February 14
February 14 is the
45thth day of the year in the
Gregorian Calendar. There are 320 days remaining, 321 in
leap years.
\n
Events
\n* 1014 - Pope Benedict VIII recognizes Henry of Bavaria as King of Germany.\n* 1076 - Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.\n* 1556 - Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.\n* 1743 - Henry Pelham becomes Prime Minister of England.\n* 1779 - James Cook is killed by the natives of the Sandwich Islands.\n* 1803 - Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of Congress which conflicts with the Constitution is void.\n* 1804 - First Serbian Uprising began.\n* 1849 - In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first President of the United States to have his photograph taken.\n*1854 - Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.\n* 1859 - Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.\n* 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone.\n* 1879 - The War of the Pacific broke out when Chilean armed forces occupied the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.\n* 1895 - First showing of Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnest (St James's Theatre in London).\n* 1899 - Voting machines are approved by the United States Congress for use in federal elections.\n* 1900 - Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country. \n* 1900 - Boer War: In South Africa, 20,000 British troops invade the Orange Free State.\n* 1903 - The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into Dept. of Commerce and Dept. of Labor).\n* 1912 - Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.\n* 1912 - In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned. \n* 1918 - The movie Tarzan of the Apes is released. \n* 1918 - The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (1 February according to the Julian calendar).\n* 1920 - The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago, Illinois.\n* 1924 - IBM corporation founded.\n* 1929 - St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven gangsters rivalling Al Capone are murdered in Chicago, Illinois.\n* 1943 - World War II:Rostov, Russia is liberated.\n* 1943 - World War II: The Battle of the Kasserine Pass - German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia.\n* 1944 - World War II: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.\n* 1945 - Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations. \n* 1946 - The Bank of England is nationalized.\n* 1946 - ENIAC (for "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer"), the first general-purpose electronic computer, is unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania.\n* 1949 - The Knesset (Israeli parliament) first convenes.\n* 1952 - 1952 Winter Olympic Games open in Oslo, Norway.\n* 1961 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized (Berkeley, California). \n* 1962 - First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House. \n* 1966 - Australian currency is decimalized. \n* 1979 - In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police. \n* 1980 - 1980 Winter Olympic Games open in Lake Placid, New York.\n* 1980 - Walter Cronkite announces his retirement from CBS Evening News. \n* 1985 - CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon. \n* 1989 - Union Carbide agrees to pay USD $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal Disaster.\n* 1989 - Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie. \n* 1989 - The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit. \n* 1998 - Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Robert Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
Births
\n* 1483 -
Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah, founder of the
Moghul dynasty (d.
1530)\n*
1766 -
Thomas Malthus, economist (d.
1834)\n*
1819 -
Joshua A. Norton, Emperor Norton I of the
United States of America and Protector of
Mexico (d.
1880)\n*
1856 -
Frank Harris, author and editor (d.
1931)\n*
1869 -
Charles Wilson, physicist\n*
1890 -
Nina Hamnett, artist (d.
1956)\n*
1894 -
Jack Benny, actor, comedian (d.
1974)\n*
1895 -
Max Horkheimer, philosopher and sociologist (d.
1973)\n*
1898 -
Fritz Zwicky, physicist and astronomer (d.
1974)\n*
1905 -
Thelma Ritter, actress (d.
1969)\n*
1912 -
Tibor Sekelj, Croatian explorer (d.
1988)\n*
1913 -
Jimmy Hoffa,
labor union leader (d.
1975 (disappeared))\n* 1913 -
Mel Allen, sports reporter (d.
1996)\n*
1916 -
Masaki Kobayashi, director\n*
1917 - Herbert A. Hauptman, biophysicist, winner of the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1985\n*
1921 -
Hugh Downs,
game show host, journalist\n*
1929 -
Vic Morrow, actor (d.
1982)\n*
1932 -
Alexander Kluge, actor and film director\n*
1934 -
Florence Henderson, actress,
The Brady Bunch\n*
1943 -
Maceo Parker, musician (
P-Funk)\n*
1944 -
Alan Parker, director, writer\n* 1944 -
Carl Bernstein, journalist\n*
1946 -
Bernard Dowiyogo, former president of
Nauru (d.
2003)\n* 1946 -
Gregory Hines, dancer, actor (d.
2003)\n*
1948 -
Raymond Teller, magician (
Penn and Teller)\n*
1968 -
Jules Asner, model,
television personality\n*
1970 -
Simon Pegg, comedian, writer and actor\n*
1973 -
Steve McNair,
American football quarterback\n*
1978 -
Richard Hamilton,
basketball player\n*
1980 -
Fatima Leyva,
Mexican women's
soccer player
Deaths
\n* 1400 - King
Richard II of England murdered (b.
1367)\n*
1405 -
Timur (aka Tamerlane),
Mongol monarch and conqueror (b.
1336)\n*
1779 -
James Cook,
British naval captain and explorer (b.
1728)\n*
1831 -
Vincente Guerrero, Mexican revolutionary hero (b.
1782)\n*
1831 -
Henry Maudslay, inventor and machine tool-maker (b.
1771)\n*
1929 -
Tom Burke, American runner\n*
1943 -
David Hilbert, mathematician (b.
1862)\n*
1959 -
Baby Dodds,
jazz musician (b.
1898)\n*
1975 -
Julian Huxley, British biologist (b.
1887)\n*
1975 -
P. G. Wodehouse, writer (b.
1881)\n*
1983 -
Lina Radke, German athlete\n*
1994 -
Andrei Chikatilo,
Russian serial killer (
executed) (b.
1936)\n*
1999 -
John Ehrlichman, presidential advisor (b.
1925)\n*
2003 -
Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned
mammal (b.
1996)\n*
2004 -
Marco Pantani, italian bicyclist and Tour-de-France winner (b.
1970)
Holidays and observances
\n*Denmark - Gaekkebrev - gift exchange by school kids\n*
Mexico - Day of National Mourning (1831)\n*
Arizona - Admission Day (1912)\n*
Oregon - Admission Day (1859)\n*international -
Valentine's Day\n*
Catholicism - Feast day of
Saint Valentine\n*
Catholicism - Feast day of Saints
Cyril and
Methodius
February 13 -
February 15 -
January 14 -
March 14 --
historical anniversaries
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
