On the 18th February 1930, Nellie Jay – better known as Elm Farm Ollie – became the first cow to fly in an aeroplane.

H. L. Hunley became the first submarine to sink an enemy ship when it attacked the Union Navy warship USS Housatonic.

On the 16th February 1923, Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

The first professional archaeological excavation began in the Qumran Caves, the location of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

On the 14th February 1929, seven men with connections to Chicago’s North Side Gang were gunned down in the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of King Henry VIII of England, was executed in the Tower of London.

On the 12th February 1429, the curiously-named Battle of the Herrings was fought between French and English forces near the village of Rouvray in France.

Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill that redrew electoral boundaries in the first example of ‘gerrymandering’.

On the 10th February 1906 the British King, Edward VII, launched HMS Dreadnought – a revolutionary new type of battleship that made all other ships obsolete.

Volleyball was invented by William G. Morgan, the Director of Physical Education at the YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

On the 8th February 1587 Mary Stuart, more commonly known as Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed in the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire.

Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola led the burning of thousands of objects in the Bonfire of the Vanities.

On the 6th February 1958, British European Airways flight 609 crashed at Munich-Riem Airport while carrying the Manchester United football team, supporters and journalists.

An American Mark 15 thermonuclear bomb was lost off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia following an in-air collision.