Heres’s a chronological timetable of events that occurred on this day in history. Let’s find out what happened today in history.

February 15

1798       The first serious fist fight occurs in Congress.

1804       New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery.

1862       Union General Ulysses S. Grant launches a major assault on Fort Donelson, TN.

1900       The British threaten to use natives in the Boer War.

1934       The U.S. Congress passes the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act.

1940       Hitler orders that all British merchant ships will be considered warships.

1942       British forces in Singapore surrender to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita.

1943       The Germans break the American Army’s lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia, North Africa.

1946       The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrest 22 as Soviet spies.

1950       Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung sign a mutual defense treaty in Moscow.

1957       Andrei Gromyko replaces Dmitri T. Shepilov as the Soviet Foreign Minister.

1961       Eighteen members of the U.S. figure skating team are lost in an airplane crash in Belgium.

1965       Canada’s maple leaf flag is raised for the first time.

Born on February 15

1564       Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and mathematician.

1710       Louis XV, King of France.

1726       Abraham Clark, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1797       Henry Steinway, a piano maker.

1954       Matt Groening, cartoonist (The Simpsons).

Source: History Net