TODAY IN HISTORY: FEBRUARY 14

 

February 14

 

748 – Abbasid Revolution: The Hashimi rebels under Abu Muslim Khorasani take Merv, capital of the Umayyad province Khorasan, marking the consolidation of the Abbasid revolt.

842 – Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in the French and German languages.

1014 – Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry of Bavaria, King of Germany and of Italy, as Holy Roman Emperor.

1130 – The troubled 1130 papal election exposes a rift within the College of Cardinals.

1349 – Several hundred Jews are burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews are forcibly removed from Strasbourg.

1530 – Spanish conquistadores, led by Nuño de Guzmán, overthrow and execute Tangaxuan II, the last independent monarch of the Tarascan state in present-day central Mexico.

1556 – Having been declared a heretic and laicized by Pope Paul IV on 4 December 1555, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is publicly defrocked at Christ Church Cathedral.

1556 – Coronation of Akbar as ruler of the Mughal Empire.

1613 – Wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate at Whitehall Palace, London.

1655 – The Mapuches launch coordinated attacks against the Spanish in Chile beginning the Mapuche uprising of 1655.

1778 – The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.

1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Kettle Creek is fought in Georgia.

1779 – James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Cape St. Vincent: John Jervis, (later 1st Earl of St Vincent) and Horatio Nelson (later 1st Viscount Nelson) lead the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.

1804 – Karađorđe 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.

1835 – The original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in the Latter Day Saint movement, is formed in Kirtland, Ohio.

1849 – In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.

1852 – Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children, is founded in London.

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 is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.

1879 – The War of the Pacific breaks out when the Chilean Army occupies the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.

1899 – Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.

1900 – The British Army begins the Battle of the Tugela Heights in an effort to lift the Siege of Ladysmith.

1903 – The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor).

1912 – Arizona is admitted as the 48th and the last contiguous U.S. state.

1912 – The U.S. Navy commissions its first class of diesel-powered submarines.

1918 – Russia adopts the Gregorian calendar.

1919 – The Polish–Soviet War begins.

1920 – The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago.

1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

1929 – Saint Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone's gang, are murdered in Chicago.

1939 – World War II: German battleship Bismarck is launched.

1942 – World War II: Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.

1943 – World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated.

1943 – World War II: Tunisia Campaign: General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army launches a counter-attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.

1944 – World War II: In the action of 14 February 1944, a Royal Navy submarine sinks a German-controlled Italian Regia Marina submarine in the Strait of Malacca.

1945 – World War II: On the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden.

1945 – World War II: Navigational error leads to the mistaken bombing of Prague, Czechoslovakia by a United States Army Air Forces squadron of B-17s assisting in the Soviet Red Army's Vistula–Oder Offensive.

1945 – World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans

1945 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.

1946 – The Bank of England is nationalized.

1949 – The Knesset (parliament of Israel) convenes for the first time.

1949 – The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada. The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

1961 – Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California.

1966 – Australian currency is decimalized.

1979 – In Kabul, Setami Milli militants kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.

1983 – United American Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee collapses. Its president, Jake Butcher, is later convicted of fraud.

1989 – Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

1989 – Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

1990 – Ninety-two people are killed when Indian Airlines Flight 605 crashes in Bangalore, India.

1990 – The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later becomes famous as Pale Blue Dot.

1998 – An oil tanker train collides with a freight train in Yaoundé, Cameroon, spilling fuel oil. One person scavenging the oil created a massive explosion which killed 120.

2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.

2003 – Iraq disarmament crisis: UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix reports to the United Nations Security Council that disarmament inspectors have found no weapons of mass destruction in Ba'athist Iraq.

2004 – In a suburb of Moscow, Russia, the roof of the Transvaal water park collapses, killing more than 28 people, and wounding 193 others.

2005 – In Beirut, 23 people, including former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, are killed when the equivalent of around 1,000 kg of TNT is detonated while Hariri's motorcade drives through the city.

2005 – Seven people are killed and 151 wounded in a series of bombings by suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants that hit Makati, Davao City, and General Santos, all in the Philippines.

2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source for viral videos.

2008 – Northern Illinois University shooting: A gunman opens fire in a lecture hall of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb County, Illinois, resulting in six fatalities (including the gunman) and 21 injuries.

2011 – As a part of Arab Spring, the Bahraini uprising begins with a 'Day of Rage'.

2018 – Jacob Zuma resigns as President of South Africa.

2018 – A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 17 injuries.

2019 – Pulwama attack takes place in Lethpora in Pulwama district, Jammu and Kashmir, India in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel and a suicide bomber were killed and 35 were injured.