February 19th Anniversaries

Santo Domingo.- The ephemeris of the 19th of February, are marked by important historical events and international celebrations that left their mark on world history.

• International Day Against Homophobia in Football. It is an anniversary on February 19 in homage to the birth of Justin Fashanu, the first elite footballer to publicly acknowledge his homosexuality.
• Mexico: Mexican Army Day. It is an anniversary on February 19 by Presidential Decree dated March 22, 1950.
• Puerto Rico: National Heroes Day.
• Sierra Leone: Armed Forces Day.

Saints: Saints Gabino, Conrado, Álvaro of Córdoba, Marcelo, Barbato and Publio and Julián.

National: February 19th Anniversaries

• 1605. The governor and president of the Real Audiencia of Santo Domingo, Antonio Osoria, leaves for the North zone with 150 soldiers to personally supervise and force the process of the depopulations of that part of the island.
• 1858. The constituent Congress installed in Moca sanctions the new Constitution and sends it to the provisional government installed in Santiago, to be published in the towns under its dependence.
• 1870. With the military support of the United States, President Buenaventura Báez organizes a “plebiscite” to make believe that the annexation of the bay of Samaná to the American firm Samaná Bay Company, had the support of the population.
• 1922. The American officer Samuel S. Robinson begins his work as military Governor during the first American military intervention in the Dominican Republic (1916-1924).
• 1944. Lawyer Joaquín Balaguer is appointed Ambassador Counselor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, replacing lawyer Jesús María Troncoso.
• 1951. The Dominican and Haitian presidents, General Rafael Trujillo and Colonel Paul Eugenio Magloire, meet in Elías Piña to sign an agreement that stipulates, among other issues, the migratory flow and “reheating” of relations between the two nations.
• 1959. The Organic Regulations of the National Police are created and put into effect.
• 1962. Dozens of police officers hold a protest demonstration for the appointment of a civilian to head the institution, preventing Manuel Secundino Pérez Peña from taking office.
• 1975. President Balaguer orders the reintegration into active service of retired Major General Santos Mélido Marte Pichardo.
• 2005. Former Captain Quirino Ernesto Castillo Paulino is extradited to the United States, after being arrested in an operation carried out by members of the National Drug Directorate, on December 18, 2004.
• 2019. The head of the Venezuelan Parliament, Juan Guaidó, recognized by several European and hemispheric countries as the acting president of Venezuela, appoints opposition leader and financial consultant Eusebio Carolino Linares, as his ambassador to the Dominican Republic.
• 2020. The National Police reports that the investigations carried out show that both Colonel Ramón Guzmán Peralta and Claro technician Manuel Regalado were involved in the alleged plot to boycott the elections of the 16th of this month and that they were “collaborators of the main authors” of the alleged event.
• 2021. The Vice President of the Republic, and coordinator of the Health Cabinet, Raquel Peña, announces the arrival of 30,000 vaccines against COVID-19 donated by the Government of India, a gesture that she thanked on behalf of the Dominican people to the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
• - The Dominican brothers and cameramen Michael Enrique and Antonio Gererdo Campusano Féliz, are kidnapped by one of the gangs operating in Haiti, which is asking for US$2.0 million in exchange for their release. The kidnapped, who work for the film production company Muska Group, were accompanied by a Haitian interpreter, who is also being held.

