The Eastern leaders retaliated against these steps by integrating the economies of their nations in Comecon, their version of the Marshall Plan ; exploding the first Soviet atomic device in 1949 ; signing an alliance with People's Republic of China in February 1950 ; and forming the Warsaw Pact, Eastern Europe's counterpart to NATO, in 1955.

In 1954, he was featured on the cover of Time ( magazine ), the second jazz musician to be so honored ( the first was Louis Armstrong on February 21, 1949 ).

Albania was admitted on 22 February 1949, to the Comecon and Albania remained important both as a way to put pressure on Yugoslavia and also to serve as a pro-Soviet force in the Adriatic Sea.

* Spouses: Ruth Doreen Crick, née Dodd ( b. 1913, m. 18 February 1940 – 8 May 1947 ), now Mrs. James Stewart Potter ; Odile Crick, née Speed ( b. 11 August 1920, m. 14 August 1949 – 28 July 2004, d. 5 July 2007 )

The Gaza Strip acquired its current boundaries at the cessation of fighting in the 1948 war, confirmed by the Israel-Egypt Armistice Agreement on 24 February 1949.

After the cessation of hostilities, the Israel-Egypt Armistice Agreement of 24 February 1949 established the separation line between Egyptian and Israeli forces, and established what became the present boundary between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

In the late 1940s the pressure to sign the " verification documents " grew and in February 1949 the former chief of the stalinist secret Police ( UB ) of Lodz, Mieczyslaw Moczar, started the " Great verification " campaign.

On February 1, 1949, the stations exchanged solid print congratulatory message traffic and rag-chewed.

* February 23 – Victor Fleming, American motion picture director, ( d. 1949 )

* February 23 – Huddie William Ledbetter ( Lead Belly ), American folk and blues musician ( d. 1949 )

* February 13 – Almanzo James Wilder, American writer ( d. 1949 )

* February 1 – Jerome F. Donovan, American politician ( d. 1949 )

* February 15 – James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense ( d. 1949 )

* February 21 – Harry Stack Sullivan, American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst ( d. 1949 )

* February 1 – Bradbury Robinson, who threw the first forward pass in American football history in 1906 ( d. 1949 )

Andreas Nikolaus " Niki " Lauda ( born February 22, 1949 ) is an Austrian former Formula One racing driver and three-time F1 World Champion.

In February 1949, he received an assignment to the Division of Reactor Development, Atomic Energy Commission, and then assumed control of the Navy's effort as Director of the Naval Reactors Branch in the Bureau of Ships, reporting to Mills.

Erich Dagobert von Drygalski ( February 9, 1865 – January 10, 1949 ) was a German geographer, geophysicist and polar scientist, born in Königsberg, Province of Prussia.

* " This Oven Makes Oil Out Of Rocks ", February 1949, Popular Science primer article with illustrations on basic of the oil shale production process

Originally published as a serial in Astounding Science Fiction ( January, February, March 1941, as by Anson MacDonald ) it was published in hardcover in 1949.

Burton met his future wife, the young actress Sybil Williams, on the set, and they married in February 1949.

The French also developed the Breguet 763 Deux Ponts, which first flew in February 1949.

In February 1949, Nasser was sent as a member of the Egyptian delegation to Rhodes to negotiate a formal ceasefire with Israel, and reportedly considered the terms to be humiliating.

After working as Editor of the Church Times from 1948 to 1949, Heath worked as a management trainee at the merchant bankers Brown, Shipley & Co. until his election as Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Bexley in the February 1950 general election.

Furthermore, the Greeks bombarded and then blockaded the port of Vlorë in Albania on 3 December, and Durrës on 27 February.

He took the title of King of Albania in February 1272.

A formal offer was made by 18 Albanian delegates representing the 18 districts of Albania on 21 February 1914, an offer which he accepted.

* February 3 – Sophie of Schönburg-Waldenburg, consort of William of Wied, Prince of Albania ( b. 1885 )

* February 20 – President of Albania Ramiz Alia dismisses the government headed by Prime Minister of Albania Adil Çarçani in an effort to stem prodemocracy protests.

In February 1272, he proclaimed himself King of Albania and appointed Gazzo Chinardo as his Vicar-General.

Although the region is claimed by Serbia to be a Serbian province, Albania recognized Kosovo ’ s declaration of independence on 18 February 2008.

Zogu was officially elected as the first President of Albania by the Constituent Assembly on 21 January 1925, taking office on 1 February for a seven-year term.

On 21 February 1914 a delegation of Albanian notables and arbëreshë ones ( ruled by Luigi Baffa and Vincenzo Baffa Trasci ), led by Essad Pasha Toptani, made a formal request, which he accepted thereby becoming By the grace of the powers and the will of the people the Prince ( Mbret ) of Albania.

Durrës served as Albania's national capital from 7 March 1914 until 11 February 1920 during the reign of William of Albania in Principality of Albania.

The impatience of the king and the severity of the winter then compelled him ( February 1444 ) to return home, but not before he had utterly broken the Sultan's power in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Albania.

He took the title of King of Albania in February, 1272.

Furthermore, the Greeks bombarded and then blockaded the port of Vlorë in Albania on 3 December, and Durrës on 27 February.

Ali Kelmendi ( born 1900 in İpek, now Peć, Ottoman Empire – died 11 February 1939 in France ), Hero of Albania under the communist government, was a Kosovar Albanian communist, an organizer of the communist movement in Albania.

Musine Kokalari ( February 10, 1917 Adana, Turkey-August 14, 1983 ) of Gjirokastër, Albania was an Albanian prose writer and politician in Albania's pre-communist period.

The island was united to the Italian Governatorate of Dalmatia in 1941 during WWII and ceded to Albania on 10 February 1947, under the post-war peace treaty with Italy.

The fall of the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries forced, then President Ramiz Alia to gradually remove the old communist nomenklatura from power and government, so in the end of February 1991, Alia appointed Nano as Prime Minister of the transitional government with the purpose of organizing the first post-communist democratic elections in the country being held that year, also to prepare the transition of the country towards democracy and market economy The Parliamentary Elections were held on March 31, 1991 where Labour Party of Albania won the majority.

In February 2001, a company from the ' Dukes ' deployed to Kosovo, with the objective of preventing arms and munitions being transported from Albania into Kosovo, then onto the Former Yugolav Republic Of Macedonia, now known as the Republic of Macedonia.

The letter of the eight was followed on 6 February by a letter from the Vilnius group comprising Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, and Slovakia which effectively supported a US military intervention in Iraq.