February 14
February 14 is the 45th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar . There are 320 days remaining, 321 in leap years .
Events
1014 - Pope Boniface I recognizes Henry of Bavaria as King of Germany .
1076 - Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor .
1556 - Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic .
1575 - Henry III of France marries Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont
1743 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister .
1779 - James Cook is killed by the natives of the Sandwich Islands .
1797 - John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent & Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson led the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent near Gibraltar .
1803 - Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress which conflicts with the Constitution is void.
1804 - Karadjordje led the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire .
1849 - In New York City , James Knox Polk becomes the first President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
1854 - Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States , when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.
1859 - Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state .
1876 - Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone . So did Elisha Gray .
1879 - The War of the Pacific broke out when Chilean armed forces occupied the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.
1895 - First showing of Oscar Wilde 's last play The Importance of Being Earnest (St James's Theatre in London ).
1899 - Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections .
1900 - Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country.
1900 - Boer War : In South Africa , 20,000 British troops invade the Orange Free State .
1903 - The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into Dept. of Commerce and Dept. of Labor ).
1912 - Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state .
1912 - In Groton, Connecticut , the first diesel -powered submarine is commissioned.
1918 - The movie Tarzan of the Apes 1918 - The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (1 February according to the Julian calendar ).
1920 - The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago .
1924 - IBM corporation founded.
1929 - St. Valentine's Day Massacre : Seven gangsters rivalling Al Capone are murdered in Chicago .
1943 - World War II :Rostov , Russia is liberated.
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 .
1944 - World War II : Anti-Japanese revolt on Java .
1945 - Bombing of Dresden in World War II : The British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force began to fire-bomb Dresden , the capital of the German state of Saxony .
1945 - Chile , Ecuador , Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations .
1945 - President Franklin Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy , officially starting the US-Saudi diplomatic relationship.
1946 - The Bank of England is nationalized.
1946 - ENIAC (for "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer"), the first general-purpose electronic computer , is unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania .
1949 - The Knesset (Israeli parliament) first convenes.
1949 - The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada . The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec .
1952 - 1952 Winter Olympic Games open in Oslo , Norway .
1961 - Discovery of the chemical elements : Element 103, Lawrencium , is first synthesized (Berkeley, California ).
1962 - First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House .
1966 - Australian currency is decimalized .
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.
1980 - 1980 Winter Olympic Games open in Lake Placid, New York .
1980 - Walter Cronkite announces his retirement from CBS Evening News .
1985 - CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is freed from captivity in Lebanon .
1989 - Union Carbide agrees to pay USD $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal Disaster .
1989 - Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill the author of The Satanic Verses , Salman Rushdie .
1989 - The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit.
1998 - Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Robert Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
2000 - The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
2004 - In a suburb of Moscow , Russia , the roof of the Transvaal water park collapses, killing more than 25 people, and wounding more than 100 others.
