February 10
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Featured Event
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Mary Sheldon Lyon, 1947 (47.95.48), www.metmuseum.org
Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert
On this day in 1840, Queen Victoria of Great Britain married Prince Albert. While most royal weddings of the era were private, small affairs, Victoria, in a bid to improve her popularity, arranged a lavish marriage ceremony with 300 people in attendance. Her dress was a simple white satin dress—with an 18-foot-long train. That day, Victoria began two longstanding traditions: one, of brides wearing white dresses, and two, of British royals marrying in highly publicized ceremonies. [Read today’s edition of Today in History > >]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
AP Images
There’s nothing better in the world, when you’re trying to be the best in the world, than to actually say, ‘I am the world record holder. I am the best in the world.’
American swimmer Mark Spitz, born this day in 1950, became the first athlete to capture seven gold medals in a single Olympics, winning four individual and three team events at the 1972 Games in Munich, West Germany.
Famous Birthdays
More on February 10
Brown Brothers
2014
Shirley Temple died at age 85. The curly-haired, dimpled child actress cheered Depression-era moviegoers at the peak of her career between 1935 and 1939. [Watch a video clip of Shirley Temple in The Little Princess.]
Inge Morath/Magnum
2005
Arthur Miller—who is recognized as one of the most important playwrights of the mid-20th century, perhaps best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning Death of a Salesman—died at age 89. [Sort fact from fiction in our who wrote it quiz.]
NASA
1990
The spacecraft Galileo flew past Venus on its way to Jupiter. [Discover five weird facts about Venus.]
Central Intelligence Agency
1962
Francis Gary Powers, the U.S. pilot captured by the Soviet Union during the U-2 Incident in 1960, was exchanged for jailed Soviet informant Rudolf Abel. [Read our list of 10 famous names in the espionage game.]
Paul Fearn/Alamy
1957
American author Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the popular Little House series of children’s books (which was later adapted into a popular television drama), died at age 90. [Take our classic children’s books quiz.]
Copypright © 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
1939
The American film classic Stagecoach, widely considered to be the first “adult” western, had its world premiere. One of director John Ford’s defining movies, it also elevated John Wayne to stardom. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about movies.]
Ullstein Bilderdienst
1898
Poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, whose epic theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist causes, was born in Augsburg, Germany. [How much do you know about theater?]
Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library
1846
The British conquered the Sikh army in northwestern India in the Battle of Sobraon, the most decisive engagement of the First Sikh War. [Test your knowledge of India.]
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1837
Russian author Aleksandr Pushkin was killed in a duel defending his wife’s honor. [Read about 11 other notable duels.]
The Newberry Library, The MacLean Collection (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
1763
The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the territorial conflicts between France and Britain that had caused the Seven Years’ War, the North American phase of which was called the French and Indian War.