http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Feb 14, 278: St. Valentine beheaded
On February 14 around the year 278 A.D., Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed.
Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, Rome was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army, but was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families.
To get rid of the problem, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.
When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was carried out on February 14, on or about the year 270.
Legend also has it that while in jail, St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From Your Valentine."
For his great service, Valentine was named a saint after his death.
In truth, the exact origins and identity of St. Valentine are unclear. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under the date of 14 February." One was a priest in Rome, the second one was a bishop of Interamna (now Terni, Italy) and the third St. Valentine was a martyr in the Roman province of Africa.
Legends vary on how the martyr's name became connected with romance. The date of his death may have become mingled with the Feast of Lupercalia, a pagan festival of love. On these occasions, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius decided to put an end to the Feast of Lupercalia, and he declared that February 14 be celebrated as St Valentine's Day.
Gradually, February 14 became a date for exchanging love messages, poems and simple gifts such as flowers.
Feb 14, 1779: Captain Cook killed in Hawaii
On February 14, 1779, Captain James Cook, the great English explorer and navigator, is murdered by natives of Hawaii during his third visit to the Pacific island group.
In 1768, Cook, a surveyor in the Royal Navy, was commissioned a lieutenant in command of the HMS Endeavor and led an expedition that took scientists to Tahiti to chart the course of the planet Venus. In 1771, he returned to England, having explored the coast of New Zealand and Australia and circumnavigated the globe. Beginning in 1772, he commanded a major mission to the South Pacific and during the next three years explored the Antarctic region, charted the New Hebrides, and discovered New Caledonia. In 1776, Cook sailed from England again as commander of the HMS Resolution and Discovery, and in January 1778 he made his first visit to the Hawaiian Islands. He may have been the first European to ever visit the island group, which he named the Sandwich Islands in honor of one of his patrons, John Montague, the Earl of Sandwich.
Cook and his crew were welcomed by the Hawaiians, who were fascinated by the Europeans' ships and their use of iron. Cook provisioned his ships by trading the metal, and his sailors traded iron nails for sex. The ships then made a brief stop at Ni'ihau and headed north to look for the western end of a northwest passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific. Almost one year later, Cook's two ships returned to the Hawaiian Islands and found a safe harbor in Hawaii's Kealakekua Bay.
It is suspected that the Hawaiians attached religious significance to the first stay of the Europeans on their islands. In Cook's second visit, there was no question of this phenomenon. Kealakekua Bay was considered the sacred harbor of Lono, the fertility god of the Hawaiians, and at the time of Cook's arrival the locals were engaged in a festival dedicated to Lono. Cook and his compatriots were welcomed as gods and for the next month exploited the Hawaiians' good will. After one of the crewmen died, exposing the Europeans as mere mortals, relations became strained. On February 4, 1779, the British ships sailed from Kealakekua Bay, but rough seas damaged the foremast of the Resolution, and after only a week at sea the expedition was forced to return to Hawaii.
The Hawaiians greeted Cook and his men by hurling rocks; they then stole a small cutter vessel from the Discovery. Negotiations with King Kalaniopuu for the return of the cutter collapsed after a lesser Hawaiian chief was shot to death and a mob of Hawaiians descended on Cook's party. The captain and his men fired on the angry Hawaiians, but they were soon overwhelmed, and only a few managed to escape to the safety of the Resolution. Captain Cook himself was killed by the mob. A few days later, the Englishmen retaliated by firing their cannons and muskets at the shore, killing some 30 Hawaiians. The Resolution and Discovery eventually returned to England.
Feb 14, 1929: Valentine's Day Massacre takes place
In Chicago, gunmen in the suspected employment of organized-crime boss Al Capone murder seven members of the George "Bugs" Moran North Siders gang in a garage on North Clark Street. The so-called St. Valentine's Day Massacre stirred a media storm centered on Capone and his illegal Prohibition-era activities and motivated federal authorities to redouble their efforts to find evidence incriminating enough to take him off the streets.
Alphonse Capone was born in Brooklyn in 1899, the son of Italian immigrants from Naples. The fourth of nine children, he quit school after the sixth grade and joined a street gang. He became acquainted with Johnny Torrio, a crime boss who operated in Chicago and New York, and at the age of 18 Capone was employed at a Coney Island club owned by gangster Frankie Yale. It was while working there that his face was slashed in a brawl, earning him the nickname "Scarface."
In 1917, his girlfriend became pregnant and they married, and the couple moved with their son to Baltimore, where Capone attempted a respectable life working as a bookkeeper. In 1921, however, his old friend Johnny Torrio lured him to Chicago, where Torrio had built up an impressive crime syndicate and was beginning to make a fortune on the illicit commerce of alcohol, which was banned in 1919 by the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.
Capone demonstrated considerable business acumen and was appointed manager of a Torrio speakeasy. Later, Torrio put him charge of the suburb of Cicero. Unlike his boss, who was always discreet, Capone achieved notoriety as he fought for control of Cicero and was even tried (unsuccessfully) for murder.
In 1925, Torrio was shot four times by Bugs Moran and Hymie Weiss, who were associates of a gangster slain by Torrio's men. Torrio lived, but four weeks later he appeared in court and was sentenced to nine months stemming from a police raid of a brewery he owned. About a month later, he called Capone from jail to tell him that he was retiring and handing the business over to him.
Capone moved his headquarters to the luxurious Metropole Hotel, where he became a visible figure in Chicago public life as his crime empire steadily expanded. After a prosecutor was killed by some of Capone's henchmen, the Chicago police moved aggressively against his criminal operations, but they couldn't make any charges stick. Capone bought a luxurious estate in Miami as a retreat from all this unwanted attention.
Capone was in Florida in February 1929 when he gave the go-ahead for the assassination of Bugs Moran. On February 13, a bootlegger called Moran and offered to sell him a truckload of high quality whiskey at a low price. Moran took the bait and the next morning pulled up to the delivery location where he was to meet several associates and purchase the whisky. He was running a little late, and just as he was pulling up to the garage he saw what looked like two policemen and two detectives get out of an unmarked car and head to the door. Thinking he had nearly avoided being caught in a police raid, Moran drove off. The four men, however, were Capone's assassins, and they were only entering the building before Moran's arrival because they had mistaken one of the seven men inside for the boss himself.
Wearing their stolen police uniforms and heavily armed, Capone's henchmen surprised Moran's men, who agreed to line up against the wall. Thinking they had fallen prey to a routine police raid, they allowed themselves to be disarmed. A moment later, they were gunned down in a hail of shotgun and submachine-gun fire. Six were killed instantly, and the seventh survived for less than an hour.
Americans were shocked and outraged by the cold-blooded Valentine's Day killings, and many questioned whether the sin of intemperance outweighed the evil of Prohibition-era gangsters like Capone. Although, as usual, he had an air-tight alibi, few doubted his role in the massacre. The authorities, particularly affronted by the hit men's use of police uniforms, vowed to bring him to justice.
With a mandate from Herbert Hoover, the new president, the Treasury Department led the assault against Capone, hoping to uncover enough evidence of Prohibition offenses and federal income tax evasion to bring him to justice. In May 1929, Capone was convicted for carrying a concealed weapon and sent to prison for 10 months. Meanwhile, Treasury agents, like Eliot Ness, continued to gather evidence.
In June 1931, Capone was indicted for income tax evasion. On October 17, primarily on the basis of testimony by two former bookkeepers, he was found guilty on several counts. One week later, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison and $80,000 in fines and court costs. He entered Atlanta penitentiary in 1932 and in 1934 was transferred to the new Alcatraz Island prison in San Francisco Bay. By that time, Prohibition had been repealed, and Capone's empire had collapsed.
