Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 19
This is a list of selected February 19 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
- 1600 – The Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina exploded in the most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America.
- 1811 – Peninsular War: An outnumbered French force under Édouard Mortier (pictured) routed and nearly destroyed the Spanish at the Battle of the Gebora near Badajoz, Spain.
- 1942 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forcible relocation of over 112,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese people residing in the United States to internment camps.
- 1965 – Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and a communist spy of the North Vietnamese Vietminh, attempted a coup against the military junta of Nguyen Khanh.
- 1985 – The first episode of the British soap opera EastEnders was first broadcast on BBC1, eventually becoming one of the most watched television shows in the United Kingdom.