🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning — it’s Tuesday, February 17. Today, we're diving into Thomas Jefferson's election, the Capture of Columbia, the first canned sardines, the Volkswagen Beetle, and Zealandia — a quick, thrilling ride through history that's both sharp and source-clean!
Love Flashback? Please support me and help keep history fascinating every day.
Invite your friend to join you on this daily journey — good karma. 💌
Got something to say? Hit reply — I read every email.
🚀 Time Machine
-1568
Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Ottoman Sultan Selim II signed the Treaty of Adrianople, under which Maximilian agreed to a cash "present" and the Ottomans gained control of Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.
-1801
Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States, marking the first peaceful transition between political parties.
-1865
Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's army captured Columbia, South Carolina's state capital, and left a charred city in their wake.
-1876
Julius Wolff canned sardines for the first time in Eastport, Maine.
-1904
Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly premieres at the La Scala theatre in Milan, Italy.
-1972
15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line, breaking a world record held by Ford Model T for over 40 years.
-1979
China invades Vietnam in response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.
-2016
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology reveals the oldest known human-Neanderthal sex, with traces of Homo sapien DNA found in 50,000-year-old Neanderthal DNA.
-2017
Zealandia, a new mostly underwater continent found in the South Pacific, was announced in "GSA Today".
📸 Snapshot

Here's what goes on behind the scenes of King Kong, classic horror, 1979
🗨️ Last Words
“So here it is at last, the distinguished thing.”