At Alcatraz, the syphilis Capone had contracted in his youth entered a late stage, and he spent his last year in prison in the hospital ward. In 1939, he was released after only six and a half years in jail as the result of good behavior and work credits. He was treated in a Baltimore hospital and in 1940 retired to his Miami estate, where he lived until his death in 1947. He was outlived by his rival Bugs Moran, who later died of lung cancer while serving a 10-year sentence in Kansas for bank robbery.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
842 - Charles II & Louis the German sign treaty
1009 - First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of
the monastery of Quedlinburg.
1014 - Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry II, Roman German
emperor
1076 - Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV
1130 - Jewish Cardinal Pietro Pierleone elected as anti-pope
Anacletus II
1540 - Emperor Charles V enters Ghent without resistance,
executes rebels
1556 - Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared a heretic
1610 - Polish king Sigismund III, Forges Dimitri #2 &
Romanov family sign covenant against czar Vasili Shushki
1630 - Dutch fleet of 69 ships reaches Pernambuco Brazil
1670 - Roman Catholic emperor Leopold I chases Jews out of
Vienna
1689 - English parliament places Mary Stuart/Prince William
III on the throne
1743 - Henry Pelham becomes Britain's First Lord of Treasury
1766 - Dutch governor Falck signs Treaty of Batticaloa with
rebels
1778 - "Stars & Stripes" arrives in foreign
port for 1st time (France)
1794 - 1st US textile machinery patent granted, to James Davenport,
Phila
1803 - Apple parer patented by Moses Coats, Downington, Penn
1803 - Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of
U.S. Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void.
1804 - Karadjordje leads the First Serbian Uprising against
the Ottoman Empire.
1831 - Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats
and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.
Holy Roman Emperor Henry IVHoly Roman Emperor Henry IV 1844
- Lt. John C. Frémont first European to discover Lake Tahoe in the US
1849 - In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes first
serving US President to have his photograph taken ( by Matthew Brady).
1855 - Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the
United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and
Marshall, Texas.
1859 - Oregon admitted as 33rd state
1862 - Galena, 1st US iron-clad warship for service at sea,
launched, Conn
1867 - Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Co
issues 1st policy
1867 - Morehouse College organizes (Augusta Georgia)
1872 - 1st state bird refuge authorized (Lake Merritt CA)
1876 - A G Bell & Elisha Gray apply separately for
telephone patents Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor
1879 - Chilean troops occupy Antofagasta
1883 - 1st state labor union legislation; NJ legalizes
unions
1887 - Cubs sell Mike King Kelly to Boston for record
$10,000
1889 - 1st train load of fruit (oranges) leaves LA for east
1890 - 1st NSW v South Australia 1st-class cricket game
1894 - Venus is both a morning star & evening star
Writer/Poet Oscar WildeWriter/Poet Oscar Wilde 1895 - Oscar
Wilde's "Importance of Being Earnest," opens in London
1896 - George Lohmann takes a hat-trick v South Africa, 8-7
for inning
1896 - South Africa all out for 30 v England - their lowest
ever
1896 - Stanley Cup: Winnipeg Victorias beat Montreal
Victorias, 2-0
1896 - Theodor Herzl publishes "Der Judenstaat"
1899 - US Congress begins using voting machines
1900 - Date of events in movie "Picnic at Hanging
Rock"
1900 - Russia responds to international pressure to free
Finland by tightening imperial control over the country.
1903 - US Dept of Commerce & Labor forms
1907 - 1st US fox hound association forms in NYC
1912 - 1st US submarines with diesel engines commissioned,
Groton, Ct
1912 - Arizona was admitted to the Union as the 48th state
1914 - High Council of Labor forms in Hague Netherlands
1918 - H Atteridge & S Rombergs musical
"Sinbad," premieres in NYC
1918 - USSR adopts New Style (Gregorian) calendar (originally
Feb 1)
1919 - United Parcel Service forms
1919 - The Polish-Soviet War begins.
