That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers – it’s…
GROUNDHOG DAY!
Today is the cross-quarter day between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s Candlemas, Imbolc and, here in Pennsylvania, Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day is a strange little tradition, an annual non-holiday marking the midway point of winter and the hope for a coming spring. “If Candlemas be bright and clear / There’ll be two winters in the year,” the old saying said, and somehow we came to decide that a furry garden pest would serve as the definitive arbiter as to whether or not the day was, indeed, “bright and clear.” If the groundhog sees his shadow in the sun, the lore has it, then we’re due for six more weeks of winter. But if he doesn’t, then “Old winter shall not come again” and we’re in for an early spring. –Groundhog Day And The 10,000-hour Montage | Fred Clark
Note: All Descriptions Are Taken From Wikipedia
506 – Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths, promulgates the Breviary of Alaric
(Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum), a collection of “Roman law“.
The first laws granting tax exemption to the church appear in the Codex and are credited to Constantine and his son Constantius II. These laws specify land owned by clergy, their family members, and churches were exempt from compulsory service and tax payments with the exception of land personally owned by the clerics
536 – Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina.Birthplace of Pope Francis.

1650 – Pope Benedict XIII (d. 1730) is born.
1653 – New Amsterdam (later renamed The City of New York) is incorporated.
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can’t say
People just liked it better that way
-They Might Be Giants
1709 – Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring Daniel Defoe‘s adventure book Robinson Crusoe.
1725 – J. S. Bach leads the first performance of his chorale cantata Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin, BWV 125, based on Luther’s paraphrase of the Nunc dimittis.
He composed this chorale cantata in Leipzig in 1725 for the feast for the Purification of Mary, which is celebrated on February 2, and is also known as Candlemas. The cantata is based on Martin Luther‘s 1524 hymn “Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin” and forms part of Bach’s chorale cantata cycle, written to provide Sundays and feast days of the liturgical year with cantatas based on a related Lutheran hymn.

1814 – The last of the River Thames frost fairs comes to an end.

1848 – Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed.
The United States received the territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México. Today they comprise some or all of the U.S. states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. While this land was vast in area, most of it was very sparsely populated, inhabited mostly by indigenous Americans, rather than white Americans or Mexicans.

1850 – Brigham Young declares war on Timpanogos in the Battle at Fort Utah.

1870 – The Seven Brothers (Seitsemän veljestä), a novel by Finnish author Aleksis Kivi, is published first time in several thin booklets.
It is widely regarded as the first significant novel written in Finnish and by a Finnish-speaking author, and is considered a real pioneer of Finnish realistic folklore. Some people still regard it as the greatest Finnish novel ever written, and in time it has even gained the status of a “national novel of Finland”.

1876 – The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.
1881 – The sentences of the trial of the warlocks of Chiloé are imparted.
The warlocks of Chiloé (“brujos de Chiloé” or “brujos chilotes” in the Spanish language) are people of Chiloé Archipelago said to practise witchcraft linked to Chilote mythology. The warlocks may be real, purported or legendary persons. The source of the witchcraft is often attributed to a legendary encounter between Basque navigator José de Moraleda y Montero and Huilliche machi Chillpila who defeated Moraleda in a duel of witchcraft obtaining a book of European magic as reward. Belief in witchcraft has been common in the archipelago, reaching such influence that in 1880 Chilean authorities put on trial warlocks said to rule the archipelago through a secret society.
The Place of Seagulls begins at a spot 700 miles due south of the Chilean capital, Santiago, and stretches for another 1,200 miles all the way to Tierra del Fuego, the “land of fire” so accurately described by Lucas Bridges as “the uttermost part of the earth. And in 1880, a little more than half a century after it was finally incorporated into Chile, it was also the scene of a remarkable trial—the last significant witch trial, probably, anywhere in the world. ”Who were they, these sorcerers hauled before a court for casting spells in an industrial age? According to the traveler Bruce Chatwin, who stumbled over traces of their story in the 1970s, they belonged to a “sect of male witches” that existed “for the purpose of hurting people.” Into the Cave of Chile’s Witches | Smithsonian

1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the first Groundhog Day is observed.

1899 – The Australian Premiers’ Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia’s capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.
1900 – Boston, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Chicago and St. Louis, agree to form baseball’s American League.
1901 – Funeral of Queen Victoria.
1909 – The Paris Film Congress opens, an attempt by European producers to form an equivalent to the MPPC cartel in the United States.
1913 – Grand Central Terminal opens in New York City.

1920 – The Tartu Peace Treaty is signed between Estonia and Russia.
1922 – Ulysses by James Joyce is published.
1922 – The uprising called the “pork mutiny” starts in the region between Kuolajärvi and Savukoski in Finland.
1925 – Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.

1934 – The Export-Import Bank of the United States is incorporated.
1935 – Leonarde Keeler administers polygraph tests to two murder suspects, the first time polygraph evidence was admitted in U.S. courts.
1942 – The Osvald Group is responsible for the first, active event of anti-Nazi resistance in Norway, to protest the inauguration of Vidkun Quisling.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end when Soviet troops accept the surrender of the last organized German troops in the city.
1954 – The Detroit Red Wings played in the first outdoor hockey game by any NHL team in an exhibition against the Marquette Branch Prison Pirates in Marquette, Michigan.
1959 – Nine experienced ski hikers in the northern Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union die under mysterious circumstances.
1980 – Reports surface that the FBI is targeting allegedly corrupt Congressmen in the Abscam operation.
1990 – Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress and promises to release Nelson Mandela.
February 4, 1993 (Fox Village Theatre) The Time-Loop Comedy starring Bill Murray and Annie MacDowell Groundhog Day is released.
February 2, 2015- The movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell turns 21 this year, and I wish I could take it out for a drink (“Sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist, please.”). I feel as if I’ve seen this movie about as many times as Phil Connors lived that day. In college, my roommate and I decided to drive to the tiny hamlet of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania for the real thing. (Warning: the movie bears very little resemblance to the phenomenon that is a thousand screaming drunk people in utter darkness. Learned that the hard way.) After spending the night in a car and freezing for two hours just waiting for a shuttle bus, the highlight of the day was buying a DVD copy of Groundhog Day in the town itself and then driving all the way back to our warm and cozy apartment to watch it.
2000 – First digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realized by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments.
2004 – Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men’s singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.
2005 – The Government of Canada introduces the Civil Marriage Act. This legislation would become law on July 20, 2005, legalizing same-sex marriage.
August 16, 2016: Groundhog Day the Musical premiers at the The Old Vic, London
2021 – The Burmese military establishes the State Administration Council, the military junta, after deposing the democratically elected government in the 2021 Myanmar coup d’état.
2025-AccuWeather@accuweather: Groundhog Day forecast: Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Sunday morning, signaling six more weeks of winter.