International: February 19th Anniversaries

• 1493. The Portuguese armada attempts to capture Admiral Cristóbal Colón in the Azores in his first return voyage from the lands discovered months before, to prevent him from divulging the other route to the Indies that he believes he has established.
• 1516. In the Netherlands, before the death of Ferdinand the Catholic, William of Croy, Lord of Chièvres, requests 400,000 gold florins for the future trip to Spain, which was approved by the Estates-General of the Netherlands, but in return, King Charles I had to leave the territory pacified.
• 1803. Napoleon Bonaparte imposes the Act of Mediation on Switzerland, which summarizes the federal and cantonal Constitutions in a single text.
• 1814. In its resistance to Swedish domination, Norway takes Prince Christian Frederick of Denmark as regent.
• 1963. Venezuelan President Rómulo Betancourt begins a short tour abroad that takes him to the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.
• 1976. In Guatemala, strong earthquakes are recorded, causing between 25,000 and 30,000 victims.
• 1978. Egyptian commandos attack a hijacked plane at Nicosia Airport to release the hostages of Arab guerrillas.
• 1986. American pilot Barry Seal is assassinated by orders of the Medellín Cartel, who is said to have been an informant for the DEA while working for his executors.
• 1988. The European Monetary System proposes the "ecu" (European currency unit) as the usual currency.
• 1992. The historic non-aggression and denuclearization agreement between the two Koreas, officially at war since 1953, is ratified.
• 1996. Some 850,000 people march in Madrid, led by Felipe González, José María Aznar and Adolfo Suárez, asking for a "Enough is enough" to ETA terrorism.
• 1997. In Alaska, Evan Ramsey, 16, kills a classmate, his principal, and injures two others.
• 2003. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the deaths of 64 people in Congo from an outbreak of the Ebola virus.
• -In Hamburg, the Higher Regional Court sentences Moroccan Mounir El Motassadeq, the first person sentenced for the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, to 15 years in prison.
• 2008. The leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, announces his resignation from all positions he holds in the political and governmental sectors, due to serious health problems that affect him.
• 2013. US President Barack Obama warns Congress that the cuts coming into effect on March 1 will damage the country's economy and employment.
• -The South African prosecutor affirms that the paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius committed "premeditated murder" by firing four shots at his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
• 2016. Pope Francis affirms that Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump "is not Christian" for being "a person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they may be, and not about building bridges". Trump responds: "The Pope would wish and pray for me to be president if the Vatican were attacked by the Islamic State".
• 2018. A Peruvian court ordered that former President Alberto Fujimori be prosecuted for the massacre of six peasants in 1992, ruling that he lacks immunity despite having been pardoned in December 2017.
• 2019. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza reports that "a group of unknown people" entered the embassy of his country in Costa Rica in the early hours of the morning, for which he asks the Costa Rican Government to comply with the Convention on Diplomatic Relations, guaranteeing the functioning and security of the personnel within the diplomatic headquarters.
• 2020. A witness cited by the defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange assures that US President Donald Trump offered him a pardon if he denied Russia's involvement in a leak of emails in 2016.
• 2021. The Russian Health authorities inform the World Health Organization that they have detected the first case in the world of transmission of the H5N8 strain of avian influenza to humans.

Births: February 19th Anniversaries

• 1473: Nicolás Copernicus, Polish astronomer and philosopher, was the one who demonstrated the double movement of the planets.
• 1863: Augusto B. Leguía, Peruvian politician, twice president of Peru: between 1908-1912 and 1919-1930.
• 1893: Jesús Silva Herzog, Mexican economist, writer, politician and researcher.
• 1913: Roberto Sánchez Vilella, Puerto Rican politician, governor of Puerto Rico between 1964 and 1969.
• 1927: Philippe Boiry, French journalist and university professor, pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia.
• 1932: Guillermo Larco Cox, Peruvian politician, prime minister between 1987-1988 and 1989-1990.
• 1943: Jorge Arganis Díaz Leal, civil engineer, official, academic and Mexican advisor.
• 1953: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentine politician, president of Argentina between 2007 and 2015.
• 1956: Roderick MacKinnon, American biochemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003.
• 1998: Jungwoo, South Korean musician, member of the band NCT.

Deaths: February 19th Anniversaries

• 1934: Caleb Davis Bradham, American pharmacist, inventor of the Pepsi soft drink.
• 1962: Georgios Papanicolaou, Greek doctor, inventor of the Pap smear.
• 1988: André Frédéric Cournand, French physician, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956.
• 1990: Edris Rice-Wray, American physician, pioneer of the oral contraceptive pill.
• 1996: Marco Antonio Campos (Viruta), Mexican actor and comedian.
• 2012: Renato Dulbecco, American scientist of Italian origin.
• 2022: Emile Francis, Canadian ice hockey player.
• 2023: Richard Belzer, American actor and comedian.
• 2024: Carlos Manuel Urzúa Macías, Mexican academic, mathematician, politician, and economist.