On February 14th...

Valentine's Day

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1400 King Richard II of England died.

1483 Babar, first Mogul Emperor, was born.

1556 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was declared a heretic.

1689 The English Parliament placed Mary Stuart and Prince William III on the throne.

1743 Henry Pelham became Britain's First Lord of the Treasury.

1760 Richard Allen, founder of the African Episcopal Methodist Church, was born.

1779 Captain James Cook was killed by natives of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands.

1794 James Davenport was granted the first U. S. patent for textile machinery.

1797 A British fleet defeated a much larger Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.

1803 Moses Coats patented an apple parer.

1844 John C. Frémont became the first European to see Lake Tahoe.

1849 James Knox Polk became the first sitting U. S. President to have his photograph taken, by Matthew Brady in New York City.

1859 Oregon was admitted as the 33rd state.
1859 Engineer George Ferris was born.

1867 Morehouse College was organized.
1867 Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota Corporation, was born.

1882 Actor John Barrymore was born.

1883 New Jersey legalized labor unions.

1891 Union General William Tecumseh Sherman died.

1894 Comedian Jack Benny was born.

1895 Actor Nigel Bruce was born.

1896 The Winnipeg Victorias defeated the Montreal Victorias for the Stanley Cup.

1899 The U. S. Congress began using voting machines.

1903 The Department of Commerce and Labor was created by act of Congress.

1912 Arizona was admitted as the 48th state.

1913 Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa was born.

1918 College football coach Woody Hayes was born.

1919 United Parcel Service was formed.

1920 The *League of Women Voters* was founded.

1921 Television journalist Hugh Downs was born.

1924 International Business Machines was founded by Thomas Watson.

1929 Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.
1929 Seven members of George "Bugs" Moran's gang were gunned down in Chicago, Illinois.
1929 Actor Vic Morrow was born.

1931 Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, was released.

1934 Actress Florence Henderson was born.

1936 The National Negro Congress was organized in Chicago, Illinois.

1942 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was born.

1945 The last Stearman PT-17 was delivered to the U.S. Srmy Air Force.

1946 The Bank of England was nationalized.
1946 Dancer Gregory Hines was born.

1948 Magician (Raymond Joseph) Teller was born.

1949 The first session of the Israeli Knesset began.

1951 Sugar Ray Robinson defeated Jake LaMotta to win the middleweight boxing title.

1952 The 6th Winter Olympic Games opened in Oslo, Norway.

1958 The Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan was formed.

1960Marshal Ayub Khan was elected President of Pakistan.
1960 Junior Johnson won the Daytona 500.
1960 Football player Jim Kelly was born.
1960 Actress Meg Tilly was born.

1962 Jacqueline Kennedy gave the first ever televised tour of the White House.

1965 Fred Lorenzen won the Daytona 500.

1966 Walt Chamberlain scored his 20,884th career point, setting a new NBA record.

1971 Richard Petty won the Daytona 500.

1972 Football player Drew Bledsoe was born.

1973 Football player Steve McNair was born.

1975 Biologist Julian Huxley died.

1980 The 13th Winter Olympic Games opened in Lake Placid, New York.

1981 A fire in a Dublin, Ireland, nightclub killed 48 persons.

1982 Bobby Allison won the Daytona 500.

1988 Gary Player won the PGA Seniors Golf Championship.
1988 Bobby Allison won the Daytona 500.
1988 Composer Frederick Loewe died.

1989 The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System were placed into orbit.

1991 The Silence of the Lambs was released.

1993 Fire in Tangshan, China, department store killed 79 persons.
1993 Dale Jarrett won the Daytona 500.

1999 John Ehrlichmann, White House counsel during the Watergate scandal, died.

1996 Actor McLean Stevenson died.

1999 Jeff Gordon won the Daytona 500.

2000 NEAR Shoemaker became the first spacecraft to orbit around an asteroid, 433 Eros.

2004 The roof of a water park in a suburb of Moscow, Russia, collapsed, killing at least 25 persons.

2005 Rafik Hariri, the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, was assassinated.
2005 A series of bombings killed 7 persons and wounded 151 in the Philippines' Makati financial district in Metro Malia, Davao City, and General Santos City.

2008 A gunman killed 6 persons and injured 18 at Northern Illinois University.

2010 Jamie McMurray won the Daytona 500.

2014 Enrico Letta reigned as Prime Minister of Italy.

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This page was last updated on February 13, 2018.