Millennium Stadium

The Wales national rugby union team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. The governing body, the Welsh Rugby Union, was established in 1881, the same year that Wales played their first international against England, on 19 February. They have won the Six Nations and its predecessors 26 times outright, most recently in 2013. They had many dominant teams from 1900 to 1911 and from 1969 to 1980. Wales played in the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987 where they achieved their best ever result of third. After the sport started allowing professionalism in 1995, Wales hosted the 1999 World Cup. They won Six Nations Grand Slams in 2005, 2008 and 2012. Their home ground is the Millennium Stadium (pictured). Eight former Welsh players have been inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame; ten were inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame prior to its 2014 merger into the World Rugby Hall. (Full article...)

Emperor goose with stained head

• ... that the head of the emperor goose (pictured) frequently turns from white to reddish-brown in summer, due to its feeding in tidal pools with iron oxide?
• ... that Chang Ya-chung was elected to the National Assembly in 2005, but resigned on the first day to protest the parliament's formation?
• ... that Connect Airways, a consortium that includes Virgin Atlantic, was created to take over Flybe—which had previously absorbed Virgin's domestic operations at Heathrow Airport?
• ... that Shubulade Smith has spoken up against perceived racism at Maudsley Hospital?
• ... that the Leipziger Universitätschor, part of centuries of music at Leipzig University, received an Echo Klassik for a recording of Hugo Distler's Liturgische Gesänge?
• ... that Swedish handball player Johan Jepson was the first on his team to be honoured with a testimonial match?
• ... that due to an illegal electoral pact, the Scottish burgh of Stirling lost the right to elect a Member of Parliament in 1773?
• ... that in a story known in the Middle Ages, the sons of a dead king shoot arrows at his corpse?

Artist's concept of the Mars rover

• A suicide bombing attack near Pulwama, in Indian-administered Kashmir, kills 40 security personnel.
• NASA concludes the 15-year Opportunity Mars rover mission after being unable to wake the rover (artist's concept shown) from hibernation.
• The Republic of Macedonia changes its name to the Republic of North Macedonia as the Prespa agreement takes effect, ending a 27-year naming dispute with Greece.
• In an American trial, Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán is found guilty of ten criminal charges, including one mandating life imprisonment.

February 19

Henry Ossian Flipper

• 1600 – The Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina erupted in the largest volcanic explosion in South America in historical times.
• 1811 – Peninsular War: An outnumbered French force under Édouard Mortier routed and nearly destroyed the Spanish at the Battle of the Gebora near Badajoz, Spain.
• 1942 – A book-burning was held and politicians were arrested in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, as part of a simulated Nazi invasion.
• 1965 – Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, along with Generals Lâm Văn Phát and Trần Thiện Khiêm attempted a coup against the military junta of Nguyễn Khánh.
• 1999 – U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a posthumous pardon to Henry Ossian Flipper (pictured), the first African American graduate of West Point, who had been accused of embezzlement in 1881.

Thomas Arundel (d. 1414) · Mary Dilys Glynne (b. 1895) · Sylvia Rivera (d. 2002)