February 14 - Definition and Overview

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.
• 1743 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister.
• 1779 - James Cook is killed by the natives of the Sandwich Islands.
• 1803 - Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress which conflicts with the Constitution is void.
• 1804 - First Serbian Uprising began.
• 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 applies for a patent for the telephone.
• 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 is released.
• 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, Illinois.
• 1924 - IBM corporation founded.
• 1929 - St. Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven gangsters rivalling Al Capone are murdered in Chicago, Illinois.
• 1936 - AG Weser launches the first of 162 U-boats (last one launched on March 1, 1945).
• 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.
• 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.
• 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)
• 1856 - Frank Harris, author and editor (d. 1931)
• 1869 - Charles Wilson, physicist
• 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)
• 1912 - Tibor Sekelj, Croat explorer (d. 1988)
• 1913 - Jimmy Hoffa, labor union leader (d. 1975 (disappeared))
• 1913 - Mel Allen, sports reporter (d. 1996)
• 1916 - Masaki Kobayashi, director
• 1917 - Herbert A. Hauptman, biophysicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1985
• 1921 - Hugh Downs, game show host, journalist
• 1929 - Vic Morrow, actor (d. 1982)
• 1932 - Alexander Kluge, actor and film director
• 1934 - Michel Corboz, Swiss conductor
• 1934 - Florence Henderson, American television actress
• 1943 - Maceo Parker, musician (P-Funk)
• 1944 - Alan Parker, director, writer
• 1944 - Carl Bernstein, journalist
• 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
• 1968 - Jules Asner, model, television personality
• 1970 - Simon Pegg, comedian, writer and actor
• 1972 - Drew Bledsoe, American football quarterback
• 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)
• 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
• 1943 - David Hilbert, mathematician (b. 1862)
• 1959 - Baby Dodds, jazz musician (b. 1898)
• 1975 - Julian Huxley, British biologist (b. 1887)
• 1975 - P. G. Wodehouse, writer (b. 1881)
• 1983 - Lina Radke, German athlete
• 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)
• 1999 - John Ehrlichman, presidential advisor (b. 1925)
• 2003 - Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal (b. 1996)
• 2003 - Johnny Longden, jockey
• 2004 - Marco Pantani, Italian bicyclist and Tour-de-France winner (b. 1970)

Holidays and observances

• Denmark - Gaekkebrev - gift exchange by school kids
• Mexico - Day of National Mourning (1831)
• Arizona - Admission Day (1912)
• Oregon - Admission Day (1859)
• international - Valentine's Day
• Catholicism - Feast day of Saint Valentine
• Catholicism - Feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius

February 13 - February 15 - January 14 - March 14 -- historical anniversaries