Today in History
14 February
James Cook
Thomas Cranmer
Saint Valentine, depicted here as a boy bishop, was martyred on February 14
Illustration: Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale in Old English Songs & Ballads/Mary Evans Picture Library
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14 February |
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| 1014 Pope Benedict VIII was crowned Henry II as Holy Roman Emperor. | ||
| 1076 Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV | ||
| 1130 Jewish Cardinal Pietro Pierleone elected as anti-pope Anacletus II |
James Cook |
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| 1400 King Richard II of England, deposed from the throne the previous year, died mysteriously in Pontefract Castle. | ||
| 1477 The world's first known valentine was sent to John Paston from Margery Brews, addressed "To my right welbelovyd Voluntyne." | ||
| 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 | ||
| 1613 King James I's daughter Elizabeth marries Frederik | ||
| 1670 Roman Catholic emperor Leopold I chases Jews out of Vienna | ||
| 1689 English parliament places Mary Stuart/Prince Willem III on the throne | ||
| 1746 Henry Pelham appointed English premier | ||
| 1766 Dutch governor Falck signs Treaty of Batticaloa with rebels | ||
| 1779 British explorer Captain James Cook was murdered in Hawaii. | ||
| 1797 The British fleet, under Admirals John Jervis and Horatio Nelson, defeated the Spanish at the battle of St. Vincent off Portugal. | ||
| 1859 Oregon admitted as 33rd U.S. State | ||
| 1862 Galena, 1st US iron-clad warship for service at sea, launched | ||
| 1867 Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Co issues 1st policy | ||
| 1879 Chilean troops occupy Antofagasta | ||
| 1891 William Tecumseh Sherman, Union general in the American Civil War, died. | ||
| 1893 Hawaii was annexed to the United States by treaty, but the treaty was withdrawn by President Grover Cleveland. | ||
| 1895 Oscar Wilde's "Importance of Being Earnest," opens in London |
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| 1896 Theodor Herzl publishes "Der Judenstaat" | ||
| 1912 Arizona became the 48th state of the Union. | ||
| 1918 USSR adopts New Style (Gregorian) calendar (originally Feb 1) | ||
| 1919 United Parcel Service forms | ||
| 1920 League of Women Voters forms in Chicago | ||
| 1921 Canadian 5› nickel coin is authorized | ||
| 1922 Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi began the first regular radio broadcasting transmission from England. | ||
| 1929 Al Capone's henchmen, in order to prevent the hijacking of whiskey shipments, killed seven members of the Bugs Moran gang in the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" in a Chicago garage. | ||
| 1931 Spanish Govt of General Damasco Berenguer falls | ||
| 1936 National Negro Congress organizes in Chicago | ||
| 1939 The German navy launched its battleship Bismarck. | ||
| 1940 British merchant vessel fleet is armed | ||
| 1941 German Africa Corps lands in Tripoli, Libya | Thomas Cranmer |
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| 1942 Japanese parachutists land near oil center Palembang Sumatra | ||
| 1942 Rotterdam's Maas tunnel opens | ||
| 1943 German offensive through de Faid-pass Tunisia | ||
| 1943 In World War II, the Russians captured Rostov, Voroshilovgrad and Krasny Sulin from the Germans. | ||
| 1944 Anti-Japanese revolt on Java | ||
| 1945 8th Air Force bombs Dresden | ||
| 1946 Bank of England nationalized | ||
| 1946 An electronic brain, or computer, began working at the University of Pennsylvania, taking seconds to do calculations which normally took hours. It was called ENIAC, or Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer. | ||
| 1949 1st session of Knesset (Jerusalem Israel) | ||
| 1949 Dutch Drees govt presents plan for the building of 30,000 houses | ||
| 1950 USSR & China sign peace treaty | ||
| 1950 A 30-year treaty was signed between the Soviet Union and China in Moscow. | ||
| 1951 Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta & takes middleweight title | ||
| 1952 6th Olympic winter games open at Oslo, Norway | ||
| 1952 Comedian Joey Adams marries gossip columnist Cindy Heller | ||
| 1956 The 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party opened, during which Nikita Khrushchev denounced the policies of Joseph Stalin. | ||
| 1956 Indonesia withdraws from Neth Indonesian Union |
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| 1958 King Faisal of Iraq and King Hussein of Jordan proclaimed the merger of their kingdoms in the "Arab Federation," with King Faisal as head of state and King Hussein his deputy. | ||
| 1960 Marshal Ayub Khan elected president of Pakistan | ||
| 1963 Harold Wilson was elected leader of the British Labour Party. | ||
| 1966 Australia introduces 1st decimal currency postage stamps | ||
| 1967 Latin American nuclear free zone proposal drawn up | ||
| 1972 The Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna 20 was launched to the moon | ||
| 1975 Bomb explodes at annex of Amsterdam metro station | ||
| 1979 The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolphe Dubs, was killed when security forces tried to free him from kidnappers. | ||
| 1979 The U.S. embassy in Iran was stormed by demonstrators, holding the ambassador and staff captive for several hours. | ||
| 1985 Hostage CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is released in Beirut | ||
| 1988 Alfredo Stroessner re-elected president of Paraguay | ||
| 1988 Austrian composer and songwriter Frederick "Fritz" Loewe died. Stage successes included "My Fair Lady," "Gigi" and "Brigadoon." |
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| 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini, in a fatwa, ordered the execution of British author Salman Rushdie after the publication of his novel, "Satanic Verses." | ||
| 1989 African National Congress (ANC) opens office in Amsterdam | ||
| 1989 Kidnappers escaped with up to $2.5 million ransom after releasing former Belgian Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants from a month of captivity. | ||
| 1989 Union Carbide Corp. accepted an Indian Supreme Court ruling that it pay $470 million in compensation for the 1984 Bhopal poison gas disaster, in which poisonous clouds from a Carbide fertilizer plant enveloped nearly 20 square miles and killed thousands in the immediate area. | ||
| 1989 World's 1st satellite Skyphone opens | ||
| 1992 Cease fire in Somalia begins | ||
| 1992 The European Community and the seven-nation European Free Trade Association struck a final deal, clearing the way for the creation of the world's biggest single market. | ||
| 1995 Peru declared a cease-fire at the end of a 19-day-old border war with Ecuador. |
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