February 20: Fat Thursday 1816 – Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa The Barber of Seville premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome to jeers from the audience.
1835 – An earthquake registering approximately 8.2 Ms devastated Concepción, Chile, and triggered a tsunami that destroyed neighbouring Talcahuano.
1943 – A fissure opened in a cornfield in the Mexican state of Michoacán and would continue to erupt for nine years, forming the cinder cone volcano Parícutin (pictured).
1965 – NASA's Ranger 8 spacecraft transmitted 7,137 photographs of the Moon in the final 23 minutes of its mission before crashing as planned in Mare Tranquillitatis.
1992 – Appearing on the talk show Larry King Live, U.S. industrialist Ross Perot announced that he would begin a presidential campaign if "ordinary people" wanted him to run for office.
Judith Montefiore (b. 1784) · Elizabeth Holloway Marston (b. 1893) · Toru Takemitsu (d. 1996)
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