On This Day

What Happened on February 19 in History

9 events that happened on February 19, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.

The Young Republic and the Civil War Era

1803
Congress passes a law recognizing Ohio as a state of the Union.
The act extended federal law to Ohio after its voters had adopted a state constitution, making it the first state carved from the Northwest Territory. Congress never passed a formal admission resolution at the time, and in 1953 it set March 1, 1803, as the official date of statehood.
Source: archives.gov; millercenter.org
1807
Former Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested on charges linked to a plot in the West.
Burr was taken into custody near Fort Stoddert in what is now Alabama after reports that he planned to seize territory in the Southwest. He was tried for treason in Richmond later that year and acquitted.
Source: history.com; millercenter.org
1846
The Republic of Texas lowers its flag as the new state government takes power in Austin.
Texas had been admitted to the Union in late December 1845, but the formal handover came in a ceremony at the capitol. President Anson Jones took down the flag of the republic, the Stars and Stripes went up, and James Pinckney Henderson became the first governor of the state.
Source: tsl.texas.gov; history.state.gov
1884
Dozens of tornadoes tear across the American South in the Enigma outbreak.
Tornadoes struck several Southern states over two days, flattening homes and farms. Because records from the time were sparse, the exact number of storms and deaths is still uncertain, which gave the outbreak its name.
Source: weather.gov; site.extension.uga.edu

1942
Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, leading to the incarceration of Japanese Americans.
The order let military commanders exclude people from areas they designated as military zones. It was used to force about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them U.S. citizens, from their homes on the West Coast into camps.
Source: archives.gov; history.com
1945
U.S. Marines land on Iwo Jima, beginning one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific war.
About 30,000 Marines went ashore on the small volcanic island south of Japan, which the Americans wanted for its airfields. Japanese defenders fought from tunnels and bunkers, and the island was not secured until late March.
Source: history.com; archive.nytimes.com

1976
President Gerald Ford formally confirms the end of Executive Order 9066.
Ford signed a proclamation titled An American Promise on the 34th anniversary of the wartime order. It declared that the order's authority had ended and acknowledged that the removal of Japanese Americans had been wrong.
Source: presidency.ucsb.edu; fordlibrarymuseum.gov
1986
The Soviet Union launches the core module of the Mir space station.
The first piece of Mir went up on a Proton rocket, and more modules were added over the next decade. The station hosted long-duration crews for years, including American astronauts during the Shuttle-Mir program of the 1990s.
Source: nasa.gov
1986
The U.S. Senate approves the international Genocide Convention after decades of delay.
The United Nations had adopted the treaty in 1948, but it waited nearly four decades for approval in Washington. Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin gave more than 3,000 Senate speeches urging ratification before the vote finally came.
Source: ushmm.org; history.state.gov