWCA is founded in New York City.

1906 – The HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships is christened and launched by King Edward VII.

1920 – Jozef Haller de Hallenburg performs symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.

1923 – Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas

1933 – In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf, killing him.

1936 – Second Italo-Abyssinian War: Italian troops launched the Battle of Amba Aradam against Ethiopian defenders.

1939 – Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists conclude their conquest of Catalonia and seal the border with France.

1940 – The Soviet Union begins mass deportations of Polish citizens from occupied eastern Poland to Siberia.

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.

1947 – Italy cedes most of Venezia Giulia to Yugoslavia.

1954 – President Dwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.

1962 – Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

1964 – Melbourne-Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with the destroyer HMAS Voyager off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia.

1967 – The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

1981 – A fire at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino kills eight and injures 198.

1989 – Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.

1996 – The IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov for the first time.

1998 – Voters in Maine repeal a gay rights law passed in 1997 becoming the first U.S. state to abandon such a law.

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.

2005 – North Korea announces that it possesses nuclear weapons.

2009 – The communication satellites Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 collide in orbit, destroying both.