Thursday, February 19, 2026

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor became the first member of the British royal family to be arrested in 379 years.

Mexican drug war: Forty-four inmates died in a prison riot in Apodaca, Mexico, between members of Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel.

Items from the Belitung shipwreck, the largest single collection of Tang-dynasty artefacts found in one location, were first exhibited in Singapore.

A methane explosion in a coal mine in Nueva Rosita, Mexico, trapped and killed 65 miners.

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.

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, a non-fiction book credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States, was first published.

The Southeast Asian Youth Conference, which is believed to have inspired armed communist rebellions in different Asian countries, opened in Calcutta, India.

World War II: U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forcible relocation of over 112,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps.