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Today in History ~ February 14
Valentines Day [H]
Events1014 - Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry II, Roman German emperor
1076 - Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV
1130 - Jewish Cardinal Pietro Pierleone elected as anti-pope Anacletus II
1540 - Emperor Charles V enters Ghent without resistance, executes rebels
1556 - Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared a heretic
1610 - Polish king Sigismund III, forces Dimitri #2 & Romanov family to sign covenant against Czar Vasili Shuishki (sequel to story of "Boris Godounov")
1670 - Roman Catholic emperor Leopold I chases Jews out of Vienna
1689 - English parliament places Mary Stuart/Prince Williamm III on the throne
1711 - Handel's opera Rinaldo premieres
1778 - The American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.
1794 - 1st US textile machinery patent granted, to James Davenport, Phila
1803 - Apple parer patented by Moses Coats, Downington, Penn
1848 - James K Polk became 1st pres photographed in office (Matthew Brady)
1859 - Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.
1862 - Galena, 1st US iron-clad warship for service at sea, launched, Conn
1867 - Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Co issues 1st policy
1876 - A G Bell & Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor
1886 - The West Coast citrus industry was born. The first trainload of oranges left Los Angeles for eastern markets. [H]
1895 - Oscar Wilde's "Importance of Being Earnest," opens in London
1896 - Theodor Herzl publishes "Der Judenstaat"
1899 - Congress approved, and President McKinley signed, legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections.
1903 - President Theodore Roosevelt signed a law creating the Department of Commerce and Labor.
1912 - 1st US submarines with diesel engines commissioned, Groton, Ct
1912 - Arizona admitted to the Union as the 48th state
1918 - Sigmund Romberg's musical "Sinbad," premieres in NYC
1919 - United Parcel Service forms
1920 - The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maude Wood Park.
1921 - Little Review faces obscenity charges for publishing "Ulysses," NY
1924 - IBM Corporation founded by Thomas Watson
1929 - The "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone's gang were gunned down. [H]
1933 - An eight-day bank holiday was declared in Michigan in a Depression-era move to avert a financial panic. $50 million was rushed to Detroit to bolster bank assets.
1940 - British merchant vessel fleet is armed
1941 - Carson McCuller's "Reflections in a Golden Eye" published
1941 - German Africa Corps lands in Tripoli, Libya
1942 - Japanese parachutists land near oil center Palembang Sumatra
1943 - German offensive through de Faid-pass Tunisia
1943 - Soviets recapture Rostov
1944 - Anti-Japanese revolt on Java
1945 - 8th Air Force continues to fire-bomb Dresden
1945 - Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the United Nations.
1949 - 1st session of Knesset (Jerusalem Israel)
1954 - Sen John Kennedy appears on "Meet the Press"
1957 - Georgia Senate unanimously approves Sen Leon Butts' bill barring blacks from playing baseball with whites
1958 - Arab Federation of Iraq & Jordan forms
1959 - $3.6 million heroin seizure in NYC
1962 - 1st lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducts White House tour on TV
1968 - Pennsylvania Railroad/NYC Central merge into Penn Central
1971 - Movie "Ben Hur" 1st shown on television
1971 - Richard Nixon installs secret taping system in White House
1978 - 1st "micro on a chip" patented by Texas Instruments
1979 - Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.
1979 - Iranian guerrillas stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, trapping Ambassador William Sullivan and 100 staff members. Forces of the Ayatollah Khomeini later freed them but the incident foreshadowed the embassy takeover in November.
1979 - "Whoopee!" opens at ANTA Theater NYC for 204 performances
1988 - Alfredo Stroessner re-elected president of Paraguay
1989 - Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, offended by The Satanic Verses, called on Muslims to murder its British author, Salman Rushdie. He offered a $1 million reward for Rushdie's death, sending the writer into hiding. In 1998, Tehran rescinded the death sentence.
1989 - Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 mill damages for Bhopol disaster
1990 - 94 people were killed and 56 injured in the crash of an Indian Airlines Airbus 320, 50 yards short of the runway in Bangalore, India.
1990 - Perrier recalls 160 million bottles of sparkling water after traces of benzene, a carcinogen, are found in some bottles
1990 - Space probe Voyager 1 takes photograph of entire solar system
1991 - Allied commanders reported a surge in desertions of Iraqi soldiers.
1991 - Iraq said that the bombing of an underground facility, which killed hundreds of civilians the previous day, was a deliberate attack on an air raid shelter. The charge was denied by the United States.
1992 - American speed skater Bonnie Blair won her second gold medal of the Albertville Olympics, in the 1,000 meters event.
1992 - On the third anniversary of his death sentence, author-in-hiding Salman Rushdie said he would no longer "go on living in a box."
1992 - The Bush administration denied lying about the fate of repatriated Haitians and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject efforts to stop the return of thousands of boat people.
1992 - The former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan rejected a proposal for a unified army, sharply rebuffing Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin.
1993 - Six people were systematically killed in a modern Valentine's Day massacre in a Bronx, New York, neighborhood so violent that the neighbors ignored the gunfire.
1994 - A convicted serial killer who admitted murdering 55 people was executed by firing squad in a Russian prison.
1996 - Republican Phil Gramm withdrew from the presidential campaign.
1997 - American Airlines and its pilots union continued contract talks as the clock ticked down to a midnight strike deadline. (The pilots did strike, but President Clinton immediately intervened, ordering a 60-day "cooling off" period.)
2000 - Two sophomores at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., were found shot to death in a fast-food restaurant two blocks from the school, which was still reeling from the April 1999 massacre.
2001 - A Palestinian crashed a bus into Israeli soldiers and civilians standing at a bus stop in Azur, Israel, killing eight. (The driver, Khalil Abu Olbeh, was later sentenced to eight life terms.)
2001 - The Kansas Board of Education approved new science standards restoring evolution to the state's curriculum.
Birthdays Today
1483 - Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah, prince/founder Mogols dynasty
1572 - Hans Christoph Haiden, composer
1602 - Pier Francesco Cavalli, Italian opera composer
1766 - Thomas Malthus, England, population expert (Law of Malthus)
1817 - Frederick Douglass, African-American abolitionist/lecturer/editor
1824 - Winfield Scott Hancock, Maj General (Union volunteers), died in 1886
1856 - Frank Harris, England, journalist/writer (My Life & Loves)
1859 - George Washington Gale Ferris, engineer/inventor (Ferris Wheel)
1881 - Otto Selz, German psychologist
1882 - George Jean Nathan, US, editor/author/critic (Smart Set, American Mercury)
1894 - Jack Benny (Benjamin Kubelsky) (the stingy, violin-playing, perrenial-39-year-old comedian of radio, television and vaudeville)
1895 - Nigel Bruce, Baja Mexico, actor (Dr Watson in Sherlock Holmes movies)
1898 - Fritz Zwicky, Swiss astronomer (super nova)
1913 - Jimmy Hoffa, Teamsters leader who disappeared in 1975
1913 - Mel Allen (Israel) (sportscaster: New York Yankees, This Week in Baseball; "How about that!")
1921 - Hugh Downs (TV host: The Jack Paar Show, Concentration, Today, 20/20)
1921 - Skeezix Wallet (comic strip character: discovered on the doorstep of Walt and Phyllis Wallet in the strip: Gasoline Alley)
1923 - Cesare Siepi (opera basso)
1923 - Donna Atwood (ice skater)
1923 - Jay Hebert (golfer)
1924 - Countess Mountbatten, of Burma
1925 - Elliot Lawrence (Broza) (jazz bandleader)
1928 - Frank Borman (former NASA astronaut; former head of former Eastern Airlines)
1931 - Boom Boom (Bernie) Geoffrion (hockey: Montreal Canadiens: NHL MVP [1961])
1931 - Phyllis McGuire (singer: group: The McGuire Sisters: Sincerely, Sugartime)
1931 - Vic Morrow, Bronx NY, actor (Combat, Roots, Twilight Zone the Movie)
1934 - Florence Henderson (opera singer, actress: The Brady Bunch)
1935 - Mickey (Mary) Wright (golf champion: U.S. Open [1958, 1959, 1961, 1964], Nabisco Dinah Shore [1973], LPGA [1958, 1960, 1961, 1963])
1936 - Andrew Prine (actor: The Miracle Worker, Gettysburg, The Devil's Brigade)
1936 - Fanne Foxe, [Annabella Battistella], Argentina, (Wilbur Mills companion during Congressman's drunken romp in the fountain)
1942 - Richardo Rodriguez (auto racer)
1943 - Bob Murphy (golfer)
1944 - Carl Bernstein, Washington Post investigative reporter (Watergate)
1945 - Gregory Hines, NYC, actor/dancer (White Nights, Taps)
1951 - Greg Hartle (football)
1951 - Jo Jo (Alicia) Starbuck (ice skater; ex-Mrs. Terry Bradshaw)
Famous deaths
0869 - Cyrillus, Greek apostle of Slaves, dies
1400 - Richard II, king of England (1377-99), murdered at 33
1405 - Timur/Tamerlane, [Crippled], Mongol monarch, dies at 68
1571 - Benvenuto Cellini, Ital sculptor/writer (Perseus), dies at 70
1779 - Captain James Cook, Scottish explorer, killed in disagreement with Hawaiian tourist board [H]
1780 - William Blackstone, English lawyer, dies at 56
1891 - William Tecumseh Sherman, Union Civil War general, dies at 71
1975 - Julian S Huxley, English scholar/dir-gen (UNESCO), dies at 87
1975 - Pelham Graham (PG) Wodehouse, English/US writer (Piccadilly Jim), dies at 93
1987 - Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky, composer, dies at 82
1988 - Frederick Loewe, US composer (My Fair Lady), dies at 84
1991 - Arno Breker, German sculptor (Third Reich), dies at 90
1995 - Michael Vincent Gazzo, US actor/playwright (Godfather 2), dies at 76
1996 - Eva Hart, Titanic survivor, dies at 90
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
Yesterday Tomorrow
