14 February History
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.