February 18
1564 Michelangelo Buonarroti (born 1475), painter and sculptor, dies in Rome.

1930 Pluto, the ninth planet of our solar system, is discovered by US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh.

2005 Metro TV journalists Meutya Hafid and Budiyanto are taken hostage by armed militia in Iraq.

February 19
1473 The astronomer Copernicus is born in Torun, Poland. He promulgates the theory that the earth and the planets move around the sun.

1986 T