Today's Highlight in History:
On Feb. 14, 1920, the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maud Wood Park.
Other Notable Events
In 1778, the American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Star and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.
In 1779, Cap't. James Cook was killed in Hawaii.
In 1849, James Polk became the first U.S. president to be photographed while in office. The photographer was Mathew Brady, who is famous for his Civil War pictures.
In 1859, Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.
In 1886, the California citrus industry was born, as the first trainload of oranges left Los Angeles for eastern markets.
In 1899, Congress approved and President William McKinley signed legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections.
In 1903, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt signed a law creating the Department of Commerce and Labor.
In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state.
In 1929, in what became known as the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre," gunmen believed to be working for Prohibition-era crime lord Al Capone killed seven members of the rival George "Bugs" Moran gang in a Chicago garage.
In 1945, Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the United Nations.
In 1949, Israel's legislature, the Knesset, was convened for the first time.
In 1962, First lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted a tour of the White House in a videotaped special that was broadcast on CBS and NBC (and several nights later on ABC).
In 1979, Iranian guerrillas stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, trapping Ambassador William Sullivan and 100 staff members. Forces of the Ayatollah Khomeini later freed them but the incident foreshadowed the embassy takeover in November. Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.
In 1984, 6-year-old Stormie Jones became the world's first heart-liver transplant recipient at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. (She lived until November 1990.)
In 1989, Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, offended by "The Satanic Verses," called on Muslims to kill its British author, Salman Rushdie. He offered a $1 million reward for Rushdie's death, sending the writer into hiding. Tehran rescinded the death sentence in 1998. Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the government of India in a court-ordered settlement of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster.
In 1990, 90 people were killed and 56 injured in the crash of an Indian Airlines Airbus 320, about 50 yards short of the runway in Bangalore, India.
In 1992, the Bush administration denied lying about the fate of repatriated Haitians and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject efforts to stop the return of thousands of boat people.
In 1993, six people were killed in a modern Valentine's Day massacre in a Bronx, New York, neighborhood where area residents ignored the gunfire.
In 1994, a convicted serial killer who admitted killing 55 people was executed by firing squad in a Russian prison.
In 1999, President Bill Clinton, accompanied by his wife, Hillary, began a quick visit to Mexico to encourage its struggle against narcotics and government corruption, and grow its markets for U.S. products. John D. Ehrlichman, President Nixon's domestic affairs adviser who was disgraced and imprisoned for his role in the Watergate cover-up, died in Atlanta at age 73.
In 2000, three tornadoes tore across rural southwestern Georgia, killing 20 people and destroying homes, businesses and farms. Two sophomores at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. were found shot to death in a fast-food restaurant just two blocks from the school, which was still reeling from the April 1999 massacre. (The restaurant killings remain unsolved.)
In 2003, Dolly the sheep - the first mammal cloned from an adult - was put to death at age 6, due to premature aging and disease, by the Scottish scientists who brought her to controversial life six years earlier.
In 2004, at least 25 people died and 100 others were injured when a giant glass roof collapsed at the largest city water park in Moscow. Authorities suspected faulty construction. Also in 2004, Iraqi insurgents overwhelmed a police station west of Baghdad, killing 23 people and freeing dozens of prisoners.
In 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated. Eleven others died with him. Also in 2005, a gas explosion inside a Chinese mine killed 214 people, the worst reported Chinese mining disaster since the 1949 communist revolution. An estimated 59 people were killed and some 210 people were injured during a fire at a mosque in Iran. President George W. Bush said he would nominate Lester M. Crawford as head of the Food and Drug Administration, a position Crawford had held as acting commissioner for nearly a year.
In 2006, a senior Iranian nuclear official confirmed the country had resumed enriching uranium, considered a first step in nuclear production. This prompted Russia and France to call on Tehran to halt its work.
In 2007, U.S. Department of Defense records showed the number of U.S. Army recruits with criminal backgrounds had risen 65 percent in the past three years.
In 2008, a former student at Northern Illinois University opened fire in a lecture hall at the school, killing six students and wounding 15 others before killing himself. A former student dressed in black walked onto the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire on a packed science class; Steven Kazmierczak killed five students and wounded 15 others before committing suicide. [Differing body counts both from The AP. — Ed.] Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney endorsed John McCain for the party's presidential nomination.
In 2009, in a reversal to previous testimony in the Ron Blagojevich impeachment proceedings, Roland Burris, chosen by Blagojevich to succeed President Barack Obama in the Senate, admitted the former Illinois governor's brother asked him for campaign funds. Savoring his first big victory in Congress, President Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address to celebrate the just-passed $787 billion economic stimulus bill as a "major milestone on our road to recovery." Publisher Alfred A. Knopf Jr., 90, died in New York.
Today's Birthdays February 14: TV personality Hugh Downs is 89. Actress-singer Florence Henderson is 76. Country singer Razzy Bailey is 71. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is 68. Jazz musician Maceo Parker is 67. Movie director Alan Parker is 66. Journalist Carl Bernstein is 66. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) is 63. TV personality Pat O'Brien is 62. Magician Teller (Penn and Teller) is 62. Cajun singer-musician Michael Doucet (Beausoleil) is 59. Actor Ken Wahl is 53. Opera singer Renee Fleming is 51.
Those Born On This Date Include: Statesman and abolitionist Fredrick Douglas (1818); suffrage leader Anna Howard Shaw (1847); sports announcer Mel Allen, football coach Woody Hayes and labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (all 1913).
Today In Entertainment February 14
In 1894, Comedy legend Jack Benny was born Benjamin Kubelsky in Waukegan, Ill.In 1895, Oscar Wilde's final play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," opened at the St. James' Theatre in London.
In 1972, "Grease" opened off-Broadway. Original cast members included Barry Bostwick and Adrienne Barbeau. The show moved to Broadway later in the year, and closed in 1980. Also in 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began a week as co-hosts of the Mike Douglas television talk show.
In 1973, David Bowie collapsed from exhaustion at the end of an elaborate Valentine's Day show at Radio City Music Hall.
In 1977, singer-songwriter Janis Ian received nearly 500 Valentine's Day cards from fans. She sang about never getting Valentine's Day cards as a teenager in her ballad, "At Seventeen." Also in 1977, The B-52's played their first concert at a party in Athens, Georgia.
In 1980, CBS announced that Dan Rather would succeed Walter Cronkite as anchorman and managing editor on "The CBS Evening News" the following year.
In 1984, Elton John married studio engineer Renate Blauel. The marriage lasted four years.
In 1992, Weezer had their first practice, in Los Angeles. They played their first show a few weeks later.
In 1996, the Artist Formerly Known As Prince married dancer Mayte in Minneapolis.
In 1999, singer Buddy Knox died after a brief battle with cancer in Bremerton, Washington. He was 65. He's probably best known for the 1957 hit "Party Doll."
In 2009, drummer Louie Bellson, who'd performed with Duke Ellington and his late wife, Pearl Bailey, died in Los Angeles at age 84.
Thought for Today: “Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” — Jack Benny (born this date in 1894, died in 1974).
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