Mrs. Samuel Powel by Matthew Pratt

• ... that it was reportedly Elizabeth Willing Powel (pictured) who asked Benjamin Franklin whether the United States was to be "a republic or a monarchy", to which he responded: "A republic ... if you can keep it"?
• ... that the specific name of Pterophorus pentadactyla, commonly known as the white plume moth, comes from the Greek for 'five fingers'?
• ... that Dutch baritone John Bröcheler first sang concerts including world premieres, but was "discovered" for opera in a role of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda alongside Joan Sutherland?
• ... that although veneration of the dead is often considered blasphemy in Islam, Sukarno's grave in Blitar receives tens of thousands of Javanese Muslims each year seeking his spiritual blessing?
• ... that Ephraim Bacon, a leader of the American Colonization Society expedition that founded Liberia, fled to Barbados after coming down with a fever?
• ... that Super Lemon Haze is an award-winning cannabis strain that commonly exhibits limonene, an organic compound also found in lemons?
• ... that researcher Heejung Kim found that the influence of the oxytocin receptor gene OXTR on social behavior depends on cultural context?
• ... that Mexican indigenous radio station La Voz de los Chontales returns today after being silent for more than 30 years?

The Dáil chamber

• Shootings in Hanau, Germany, leave eleven people dead and five others wounded.
• The Irish general election concludes with no party holding a majority of seats in Dáil Éireann (chamber pictured).
• South Korean film Parasite wins four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bong Joon-ho.
• A mass shooting in Korat, Thailand, leaves 30 people dead and more than 50 others injured.

February 21: Language Movement Day in Bangladesh (1952); Carnival begins in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2020); Maha Shivaratri (Hinduism, 2020)

Malcolm X

• 1245 – Innocent IV accepted the resignation of Thomas, the first known bishop of Finland, after he confessed to torture and forgery.
• 1437 – King James I of Scotland was murdered at Perth in a failed coup by his uncle and former ally Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl.
• 1952 – A number of student protesters demanding the establishment of Bengali as an official language were killed by police in Dhaka, East Pakistan.
• 1965 – Black nationalist Malcolm X (pictured) was assassinated while giving a speech in New York City's Audubon Ballroom.
• 1973 – After accidentally straying into Israeli-occupied airspace, Flight 114 was shot down by two Israeli fighter aircraft, killing 108 of the 113 people on board.

Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (d. 1543) · Léo Delibes (b. 1836) · Ellen Page (b. 1987)