On Feb. 15, 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.
In 1710, King Louis XV of France was born.
In 1764, the city of St. Louis was established by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau.
In 1809, American inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick, creator of the first successful horse-drawn mechanical reaper, was born in Rockbridge County, Va.
In 1820, American suffragist Susan B. Anthony was born in Adams, Mass.
In 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed more than four weeks later.
In 1942, the British colony of Singapore surrendered to the Japanese.
In 1944, Allied bombers destroyed the monastery atop Monte Cassino in Italy.
In 1961, 73 people, including an 18-member U.S. figure skating team en route to Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.
In 1965, Canada's new maple-leaf flag was unfurled in ceremonies in Ottawa.
In 1982, the oil-drilling rig Ocean Ranger capsized and sank in a storm off Newfoundland. All 84 people aboard were lost.
In 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.
In 1990, U.S. President George H.W. Bush attended a drug summit in Colombia with the presidents of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Also in 1990, Washington Mayor Marion Barry was indicted on eight counts of perjury and drug possession.
In 1991, 100 people were killed when a tractor-trailer hauling dynamite overturned and exploded in Thailand.
In 1997, Tara Lipinski, 14, defeated defending women's champion Michelle Kwan to become the youngest U.S. figure skating champion.
In 1999, President Bill Clinton continued his whirlwind visit to Mexico, where he conferred with President Ernesto Zedillo. The body of Amadou Diallo, the unarmed West African gunned down by New York City police, was returned to his native Guinea.
In 2000, Republican presidential rivals George W. Bush and John McCain fought over campaign financing and the tenor of their nomination contest in a testy debate in Columbia, S.C. that included Alan Keyes.
In 2002, President George W. Bush approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the site for long-term disposal of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Canadian pairs figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were awarded a gold medal to resolve a judging controversy at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Discovery of a human skull in a wooded area near a crematory in Georgia led investigators to remains of more than 300 bodies that were to have been cremated but instead were stacked in sheds and in the woods.
In 2003, millions of people demonstrated against war in cities around the world, including New York, San Francisco, London, Paris and Berlin.
In 2004, A pair of blazes in China killed at least 93 people. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won the Daytona 500 on the same track where his father was killed three years earlier. The West defeated the East 136-132 in the NBA All-Star game.
In 2005, defrocked priest Paul Shanley was sentenced in Boston to 12 to 15 years in prison on child rape charges. Christopher Pittman, a teen who claimed the antidepressant Zoloft had driven him to kill his grandparents at age 12, was found guilty in Charleston, S.C. of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. A U.S. appeals court in Washington ruled that journalists have no First Amendment privilege to protect confidential sources.
In 2006, a U.S. House of Representatives report sharply criticized government response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster for what it called "mistakes, misjudgments, lapses and absurdities."
In 2008, business tycoon Steve Fossett, 63, was declared dead five months after his small plane vanished after taking off from an airstrip near Yerington, Nev. (Fossett's remains were discovered in October 2008 in California's Sierra Nevada mountains.)
In 2009, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela won a referendum to eliminate term limits, paving the way for him to run again in 2012. The Western Conference beat the East 146-119 in the NBA All-Star game. Matt Kenseth won the rain-shortened Daytona 500.
Today's Birthdays: Actor Kevin McCarthy is 96. Actor Allan Arbus is 92. Former Illinois Congressman John Anderson is 88. Former Defense and Energy Secretary James Schlesinger is 81. Actress Claire Bloom is 79. Author Susan Brownmiller is 75. Songwriter Brian Holland is 69. Rock musician Mick Avory (The Kinks) is 66. Jazz musician Henry Threadgill is 66. Actress Marisa Berenson is 63.
Those Born On This Date Include: Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei (1564); jeweler Charles Tiffany (1812); political leader and diplomat Elihu Root (1845); philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (1861); explorer Ernest Shackleton (1874); automaker Louis Renault (1877); songwriter Harold Arlen (1905); actors John Barrymore (1882), Cesar Romero (1907), & Harvey Korman (1927); astronaut Roger Chaffee, killed in a fire on the ground during the 1967 Apollo I test (1935); comedian Chris Farley (1964).
Today In Entertainment February 15
In 1941, Duke Ellington recorded "Take The A Train" with his big band. It became the orchestra's theme song.
In 1950, Disney released the movie "Cinderella."
In 1964, for the first time one act, The Beatles, had five songs on Billboard's Hot 100 list: "I Want To Hold Your Hand," "I Saw Her Standing There," "She Loves You," "Please, Please Me" and "My Bonnie."
In 1965, singer Nat "King" Cole died of lung cancer in Santa Monica, California. He was 46.
In 1971, Pink Floyd released their "Dark Side of the Moon" album.
In 1981, blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield died in San Francisco of an accidental drug overdose. Bloomfield was a veteran of the white blues revival in the 1960s.In 1984, Broadway singer and actress Ethel Merman died at the age of 76.
In 2000, Darva Conger married Rick Rockwell on the Fox TV show "Who Wants To Marry A Multimillionaire." Fox later learned an ex-girlfriend accused Rockwell of hitting her, and Conger asked for an annulment less than a week later.
In 2004, actress Jan Miner, best known as "Madge the Manicurist" in Palmolive TV commercials, died in Bethel, Conn., at age 86.
Thought for Today: "We live by encouragement and die without it - slowly, sadly and angrily." - Celeste Holm, American actress.
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