1920 - League of Women Voters forms in Chicago
1921 - Canadian 5 cent nickel coin is authorized
1921 - Little Review faces obscenity charges for publishing
"Ulysses," NY
1924 - IBM Corporation founded by Thomas Watson
1925 - State of emergency crisis in Bayern ends, NSDAP
re-allowed
Gangster Al CaponeGangster Al Capone 1929 - St Valentine's
Day Massacre in Chicago, 7 gangsters killed, allegedly on Al Capone's orders
1931 - Bradman scores 152 Aust v WI, 154 minutes, 13 fours 2
fives
1931 - Spanish government of General Damasco Berenguer falls
1932 - South Africa all out for 36 in 1st innings v Aust
(Ironmonger 5-6)
1934 - NHL Ace Bailey Benefit Game: Toronto beats All-Stars
7-3 in Toronto
1936 - National Negro Congress organizes in Chicago
1936 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Maribel
Vinson
1936 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Robin Lee
1939 - Victor Fleming replaces George Cukor as director of
Gone With the Wind
1940 - British merchant vessel fleet is armed
1941 - 1,000,000th vehicle traverses the NY Midtown Tunnel
1941 - Carson McCuller's "Reflections in a Golden
Eye" published
1941 - Cebrie Park in the Bronx renamed Halsey Street
1941 - German Africa Corps lands in Tripoli, Libya
1942 - Japanese parachutists land near oil center Palembang
Sumatra
Director Victor FlemingDirector Victor Fleming 1942 -
Rotterdam's Maas tunnel opens
1942 - Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of
Singapore.
1943 - German offensive through de Faid-pass Tunisia
1943 - Soviets recapture Rostov
1943 - World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated.
1944 - Anti-Japanese revolt on Java
1944 - Carl Wick publishes "Salmon Trolling for
Commercial & Sport Fishing
1945 - 8th Air Force bombs Dresden
1945 - Peru, Paraguay, Chile & Ecuador joins UN
1945 - World War II: Prague is bombed probably due to a
mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.
1945 - World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav
partisans.
1946 - Bank of England nationalized
1949 - 1st session of Knesset (Jerusalem Israel)
1949 - Dutch Drees government presents plan for the building
of 30,000 houses
1950 - Moroney scores cricket twin centuries for Australia
at Johannesburg
1950 - USSR & China sign peace treaty
Middle/welterweight championship boxer Sugar Ray
RobinsonMiddle/welterweight championship boxer Sugar Ray Robinson 1951 - Sugar
Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta & takes middleweight title
1952 - 6th Olympic winter games open at Oslo, Norway
1954 - Beverly Hanson wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1954 - Sen John Kennedy appears on "Meet the
Press"
1954 - WTOC TV channel 11 in Savannah, GA (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1955 - WFLA (now WXFL) TV channel 8 in Tampa-St Petersburg,
FL (NBC) begins
1956 - 20th Congress of CPSU opens in Moscow
1956 - Indonesia withdraws from Neth Indonesian Union
1956 - Verhoeven/Nauta/De King/Wijnhout win Dutch 11 city
skate
1957 - Georgia Senate unanimously approves Sen Leon Butts'
bill barring blacks from playing baseball with whites
1958 - Arab Federation of Iraq & Jordan forms
1959 - $3.6 million heroin seizure in NYC
1960 - Beverly Hanson wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1960 - Marshal Ayub Khan elected president of Pakistan
1961 - Element 103, Lawrencium, 1st produced in Berkeley
Calif
1961 - Louise Suggs wins LPGA Royal Poinciana Golf
Invitational
1962 - 1st lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducts White House tour
on TV
1963 - US launches communications satellite Syncom 1
1966 - Australia introduces 1st decimal currency postage
stamps
1966 - Wilt Chamberlain breaks NBA career scoring record at
20,884 points
1966 - Writers Andrei Sinjavski & Joeij Daniel found
guilty
1966 - Australian currency is decimalised.
