Mamlktik

February 24: Shrove Monday (Western Christianity, 2020); Independence Day in Estonia (1918)

303 – The Diocletianic Persecution, the last and most severe episode of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, began with the publication of a first edict by Roman emperor Diocletian.

1607 – Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, considered the first fully developed opera, premiered in Mantua.

 1868 – Andrew Johnson (pictured) became the first U.S. president to be impeached.

1875 – The steamship SS Gothenburg hit a section of the Great Barrier Reef at low tide and sank northwest of Holbourne Island, resulting in more than 98 deaths