What happened on 1 February?

16 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1864 Wars of German Unification Prussia's three wars — against Denmark, Austria and France — that forged the German Empire under Bismarck.
2. 1859 Mill's On Liberty Classic defence of individual freedom against social and state coercion; argues for the 'harm principle' — power may only be exercised to prevent harm to others.
3. 1979 Khomeini returns to Iran Ayatollah Khomeini returns from exile to a rapturous welcome and seizes the revolution.
4. 2007 Subprime mortgage crisis Mortgage-defaults trigger global financial crisis.
5. 1917 Unrestricted submarine warfare resumed Germany resumes attacks on neutral shipping; bring the US into the war within months.
6. 1896 Puccini's La Boheme premieres Bohemian love story that remains one of the most performed operas.
7. 1960 Greensboro sit-ins Four African-American students sit at a Woolworth's lunch counter; touches off sit-in movement across the South.
8. 1988 Construction of the Channel Tunnel Engineering of the rail tunnel linking UK and France.
9. 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster Shuttle disintegrates on reentry.
10. 2008 First Tesla electric vehicle (Roadster) Tesla's first production EV.
11. 1864 Second Schleswig War Prussia and Austria seize Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark; first of Bismarck's three wars of unification.
12. 1958 United Arab Republic formed Egypt and Syria merge into a single state under Nasser — the high tide of pan-Arabism, which ends when Syria secedes in 1961.
13. 1953 North Sea flood of 1953 A night storm surge drowns 1,836 people in the Netherlands, most of them in Zeeland, and 307 in England; the Netherlands resolves it will never happen again.
14. 1886 William Gladstone's third premiership Gladstone's First Home Rule Bill is defeated when Liberal rebels vote with the Conservatives, and the Liberals split.
15. 2021 Myanmar coup Tatmadaw seizes power, detains Aung San Suu Kyi, and reverses a decade of partial reform.
16. 1893 Puccini's Manon Lescaut Puccini's third opera, on the same Prévost novel Massenet had set nine years before, is a triumph in Turin and makes him Verdi's heir apparent.