Births
1483 - Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah , founder of the Moghul dynasty (d. 1530 )
1766 - Thomas Malthus , economist (d. 1834 )
1819 - Joshua A. Norton , Emperor Norton I of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico (d. 1880 )
1847 - Anna Howard Shaw , women's suffrage leader (d. 1919 )
1856 - Frank Harris , author and editor (d. 1931 )
1869 - Charles Wilson , physicist (d. 1959 )
1884 - Hezekiah M. Washburn , missionary (d. 1972 )
1890 - Nina Hamnett , artist (d. 1956 )
1894 - Jack Benny , actor, comedian (d. 1974 )
1895 - Max Horkheimer , philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973 )
1898 - Fritz Zwicky , physicist and astronomer (d. 1974 )
1905 - Thelma Ritter , actress (d. 1969 )
1911 - Willem Kolff , Dutch inventor
1912 - Tibor Sekelj , Croat explorer (d. 1988 )
1913 - Jimmy Hoffa , labor union leader (d. 1975 (disappeared))
1913 - Mel Allen , sports reporter (d. 1996 )
1913 - Woody Hayes , American college football coach (d. 1987 )
1916 - Masaki Kobayashi , director
1916 - Edward Platt , American actor (d. 1974 )
1917 - Herbert A. Hauptman , biophysicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1985
1921 - Hugh Downs , game show host, journalist
1927 - Lois Maxwell , Canadian actress
1929 - Vic Morrow , actor (d. 1982 )
1931 - Brian Kelly , American actor (d. 2005 )
1932 - Alexander Kluge , actor and film director
1934 - Michel Corboz , Swiss conductor
1934 - Florence Henderson , American television actress
1936 - Fanne Foxe , erotic dancer
1941 - Paul Tsongas , former United States Senator (d. 1997 )
1941 - Donna Shalala , American politician, educator
1942 - Michael Bloomberg , Mayor of New York City
1943 - Maceo Parker , musician (P-Funk )
1944 - Alan Parker , director, writer
1944 - Carl Bernstein , journalist
1945 - Frank Welker , American actor
1946 - Bernard Dowiyogo , former president of Nauru (d. 2003 )
1946 - Gregory Hines , dancer, actor (d. 2003 )
1948 - Raymond Teller , magician (Penn and Teller )
1959 - Renee Fleming , Canadian soprano
1960 - Jim Kelly , American football quarterback
1960 - Meg Tilly , Canadian actress
1962 - Kevyn Aucoin , American cosmetologist
1963 - Enrico Colantoni , Canadian actor
1968 - Jules Asner , model, television personality
1970 - Simon Pegg , comedian, writer and actor
1971 - Noriko Sakai , Japanese singer
1972 - Drew Bledsoe , American football quarterback
1972 - Rob Thomas , musician (matchbox twenty ), television producer
1973 - Steve McNair , American football quarterback
1978 - Richard Hamilton , basketball player
1980 - Fatima Leyva , Mexican women's soccer player
Deaths
1400 - King Richard II of England murdered (b. 1367 )
1405 - Timur (aka Tamerlane), Mongol monarch and conqueror (b. 1336 )
1523 - Pope Adrian VI , a Pope
1779 - James Cook , British naval captain and explorer (b. 1728 )
1831 - Vincente Guerrero , Mexican revolutionary hero (b. 1782 )
1831 - Henry Maudslay , inventor and machine tool-maker (b. 1771 )
1929 - Tom Burke , American runner (b. 1875 )
1943 - David Hilbert , mathematician (b. 1862 )
1959 - Baby Dodds , jazz musician (b. 1898 )
1969 - Vito Genovese , gangster (b. 1897 )
1970 - Herbert Strudwick , champion Surrey and England wicket-keeper (b. 1880 ).
1975 - Julian Huxley , British biologist (b. 1887 )
1975 - P. G. Wodehouse , writer (b. 1881 )
1979 - Adolph Dubs , American diplomat (b. 1920 )
1983 - Lina Radke , German athlete (b. 1903 )
1988 - Frederick Loewe , Austrian-American composer (b. 1901 )
1989 - James Bond , American ornithologist and the namesake of the fictional spy James Bond (b. 1900 )
1994 - Andrei Chikatilo , Russian serial killer (executed ) (b. 1936 )
1994 - Michael Gazzo , American actor (b. 1923 )
1999 - John Ehrlichman , presidential advisor (b. 1925 )
2000 - Tony Bettenhausen, Jr. , American Formula One driver
2003 - Dolly the sheep , the world's first cloned mammal (b. 1996 )
2003 - Johnny Longden , jockey (b. 1907 )
2004 - Marco Pantani , Italian bicyclist and Tour-de-France winner (b. 1970 )
2005 - Lebanese former PM Rafik Hariri killed in a car bombing in Beirut
Holidays and observances
External links
February 13 - February 15 - January 14 - March 14 -- historical anniversaries
Top Encyclopedia Articles
