1010 – Ferdowsi completes his epic poem Shahnameh.
1126 – Following the death of his mother, queen Urraca of León, Alfonso VII is proclaimed king of León.
1262 – Battle of Hausbergen between bourgeois militias and the army of the bishop of Strasbourg.
1558 – The city of Pori (Björneborg) is founded by Duke John on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia.
1658 – Treaty of Roskilde: After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars (1655–1661), Frederick III, the King of Denmark–Norway is forced to give up nearly half his territory to Sweden.
1702 – Queen Anne, the younger sister of Mary II, becomes Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
1722 – The Safavid Empire of Iran is defeated by an army from Afghanistan at the Battle of Gulnabad.
1736 – Nader Shah, founder of the Afsharid dynasty, is crowned Shah of Iran.
1775 – An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes "African Slavery in America", the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.
1782 – Gnadenhutten massacre: Ninety-six Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, who had converted to Christianity, are killed by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indian tribes.
1801 – War of the Second Coalition: At the Battle of Abukir, a British force under Sir Ralph Abercromby lands in Egypt with the aim of ending the French campaign in Egypt and Syria.
1844 – King Oscar I ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway.
1844 – The Althing, the parliament of Iceland, was reopened after 45 years of closure.
1868 – Sakai incident: Japanese samurai kill 11 French sailors in the port of Sakai, Osaka.
1910 – French aviator Raymonde de Laroche becomes the first woman to receive a pilot's license.
1916 – World War I: A British force unsuccessfully attempts to relieve the siege of Kut (present-day Iraq) in the Battle of Dujaila.
1917 – International Women's Day protests in Petrograd mark the beginning of the February Revolution (February 23 in the Julian calendar).