1967 - Aretha Franklin records "Respect"
1967 - Latin American nuclear free zone proposal drawn up
1968 - Pennsylvania Railroad/NYC Central merge into Penn
Central
1968 - WHKY TV channel 14 in Hickory, NC (IND) begins
broadcasting
1970 - "Gantry" closes at George Abbott Theater NYC
after 1 performance
1971 - Movie "Ben Hur" 1st shown on television
37th US President Richard Nixon37th US President Richard
Nixon 1971 - Richard Nixon installs secret taping system in White House
1972 - John & Yoko co-host "Mike Douglas Show"
for entire week
1972 - Luna 20 (Russia) launched to orbit & soft landing
on Moon
1972 - CBS "Late Movie" premieres
1975 - Bomb explodes at annex of Amsterdam metro station
1976 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1978 - 1st "micro on a chip" patented by Texas
Instruments
1978 - In girls' HS basketball, Chicago Latin beats Harvard
St George
1979 - "Whoopee!" opens at ANTA Theater NYC for
204 performances
1979 - In Kabul, Muslims kidnap the American ambassador to
Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his
kidnappers and police.
1980 - "West Side Story" opens at Minskoff Theater
NYC for 341 performances
1980 - 13th Winter Olympic games open in Lake Placid, NY
1980 - US launches Solar Maximum Mission Observatory to
study solar flares
1981 - Stardust Disaster: A fire in a Dublin nightclub kills
48 people
1982 - "Night of 100 Stars" takes place at NY's
Radio City Music Hall
1982 - Hollis Stacy wins LPGA S&H Golf Classic
1985 - Hostage CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is released in
Beirut
1987 - 53,745 largest NBA crowd to date-Phila at Detroit
1988 - 49th PGA Seniors Golf Championship: Gary Player
1988 - Alfredo Stroessner re-elected president of Paraguay
1988 - Bobby Allison at 50 becomes oldest driver to win
Daytona 500
1988 - Patty Sheehan wins LPGA Sarasota Golf Classic
1989 - African National Congress (ANC) opens office in
Amsterdam
1989 - Khomeini orders Moslems to murder "Satanic
Verses" novelist Rushdie
1989 - Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 mill damages for
Bhopol disaster
1989 - World's 1st satellite Skyphone opens
1989 - The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning
System are placed into orbit.
1990 - Alan Ayckbourn's "Man of the Moment,"
premieres in London
1990 - Perrier recalls 160 million bottles of sparkling
water after traces of benzene, a carcinogen, are found in some
1990 - Space probe Voyager 1 takes photograph of entire
solar system
1991 - "Mule Bone" opens at Ethel Barrymore
Theater NYC for 67 performances
1991 - NL Cy Young winner Doug Drabek wins record $3 mil
salary arbitration
1992 - Andre Cason runs world record 6 m indoor (6.41 sec)
1992 - Cease fire in Somalia begins
1992 - Kieren John Perkins swims world record 800m freestyle
(7:46.60)
1992 - Merlene Ottey runs world record 60m indoor (6.96 sec)
1993 - Fire in Linxi department store in Tangshan China,
kills 79
1994 - Alexander Golubev skates Olympic record 500m (36.33)
1994 - Andrei Chikatilo, a Russian serial killer is executed
by shooting.
1995 - Wellington 2-498d & 4-475 beat Canterbury 496
& 2-476d
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 enters orbit around
asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
2002 - The Tullaghmurray Lass sinks off the coast of
Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland killing three members of the same family
on board.
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.
2005 - Lebanon's former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, is
assassinated, prompting the country to fall into chaos.
2005 - Seven people are killed and 151 wounded in a series
of bombings by suspected Al-Qaeda-linked militants that hit the Philippines'
Makati financial district in Metro Manila, Davao City, and General Santos City.
2008 - Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman
opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university
resulting in 24 casualties; 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 18 injured.
2011 - The 2011 Bahraini uprising commenced.
