On February 17, 1621, Myles Standish was elected as the first commander of the Plymouth Colony.
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February 17, 1776, the first volume of Edward Gibbon‘s seminal work “The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire” was published.
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USB STICKS UPDATE: We have nearly completed mailing out all of the SurvivalBlog 205-2025 Waterproof Archive USB sticks. We are taking no more orders this year. The only stick orders still waiting are a few that were designated in our ordering system as being paid by check. All of those in CONUS paid by PayPal or by credit card have been mailed and should arrive by Friday, February 21st. If we haven’t received your check by March 10, 2025, then your order will be canceled. For anyone who missed out: Mark your calendars for February 10, 2026. That is when the special 20th Anniversary Edition waterproof archive sticks should be orderable.
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We are seeking entries for Round 117 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $950,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. Round 117 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.
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Today’s feature article was authored by Tom Christianson, SurvivalBlog’s Field Gear Editor.