On February 12

In the first meeting between the leaders of the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow signed the Havana Declaration at José Martí International Airport in Cuba.

Just before landing at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York, killing the house's occupant and all 49 people on board the aircraft.

Protesters in La Paz and the Bolivian government brokered a deal to end two days of rioting against a proposed salary tax.

The NASA space probe NEAR Shoemaker touched down on Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

Edvard Munch's painting The Scream (pictured) was stolen from the National Gallery of Norway.

Two-year-old James Bulger was led away from New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, England, and murdered by two 10-year-old boys, who became the youngest convicted murderers in modern English history.

While claiming the right of innocent passage through Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea, the American cruiser USS Yorktown and destroyer USS Caron were bumped by Soviet warships.

Following the deaths of two employees on the job, black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, began a strike that lasted more than two months.

A devistating tornado outbreak across Mississippi and Alabama kills 45 people and injures 427 others.

The Imperial Japanese Army initiated the Battle of Pasir Panjang in Kent Ridge Park in Singapore.

USS Macon, one of the largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

George Gershwin's composition Rhapsody in Blue premiered at Aeolian Hall in New York.

The ferry SS Penguin struck a rock in Wellington Harbour and sank, killing 75 people in New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the 20th century.

Ère des attentats: In one of the first acts of modern terrorism, Émile Henry threw a bomb into Café Terminus (depicted) in Paris, France, killing one person and injuring 17 more.

The precursor of Michigan State University in East Lansing was founded as the United States' first agricultural college.

A papal conclave convened to select a new pope after the death of Pope Alexander VIII.

Queen Isabella I issued an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.