The Germans committed fifty divisions to an assault at Verdun, commencing the battle that would last over nine months.
The German Army deployed stormtroopers in the attack for the first time.
Richard Murphy, legendary American seaman and commercial fisherman, died at age 77.
The Italian hospital ship HS Marechiaro was sunk by the SM U-12 near Durrës, Albania.
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Winston Churchill addressed parliament as a member of the House of Commons for the first time. The topic was the treatment of Boer prisoners.
German Field Marshal Alfred von Waldersee announced a new military campaigns to secure territory in China. They'd be launched as a series of punitive expeditions.
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Allied commander Brigadier General Frederick Hugh Cunliffe sent a message to German commander Captain Ernst von Rabe at the mountain fortress near Mora in Kamerun (now modern-day Cameroon), offering terms of surrender that included all African native soldiers to be allowed safe passage back to their home villages and all German troops interned in England.
Rabe accepted the terms with an additional offer all the native soldiers be paid for their military service.
Ottoman forces around Erzurum were evacuated.
British forces were forced off of "the Bluff" in Belgium. The Germans, however, sustained inordinate casualties in the effort.
Followers of putative Vietnamese Emperor Phan Xích Long attempted to break him out of his prison in Saigon. They failed.
Airborne reconnaissance located the new location of the Senussis.
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William McKinley was formally declared the winner of the 1900 Presidential election, as a joint session of United States Congress witnessed the formal counting of the electoral votes.
Hmmm. . . seems like that went so smoothly.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: ..1901 Stinkingwater River renamed the Shoshone River.
German troops fired on civilians at Youngqing, China.
African sleeping sickness was first noticed by British missionary doctors J. Howard Cook and Albert Cook.
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British commander in Indonesia E. C. Mansergh ordered Indonesians to surrender their arms by 18:00 or face "all the naval, army and air forces under my command". Sukarno appealed to President Truman and Prime Minister Attlee to intervene.
Former Hungarian Prime Minister László Bárdossy was sentenced to death.
August von Mackensen, age 95, famous German Field Marshal, died, which seems somehow fitting, not only because of his advanced old age, but also because the Germanys he served had effectively died as well.
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A hurricane made landfall in Louisiana, killing 279 people. The destruction of the storm would not be surpassed for fifty years.
The Germans recaptured lost ground in the Second Battle of Champagne resulting in a French suspension of their campaign.
6,000 or more Ottoman troops were dispatched to break Armenian resistance at Urfa, Turkey.
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Imperial Russian general Nikolai Yudenich arrived in Van, Turkey and appointed Armenian resistance leader Aram Manukian Governor of the Armenian provisional government.
British and Ottoman troops fought in the marshes of the Tigris between the towns of Amara and Qurna, Mesopotamia (Iraq).
The Germans pushed the French back at Souchez.
British and French colonial troops laid siege to German forts around Garua, German Cameroon.
Zeppelin L38 bombed London.
Italian Ralph DePalma won the 5th Indianapolis 500 driving a Mercedes 18/100.
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Hitler fired Guderian as Chief of the OKH following an argument. His replacement was Hans Krebs.
Guderian, as we've noted before, would survive the war. He was released from being held as a POW in 1948, never prosecuted for war crimes, and died in 1954 at age 65.
Krebs killed himself on May 2, 1945.
Eisenhower telegrammed Stalin with his plans for advancing in Germany. The British, who were not consulted, protested.
The Red Army captured Balga.
The U.S. 80th Infantry Division captured Wiesbaden.
The 3d Corps took Marburg.
The USS Trigger was sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the East China Sea.
The Battle of Slater's Knoll began between Australian and Japanese forces on Bougainville.
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Hitler visited Hitler Youth members mobilized for combat in Berlin. The child whom he was famously photographed with, with Hitler pinching his cheek, would survive the Battle of Berlin and keep a framed copy of the scene in his house for the rest of his life.
This was Hitler's last public appearance.
The U.S. Seventh Army captured Saarbrücken.
German defensive specialist Gotthard Heinrici replaced Heinrich Himmler as commander of Army Group Vistula.
The Germans began to massacre forced workers in the Arnsberg Forest Massacre.
The Australian Army carried out Operation Platypus, in which troops from Z Special Unit were inserted into the Balikpapan area of Borneo to gather information and organize resistance against the Japanese.
France signed an economic pact with Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The Navy endured heavy kamikaze attacks off of Okinawa.
The USS Midway was launched.
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The last major German stronghold in the Ardennes, St. Vith, fell to the US 4th Army.
German lawyer and nobleman Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was executed for his membership in hte Kreisau Circle. He was 37.
The 20th Indian Division in Burma took Myinmu.
The US 14th Corps took Bamban in the Philippines.
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The Red Army finally took a destroyed Warsaw. Hitler reacted by sacking generals Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz and Walter Fries.
Von Lüttwitz, who had seen combat in World War One and Two, went on to be a general in the Bundesherr. He died in 1975 at age 79.
Freis was subjected to a trial for his role in the city following in which Hitler requested a death sentence. Amazingly, the court refused and Fries survived the war as well and died in 1982 at age 88.
The SS marched prisoners out of Auschwitz.
Swedish businessman and humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg disappeared after being detained by the Soviets in Budapeast. He likely died in a Soviet jail cell two years later.
The German SS Donau was sunk by the Norwegian resistancde in Oslofjord
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