13 February 1849

Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was assassinated using VX nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The first Vega rocket was launched by the European Space Agency from the Guiana Space Centre.

Gulf War: The United States Air Force dropped two laser-guided "smart bombs" on an air-raid shelter in Baghdad, Iraq, which was believed to be a military command site, killing at least 408 civilians.

Geode prospectors near Olancha, California, discovered what they claimed to be a 500,000-year-old rock with a 1920s-era spark plug encased within (pictured).

African-American college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins (sign at protest pictured) at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee, as part of a nonviolent direct-action campaign to end racial segregation in the U.S.

Frances Coles was killed in the last of eleven unsolved murders of women that took place in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London.

Work began on the covering of the Senne (pictured), burying the polluted main river of Brussels to allow for urban renewal in the centre of the city.

Members of Clan MacDonald of Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands were massacred, allegedly for failing to pledge allegiance to the new monarchs, William III and Mary II.

The four-year-old Charles XI became King of Sweden upon his father's death.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is acquitted in his second impeachment trial.

A major winter storm causes blackouts and kills at least 82 people in Texas and northern Mexico.

Kim Jong-nam, brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, is assassinated at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

The European Space Agency (ESA) conducted the first launch of the European Vega rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations.

Taiwan opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou resigns as the chairman of the Kuomintang party after being indicted on charges of embezzlement during his tenure as the mayor of Taipei; Ma also announces his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election.

The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

The Nepalese Civil War is initiated in the Kingdom of Nepal by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre).

Gulf War: Two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroy the Amiriyah shelter in Baghdad. Allied forces said the bunker was being used as a military communications outpost, but over 400 Iraqi civilians inside were killed.

Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

An intense windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 0.5-mile (0.80 km) long section of the Hood Canal Bridge.

Hilton bombing: A bomb explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman.

Fire at One World Trade Center (North Tower) of the World Trade Center in New York.

American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.