2013 - A suicide bombing kills 4 police officer and injures
5 in Dagestan
2013 - Oscar Pistorius,a South African amputee sprint
runner, is charged with the murder of Reeva Steenkamp
2013 - The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest
and highest-energy particle accelerator, will be switched off for two years for
upgrading
1778 - The Stars and Stripes was carried to a foreign port, in France, for the first time. It was aboard the American ship Ranger. 1803 - Moses Coates received a patent for the apple parer. 1849 - The first photograph of a U.S. President, while in office, was taken by Matthew Brady in New York City. President James Polk was the subject of the picture. 1859 - Oregon became the 33rd member of the Union. 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell filed an application for a patent for the telephone. It was officially issued on March 7, 1876. 1889 - In Los Angeles, CA, oranges began their first trip to the east. 1895 - Oscar Wilde's final play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," opened at the St. James' Theatre in London. 1899 - The U.S. Congress approved voting machines for use in federal elections. 1900 - Russia imposed tighter imperial control over Finland in response to an international petition for Finland's freedom. 1900 - In South Africa, British Gen. Roberts invaded Orange Free State with 20,000 troops. 1903 - The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor was established. 1912 - The first diesel engine submarine was commissioned in Groton, CT. 1912 - Arizona was admitted as the 48th U.S. state. 1920 - The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago. The first president of the organization was Maude Wood Park. 1929 - The "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in Chicago, IL. Seven gangsters who were rivals of Al Capone were killed. 1932 - The U.S. won the first bobsled competition at the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, NY. 1940 - The first porpoise born in captivity arrived at Marineland in Florida. 1945 - Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the United Nations. 1946 - ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was unveiled. The device, built at the University of Pennsylvania, was the world's first general purpose electronic computer. 1954 - The TV show "Letter to Loretta" changed its name to "The Loretta Young Show." The show premiered on September 20, 1953. 1957 - Lionel Hampton’s only major musical work, "King David," made its debut at New York’s Town Hall. 1961 - Lawrencium, element 103, was first produced in Berkely, CA. 1962 - U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave a tour of the White House on television. 1966 - Rick Mount of Lebanon, IN, became the first high school, male athlete to be pictured on the cover of "Sports Illustrated". 1966 - Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers set a National Basketball Association (NBA) record as he reached a career high of 20,884 points after seven seasons. 1968 - The fourth Madison Square Gardens opened. 1979 - Twenty-year-old rookie, Don Maloney, of the New York Rangers, scored his first goal in the National Hockey League. It came on his first NHL shot. 1979 - Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists. He was killed in a shootout between his abductors and police. 1980 - Walter Cronkite announced his retirement from the "CBS Evening News." 1983 - A 6-year-old boy became the first person to receive a heart and liver transplants in the same operation. 1985 - Cable News Network (CNN) reporter Jeremy Levin was freed. He had been being held in Lebanon by extremists. 1989 - Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie because of his novel "The Satanic Verses." 1989 - The first satellite of the Global Positioning System was placed into orbit around Earth. 1989 - Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the government of India. The court-ordered settlement was a result of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster. 1997 - Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery began a series of spacewalks that were required to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope. 1998 - U.S. authorities officially announced that Eric Rudolph was a suspect in a bombing of an abortion clinic in Alabama. 2002 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Shays-Meehan bill. The bill, if passed by the U.S. Senate, would ban millions of unregulated money that goes to the national political parties. 2002 - Sylvester Stallone filed a lawsuit against Kenneth Starr. The suit alleged that Starr had given bad advice about selling Planet Hollywood stock. 2003 - In Madrid, Spain, a ceramic plate with a bullfighting motif painted by Pablo Picasso in 1949 was stolen from an art show. The plate was on sale for $12,400.
1859 Oregon became the 33rd state in the United States. 1912 Arizona became the 48th state in the United States. 1920 The League of Women Voters was founded. 1929 Members of Al Capone's gang killed rival gang members in the St. Valentine's Day massacre. 1989 Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, calling for the death of Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. 2001 The Kansas Board of Education reversed its 1999 ruling and restored evolution to the state's science curriculum. 2003 Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was euthanized because of incurable lung cancer.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/feb14.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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