14 February History


Month:                           Date:     


  • 14 February Birthdays

  • 1349    -    2,000 Jews are burned at the stake in Strasbourg, Germany.
  • 1400    -    The deposed Richard II is murdered in Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire.
  • 1549    -    Maximilian II, brother of the Emperor Charles V, is recognized as the future king of Bohemia.
  • 1779    -    American Loyalists are defeated by Patriots at Kettle Creek, Ga.
  • 1797    -    The Spanish fleet is destroyed by the British under Admiral Jervis (with Nelson in support) at the battle of Cape St. Vincent, off Portugal.
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  • 1848    -    James Polk becomes the first U.S. President to be photographed in office by Matthew Brady.
  • 1859    -    Oregon is admitted as the thirty-third state.
  • 1870    -    Esther Morris becomes the world's first female justice of the peace.
  • 1876    -    Rival inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both apply for patents for the telephone.
  • 1900    -    General Roberts invades South Africa's Orange Free State with 20,000 British troops.
  • 1904    -    The "Missouri Kid" is captured in Kansas.
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  • 1912    -    Arizona becomes the 48th state in the Union.
  • 1915    -    Kaiser Wilhelm II invites the U.S. Ambassador to Berlin in order to confer on the war.
  • 1918    -    Warsaw demonstrators protest the transfer of Polish territory to the Ukraine.
  • 1920    -    The League of Women Voters is formed in Chicago in celebration of the imminent ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.
  • 1924    -    Thomas Watson founds International Business Machines Corp.
  • 1929    -    Chicago gang war between Al Capone and George "Bugs" Moran culminates with several Moran confederates being gunned down in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
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  • 1939    -    Germany launches the battleship Bismark.
  • 1940    -    Britain announces that all merchant ships will be armed.
  • 1942    -    Japanese paratroopers attack Sumatra. Aidan MacCarthy's RAF unit flew to Palembang, in eastern Sumatra, where 30 Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed A-28 Hudson bombers were waiting.
  • 1945    -    800 Allied aircraft firebomb the German city of Dresden. Smaller followup bombing raids last until April with a total death toll of between 35,000 to 130,000 civillians.
  • 1945    -    The siege of Budapest ends as the Soviets take the city. Only 785 German and Hungarian soldiers managed to escape.
  • 1949    -    The United States charges the Soviet Union with interning up to 14 million in labor camps.
  • 1955    -    A Jewish couple loses their fight to adopt Catholic twins as the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to rule on state law.
  • 1957    -    The Georgia state senate outlaws interracial athletics.
  • 1965    -    Malcolm X's home is firebombed. No injuries are reported.
  • 1971    -    Moscow publicizes a new five-year plan geared to expanding consumer production.
  • 1973    -    The United States and Hanoi set up a group to channel reconstruction aid directly to Hanoi.
  • 1979    -    Armed guerrillas attack the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
  • 1985    -    Vietnamese troops surround the main Khmer Rouge base at Phnom Malai.
  • 1989    -    Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini charges that Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, is blasphemous and issues an edict (fatwa) calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie.
  • 1760    -    Richard Allen, first black ordained by a Methodist-Episcopal church.
  • 1817    -    Frederick Douglass, slave, and later, activist and author.
  • 1819    -    Christopher Latham Sholes, inventor of the first practical typewriter.
  • 1845    -    Quinton Hogg, English philanthropist.
  • 1859    -    George Washington Gale Ferris, inventor of the Ferris Wheel.
  • 1894    -    Jack Benny, comedian, radio and television performer…and violinist.
  • 1894    -    Mary Lucinda Cardwell Dawson, founded the National Negro Opera Company (NNOC) and was appointed to President John F. Kennedy's National Committee on Music.