February Almanac
Feb. 1 – Princess Stephanie (nee Grimaldi) of Monaco is born in 1965
– Puccini’s La Boheme premiere (1896, Torino)
Feb. 2 – In 1909, Italian journalist Filippo Marinetti launches the Futurist Movement, a radical artistic philosophy calling for political activism and the complete rejection of all art, music, and literature of the past.
– Vittorio da Feltre dies in 1446. Founded the first boarding school that prohibited corporal punishment
Feb. 3 – In 1942 on Bataan, First Lt Willibald Bianchi fights heroically against the Japanese despite his wounds. He was later captured and killed while being transported to Japan. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Feb. 4 – English actress Ida Lupino is born in 1918
Feb. 5 – Italian tenor Caruso records O Sole Mio in 1916 for Victor Talking Machine Co.
Feb. 6 – In 1885, An Italian expeditionary force occupies the Eritrean town of Massawa in East Africa.
– Rock’n’Roll vocalist Fabian Forte is born in 1943.
– Aldus Manutius dies in 1515. He published the first small “portable” books.
– In 1952 the U.S.S.R. vetoes Italy’s bid for admission to the United Nations.
Feb. 7 – Physicist Galileo Ferraris dies in 1897. A pioneer in AC electrical transmission and inventor of a 3-phase induction motor just prior to Tesla’s patent.
Feb. 8 – Astronomer Jacques Cassini publishes the first tables of Saturn’s moon orbits in 1716.
Feb. 9 – In 1849, Italian revolutionaries declare the city of Rome a republic, following the ouster of Papal forces. It was only a temporary victory.
Feb. 10 – In 1947, Some 2,890 square miles of the Venezia Giulia region in northeastern Italy are transferred to Yugoslavia as part of the European border adjustments following World War II.
– Comedian Jimmy Durante in 1893
Feb. 11 – The long-standing dispute with the papacy over Rome is resolved when Mussolini signs the Lateran Accords establishing Vatican City in 1929
– Ben Abruzzo, crew member of the first balloon to cross the Atlantic and the Pacific,
dies in 1985 in an airplane accident.
Feb. 12 – Director Franco Zeffirelli (Romeo & Juliet, Jane Eyre) is born in 1923
Feb. 13 – In 1861, Bourbon King Francesco II flees into exile when Italian forces overrun the Fortress of Gaeta, his last stronghold on the peninsula.
– English author Raphael Sabatini dies in 1950. Some of his works that become movies
were: Captain Blood, Against All Flags, The Black Swan, Scaramouche
Feb. 14 – Legend has it that Valentine’s Day evolved from the Roman feast Lupercalia, when the young maidens placed their names in a big urn for bachelors to draw out. It was hoped that the paired couple would fall in love and marry.
Feb. 15 – Astronomer and telescope maker Galileo Galilei is born in 1564
– In 1503,Amerigo Vespucci took command of the Portuguese fleet exploring the Brazilian coast and realized that the islands Columbus had found were off the shore of actual continents, a New World, as he called it.
Feb. 16 – Philosopher Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake in 1600. Condemned as a heretic by the Roman Inquisition for asserting that the Earth is not the center of the universe,
– Pop Singer/Songwriter Sonny Bono is born in 1940
Feb. 17 – Educator Johann Pestolozzi dies in 1827. His methods of classroom demonstration and participation became the basis of modern education.
– Puccini’s Madama Butterfly premieres in 1904 in Milan
Feb. 18 – Victor Iannidinardo is born in 1912. He established the first chain of co-ed health gyms in 1949 known as Vic Tanny Health Spas.
– Inventor of the first practical battery, Alessandro Volta, is born in 1745.
– Virtuoso violinist Niccolo Antonio Paganini is born in 1784
Feb. 19 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, fearing Axis sabotage, issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942 which forces some 10,000 Italian Americans from their homes and jobs along the Pacific coast and places restrictions on 600,000 Italian citizens across the United States. Four elderly Italian Americans commit suicide rather than endure the shame.
– Biologist Francesco Redi is born in 1626) He is considered the “Founder of Experimental Biology, ” and “Father of Modern Parasitology “.
Feb. 20 – The last Italian Army peace keepers leave war-torn Beirut in 1984. Unlike the Americans, French, and British contingents the Italians were not attacked by the warring factors. They are credited with evenhandedness and humanitarian conduct.
– Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia premieres in 1816, in Rome
Feb. 21 – Austrian Field Marshal Raimondo Montecuccioli is born in Modena in 1609
Feb. 22 – Jewish Italian scientist Rita Levi- Montalcini receives shares a Nobel Prize in 1986 for her work in neurobiology.
Feb. 23 – Actor Peter Fonda is born in 1940. Famous for co-writing and starring in the 1969 counter-culture film Easy Rider. The Fondas were descended from Italian Protestants who fled to Holland in the 1600s.
Feb. 24 – Juan Domingo Peron (nee Peroni) is elected president of Argentina in 1946.
– Pope Gregory XVIII has the calendar of Julius Caesar revised in 1582. Protestant England refused to adopt it until they realized how accurate it was.
– Composer & Librettist Arrigo Boito is born in 1842, worked with Verdi on operas Otello and Falstaff.
Feb. 25 – In 1784, Count Paolo Andreani and Carlo and Agostino Gherli complete a 20 minute aerial journey over Milan in a hot air balloon.
– Anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni is born in1682, “The Father of Modern Anatomical Pathology.”
– Philosopher Benedetto Croce is born in 1866, an icon of modern Italy
– Pope Pius V excommunicates England’s Queen Elizabeth I in 1570.
Feb. 26 – Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (nee Buonaparte) escaped from exile on the Italian island of Elba in 1815.
Feb. 27 – Tenor Enrico Caruso is born in Naples in 1873.
Feb. 28 – Auto racer Mario Andretti is born in 1940
– Actress Bernadette Peters (née Lazzara) is born in 1948
Feb. 29 – Composer Giacchino Rossini is born in 1792. His most famous composition was The William Tell Overture, known in pop culture as the “Lone Ranger Theme”
– Christopher Columbus is shipwrecked on the Island of Jamaica in 1504. He convinces hostile natives to provide his crew food for a year, until rescued, by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse.