February 14......

February 14 is the 45th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 320 (321 in leap years) days remaining in the year on this date.

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}

EVENTS

● 842 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in French and German language.

● 1014 - Pope Boniface I recognizes Henry of Bavaria as King of Germany.

● 1076 - Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.

● 1130 - Jewish Cardinal Pietro Pierleone elected as anti-pope Anacletus II

● 1349 - Two thousand Jews burned at the stake in Strasbourg, Germany.

● 1540 - Emperor Charles V enters Ghent without resistance, executes rebels

● 1556 - Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.

● 1575 - Henry III of France marries Louise de Lorraine-Vaudémont.

● 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 Willem III on the throne

● 1743 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister.

● 1746 - Henry Pelham appointed English premier

● 1760 - Richard Allen, the first black ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church (1799), and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1816, was born in slavery in Philadelphia. {It is interesting to note despite the common notion there was slavery outside the south.}

● 1766 - Dutch governor Falck signs Treaty of Batticaloa with rebels

● 1778 - The Stars and Stripes was carried to a foreign port, in France, for the first time. It was aboard the American ship Ranger.

● 1779 - Captain Cook killed by native Hawai'ians after taking hostages.

● 1794 - 1st US textile machinery patent granted, to James Davenport, Philadelphia PA

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

● 1803 - Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress which conflicts with the Constitution is void.

● 1803 - Apple parer patented by Moses Coats, Downington, PA

● 1804 - New Jersey becomes the last Northern state to abolish slavery.

● 1804 - Karadjordje leads the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire.

● 1805 - Colonial American theologian Henry Ware, 41, was confirmed as the first Unitarian professor to teach at Harvard University. Soon after, the Trinitarian Congregationalist teachers began withdrawing from the school, and in 1808 established Andover Theological Seminary.

● 1817 - Birth as a slave of Frederick Douglass, black abolitionist and founder of the influential The North Star newspaper in Rochester, New York. "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will."

● 1831 - Parisians plunder a church and Archbishop's palace in a demonstration against the former Bourbon dynasty.

● 1831 - Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills dejjazmatch Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.

● 1835 - The original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is formed in Kirtland, Ohio.

● 1843 - The event that inspired the song Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! is held.

● 1847 - Anna Howard Shaw, one of the most influential leaders of the women's suffrage movement, was born.

● 1848 - Prussian Revolution begins.

● 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.

● 1854 - Texas linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.

● 1859 - Oregon admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.

● 1862 - Galena, 1st US iron-clad warship for service at sea, launched, Connecticut

● 1867 - Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company issues 1st policy

● 1867 - Morehouse College organizes (Augusta GA)

● 1870 - Esther Morris becomes the first woman justice of the peace in the U.S. Morris had been credited with winning women's suffrage in Wyoming territory the previous year. She arm-twisted two Democratic lawmakers into sponsoring legislation giving women the vote. Most Wyoming lawmakers treated the measure lightheartedly, hoping their bold step would attract more women to the territory. Democrats, for their part, were counting on a veto by Gov. John Campbell. After the bill passed, however, Campbell promptly signed it, making Wyoming the first state or territory to enact women's suffrage. In 1872, the Democrats try to repeal the bill, offering Campbell $2,000 to cooperate. The governor firmly refused.

● 1872 - 1st state bird refuge authorized (Lake Merritt CA)

● 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray. Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor.

● 1879 - The War of the Pacific breaks out when Chilean armed forces occupy the Bolivian port city of Antofagasta.

● 1883 - 1st state labor union legislation; New Jersey legalizes unions

● 1886 - First trainload of oranges left Los Angeles via the transcontinental railroad.

● 1889 - 1st trainload of fruit (oranges) leaves Los Angeles for the east

● 1894 - Venus is both a morning star & evening star

● 1896 - Birth of George Cheitanov, Yambol, Bulgaria. Writer, speaker, theorist of the Bulgarian anarchist movement. His first radical act was the burning the files of the local court in 1913, which forced him to flee the country, landing in Paris at the age of 18. Returning to Bulgaria in 1914, he was arrested, tortured, and imprisoned two years before escaping to Moscow. Displeased with the Bolsheviks. Foments an insurrection in Bulgaria, again imprisoned with other anarchists, but they manage to escape and go underground. After launching an attack in Sofia in April 1925, martial law was declared. Cheitanov was captured and executed the night of June 2, at age 29.

● 1899 - Congress approved and President William McKinley signed legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections.

● 1900 - Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country.

● 1900 - Second Boer War: In South Africa, 20,000 British troops invade the Orange Free State.

● 1903 - Western Federation of Miners strikes for eight-hour day.

● 1903 - The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into Dept. of Commerce and Dept. of Labor).

● 1912 - Arizona admitted as the 48th U.S. state. Newest state in the union until Alaska admitted in 1959, for this period of time carried the nickname, "The Baby State."

● 1912 - In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned.

● 1913 - Birth of American labor strongman Jimmy Hoffa (1913-????).

● 1914 - High Council of Labor forms in Hague Netherlands

● 1914 - Birth of Ira F. Stanphill, Assemblies of God clergyman and song evangelist. He is best known today for the hymn, "Room at the Cross," which he penned in 1946.

● 1918 - The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (1 February according to the Julian calendar).

● 1919 - The Polish-Soviet War begins.

● 1919 - United Parcel Service forms

● 1920 - The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago. The first president of the organization was Maude Wood Park.

● 1921 - In New York, Jane Heap and Margaret Anderson face obscenity charges for publishing a portion of James Joyce's "Ulysses." They were fined $50.

● 1921 - Canadian 5¢ nickel coin is authorized

● 1923 - American-Italian anarchist Nicola Sacco goes on prison hunger strike.

● 1924 - The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is founded.

● 1925 - State of emergency crisis in Bayern ends, NSDAP re-allowed

● 1927 - Uprising of Portugese workers crushed, with 270 killed and over 1,000 injured.

● 1929 - St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Seven members of Chicago's Moran gang, waiting in a garage for a shipment of hijacked liquor, are executed by a Capone firing squad outfitted in police uniforms.

● 1931 - Spanish government of General Damasco Berenguer falls

● 1933 - Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak is fatally wounded in Miami, Florida, by an assassin's bullet intended for Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt.

● 1936 - National Negro Congress organizes in Chicago

● 1940 - The first porpoise born in captivity arrived at Marineland in Florida.

● 1940 - British merchant vessel fleet is armed

● 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

● 1942 - Rotterdam's Maas tunnel opens

● 1942 - Fall of the Battle of Pasir Panjang in Singapore.

● 1943 - World War II: Rostov, Russia is liberated.

● 1943 - World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass - German General Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia.

● 1943 - Stanley Murphy and Louis Taylor begin three-month prison hunger strike over discrimination against conscientious objectors, Danbury, Connecticut.

● 1944 - World War II: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.

● 1945 - On the second day of the Bombing of Dresden in World War II the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony. {This is significant since there were no targets of military value in the city. It was meant to break the will and kill the civilian population.}

● 1945 - Bombing of Prague - probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.

● 1945 - Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru join the United Nations.

● 1945 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially starting the U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relationship.

● 1945 - Fascism destroyed in City of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina(then:Yugoslavia) thanks to partisans(Dalmatinaska birgada, Hercegovacka divizija).

● 1946 - The Bank of England is nationalized.

● 1946 - ENIAC (for "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer"), the first general-purpose electronic computer, unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania.

● 1949 - Russian-born English chemist and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, 74, was elected first president of the newly restored modern state of Israel.

● 1949 - The Knesset (Israeli parliament) first convenes.

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

● 1949 - Dutch Drees government presents plan for the building of 30,000 houses

● 1950 - USSR & China sign peace treaty

● 1952 - Olympic Games: Winter Olympic Games - VI Olympic Winter Games open in Oslo, Norway.

● 1954 - Senator John Kennedy appears on "Meet the Press"

● 1956 - Indonesia withdraws from Netherlands Indonesian Union

● 1956 - The XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union starts in Moscow. In the last night of the meeting, in a secret session, Premier Nikita Khruschev condemns Josef Stalin's crimes.

● 1957 - The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC, originally with another name) is founded. Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes its president, Atlanta, Georgia.

● 1957 - Georgia Senate unanimously approves Senator Leon Butts' bill barring blacks from playing baseball with whites

● 1958 - Arab Federation of Iraq & Jordan forms

● 1960 - Marshal Ayub Khan elected President of Pakistan

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

● 1962 - First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.

● 1963 - US launches communications satellite Syncom 1

● 1966 - Australia introduces 1st decimal currency postage stamps

● 1965 - Less than a week before his assassination, Malcolm X's home fire bombed. New York City.

● 1967 - Treaty banning nuclear weapons in Latin America signed in Tlatelolco, Mexico.

● 1971 - Pres. Richard Nixon orders secret taping system in the White House.

● 1972 - Luna 20 (Russia) launched to orbit & soft landing on Moon

● 1973 - First released group of American prisoners of war (POWs) formally held by North Vietnam arrive in the U.S. at Travis Air Force Base, Calif.

● 1974 - Russian author charged with treason; Soviet authorities formally charge Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn with treason a day after forcing him to leave the USSR. {His real crime was telling the truth.}

● 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

● 1979 - In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.

● 1980 - Olympic Games: Winter Olympic Games - XIII Olympic Winter Games open in Lake Placid, New York.

● 1980 - US launches Solar Maximum Mission Observatory to study solar flares

● 1980 - Walter Cronkite announces his retirement from the CBS Evening News.

● 1981 - Stardust Disaster. A fire in a Dublin nightclub kills 48 people

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

● 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 reporter Jeremy Levin was freed. He had been being held in Lebanon by extremists.

● 1985 - The U.S. Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism announced their decision to begin accepting women as rabbis.

● 1986 - Smithsonian Museum of Natural History agrees to return Native American skeletal remains for reburial when a clear biological or cultural link can be established.

● 1988 - Alfredo Stroessner re-elected President of Paraguay

● 1989 - Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal Disaster. {Another case of too little too late; this was a criminal act and should have carried criminal penalties, i.e. jail time for those responsible.}

● 1989 - Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini (aka "Chuckles") passes a sentence of death on Salman Rushdie, orders Muslims to murder "Satanic Verses" author. He also offers a $1 to $3 million bounty for a successful killing.

● 1989 - The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit.

● 1989 - African National Congress (ANC) opens office in Amsterdam

● 1989 - World's 1st satellite Skyphone opens

● 1990 - Space probe Voyager 1 takes photograph of entire solar system

● 1991 - Air raid shelter at Baghdad bombed killing 300

● 1992 - Cease fire in Somalia begins

● 1993 - Fire in Linxi department store in Tangshan China, kills 79

● 1993 - Missing two-year-old found dead; Police confirm a body found on a railway embankment in Merseyside is that of missing toddler James Bulger.

● 1996 - China launches a Long March 3 rocket, carrying a Intelsat 708 satellite, that ended in tragedy: The rocket flew off course 3 seconds after liftoff and crashed into the nearest rural village. A number of people are killed. It is later discovered that a gust of wind caused the incident.

● 1997 - Lawrence 'killed by racists'; Jurors at the inquest into the death of Stephen Lawrence have decided the black teenager was unlawfully killed "in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths".

● 1997 - In "Prince of Peace Plowshares," six activists pour blood and symbolically disarm the U.S.S. Sullivans at the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine. All are eventually convicted of trespass and destruction of government property.

● 1997 - Last remaining Jahalin Bedoiin families, who had been living in the Abu-Dis area of Palestine for over 40 years, are forcibly removed to make way for new Jewish settlements (illegal under the Oslo accords).

● 1997 - Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery began a series of spacewalks that were required to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope.

● 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 - Launching his defense against war crimes charges, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic justified his actions as a ''struggle against terrorism'' and said he was a victim of twisted facts and ''terrible fabrication.'' {Sounds strangely familiar to the arguments that Shrub uses to justify the continued war crimes in Iraq.}

● 2002 - The Tullaghmurray Lass sinks off the coast of Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland killing three members of the same family on board.

● 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.

● 2003 - Dolly the sheep - the first mammal cloned from an adult - was put to death at age 6 due to premature aging and disease.

● 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.

● 2004 - Guerrillas overwhelmed a police station west of Baghdad, killing 23 people and freeing dozens of prisoners. {I do not understand why the New York Times bothers to single out this report of violence in Iraq, The daily toll there quite often exceeds these numbers.}

● 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 Cedar Revolution (Intifada of Independence).

● 2005 - Seven people were 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.

● 2006 - Iran said it had resumed uranium enrichment; Russia and France immediately called on Iran to halt its work.

● 2006 - UK cardholders had to use their PIN to be sure they could pay with their chip and PIN card. This change was made to better protect cardholders against fraudsters.

BIRTHS

● 1404 - Leone Battista Alberti, Italian painter and philosopher (d. 1472)

● 1468 - Johann Werner, German mathematician (d. 1522)

● 1483 - Babur, Moghul emperor of India (d. 1530)

● 1602 - Francesco Cavalli, Italian composer (d. 1676)

● 1680 - John Sidney, 6th Earl of Leicester, English privy councillor (d. 1737)

● 1692 - Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, French writer (d. 1754)

● 1701 - Enrique Florez, Spanish historian (d. 1773)

● 1763 - Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general (d. 1813)

● 1766 - Thomas Malthus, English economist (d. 1834)

● 1812 - Alfred Thomas Agate, American artist (d. 1846)

● 1818 - Frederick Douglas adopted as his birthday (d. 1895)

● 1819 - Joshua A. Norton, American eccentric (d. 1880)

● 1819 - Christopher Sholes, American inventor who developed the typewriter (d. 1890)

● 1828 - Edmond François Valentin About, French writer (d. 1885)

● 1845 - Qunitin Hogg, English philanthropist and social reformer (d. 1903)

● 1846 - Julian Scott, American artist and Civil War Medal of Honor recipient. (d. 1901)

● 1847 - Anna Howard Shaw, American suffrage (d. 1919)

● 1848 - Benjamin Baillaud, French astronomer (d. 1934)

● 1856 - Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (d. 1931)

● 1869 - Charles T. R. Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1959)

● 1877 - Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, American electrical engineer and inventor (d. 1956)

● 1882 - George Jean Nathan, American author, editor, and drama critic (d. 1958)

● 1884 - Hezekiah M. Washburn, missionary (d. 1972)

● 1890 - Nina Hamnett, Welsh artist (d. 1956)

● 1892 - Radola Gajda, Czech military commander (d. 1948)

● 1894 - Jack Benny, American actor and comedian (d. 1974)

● 1895 - Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist (d. 1973)

● 1898 - Fritz Zwicky, Swiss-American physicist and astronomer (d. 1974)

● 1903 - Stu Erwin, American actor (d. 1967)

● 1905 - Thelma Ritter, American actress (d. 1969)

● 1912 - Tibor Sekelj, Croatian explorer (d. 1988)

● 1913 - Mel Allen, American sports reporter (d. 1996)

● 1913 - Woody Hayes, American college football coach {and undiagnosed bi-polar sufferer who hit opposing players when they did well against his team.} (d. 1987)

● 1913 - Jimmy Hoffa, American labor union leader (disappeared 1975)

● 1916 - Masaki Kobayashi, Japanese director (d. 1996)

● 1916 - Edward Platt, American actor (d. 1974)

● 1917 - Herbert A. Hauptman, American mathematician, Nobel Prize Laureate

● 1921 - Hugh Downs, American television host

● 1927 - Lois Maxwell, Canadian actress

● 1929 - Vic Morrow, American actor (d. 1982)

● 1931 - Bernie Geoffrion, Canadian hockey player (d. 2006)

● 1931 - Brian Kelly, American actor (d. 2005)

● 1932 - Alexander Kluge, German actor and film director

● 1933 - Madhubala, Indian actress (d. 1969)

● 1934 - Michel Corboz, Swiss conductor

● 1934 - Florence Henderson, American actress (''The Brady Bunch'')

● 1936 - Fanne Foxe, Argentine dancer

● 1936 - Andrew Prine, American actor

● 1939 - Razzy Bailey, Country singer

● 1940 - Mary Rand, British athlete

● 1941 - Donna Shalala, American educator

● 1941 - Paul Tsongas, United States Senator from Massachusetts (d. 1997)

● 1942 - Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City

● 1942 - Andrew Robinson, American actor

● 1942 - Ricardo Rodríguez, Mexican racing driver (d. 1962)

● 1943 - Maceo Parker, American musician (P-Funk)

● 1944 - Carl Bernstein, American journalist

● 1944 - Alan Parker, British film director and writer

● 1946 - Bernard Dowiyogo, President of Nauru (d. 2003)

● 1946 - Gregory Hines, American dancer and actor (d. 2003)

● 1947 - Judd Gregg, US senator, R-NH

● 1948 - Pat O'Brien, American sportscaster and television host (''The Insider'')

● 1948 - Teller, American magician (Penn and Teller)

● 1951 - Kevin Keegan, English footballer

● 1951 - JoJo Starbuck, American ice skater

● 1951 - Michael Doucet, Cajun singer-musician (Beausoleil)

● 1952 - Nancy Keenan, current NARAL president

● 1955 - Rip Rogers, American professional wrestler

● 1959 - Renee Fleming, Canadian soprano

● 1960 - Jim Kelly, American football player and Hall of Fame member

● 1960 - Meg Tilly, Canadian actress

● 1961 - Phillip Hamilton, American author

● 1961 - Dwayne Wiggins, Singer-producer

● 1962 - Kevyn Aucoin, American cosmetologist (d. 2002)

● 1962 - Philippe Sella, French rugby player

● 1963 - Enrico Colantoni, Canadian actor

● 1963(64? NYT) - Zach Galligan, American actor

● 1964 - Gianni Bugno, Italian cyclist

● 1966 - Ricky Wolking, Rock musician (The Nixons)

● 1967 - Manuela Maleeva, Bulgarian tennis player

● 1967 - Stelios Haji-Ioannou, British entrepreneur

● 1968 - Jules Asner, American model and television personality

● 1968 - Nelson Frazier, Jr., American professional wrestler

● 1970 - Simon Pegg, British comedian and actor

● 1971 - Noriko Sakai, Japanese singer

● 1971 - Tommy Dreamer, American professional wrestler

● 1972 - Drew Bledsoe, American football player

● 1972 - Hiroshi, Japanese comedian

● 1972 - Kevin Baldes, Rock musician (Lit)

● 1972 - Rob Thomas, American musician (matchbox twenty)

● 1973 - Steve McNair, American football player

● 1974 - Filippa Giordano, Italian singer

● 1975 - Scott Owen, Australian musician (The Living End)

● 1975 - Yul Kwon, American Survivor contestant

● 1976 - Liv Kristine, Norwegian singer (Leaves' Eyes, ex-Theatre of Tragedy)

● 1977 - Cadel Evans, Australian cyclist

● 1977 - Elmer Symons, South African motorcycle racer (d. 2007)

● 1978 - Richard Hamilton, American basketball player

● 1978 - Darius Songaila, basketball player

● 1978 - Dean Gaffney, British actor

● 1979 - Antonio Chatman, American football player

● 1980 - Fatima Leyva, Mexican footballer

● 1982 - Marian Gaborik, Slovak hockey player

● 1983 - Will South, Thirteen Senses frontman

● 1985 - Hamed Namouchi, Tunisian footballer

● 1985 - Miki Yeung, Hong Kong singer and actress

● 1985 - Philippe Senderos, Swiss footballer

● 1985 - Natsume Sano, Japanese gravure idol

● 1985 - Karima Adebibe, English actress and model

● 1987 - Joseph Pichler, American actor

● 1987 - Julia Savicheva, Russian Singer

● 1992 - Freddie Highmore, British actor (''Finding Neverland,'' ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'')

● 1994 - Paul Butcher Jr., American actor

● 1994 - Allie Grant, American actress

DEATHS

● 1317 - Marguerite of France, queen of Edward I of England (b. 1282)

● 1400 - King Richard II of England (murdered) (b. 1367)

● 1405 - Timur, Mongol conqueror (b. 1336)

● 1523 - Pope Adrian VI

● 1571 - Odet de Coligny, French cardinal and Protestant (b. 1517)

● 1676 - Abraham Bosse, French engraver and artist

● 1737 - Charles Talbot, 1st Baron Talbot of Hensol, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1685)

● 1744 - John Hadley, inventor (b. 1682)

● 1779 - James Cook, British naval captain and explorer (b. 1728)

● 1780 - William Blackstone, English jurist (b. 1723)

● 1808 - John Dickinson, American lawyer and Governor of Delaware and Pennsylvania (b. 1732)

● 1831 - Vicente Guerrero, Mexican revolutionary hero (b. 1782)

● 1831 - Henry Maudslay, English inventor (b. 1771)

● 1885 - Jules Vallès, French writer (b. 1832)

● 1891 - William Tecumseh Sherman, Civil War General (b. 1820)

● 1894 - Eugène Charles Catalan, Belgian mathematician (b. 1814)

● 1929 - Tom Burke, American runner (b. 1875)

● 1942 - Adnan Bin Saidi, Malayan soldiers (killed) (b. 1915)

● 1943 - Dora Gerson, German actress, cabaret singer, and Holocaust victim (b. 1899)

● 1943 - David Hilbert, German mathematician (b. 1862)

● 1949 - Yusuf Salman Yusuf, Iraqi-Assyrian communist leader

● 1952 - Maurice De Waele, Belgian cyclist (b. 1896)

● 1958 - Abdul Rab Nishtar, veteran leader of Pakistan Movement, (b. 1899)

● 1959 - Baby Dodds, American jazz drummer (b. 1898)

● 1967 - Sig Ruman, German-American actor (b. 1884)

● 1969 - Vito Genovese, American gangster (b. 1897)

● 1970 - Herbert Strudwick, English cricketer (b. 1880).

● 1974 - Stewie Dempster, New Zealand cricketer (b. 1903)

● 1975 - Julian Huxley, British biologist (b. 1887)

● 1975 - P. G. Wodehouse, English writer (b. 1881)

● 1979 - Adolph Dubs, American diplomat (b. 1920)

● 1983 - Lina Radke, German athlete (b. 1903)

● 1987 - Dmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky, Russian composer (b. 1904)

● 1988 - Frederick Loewe, Austrian-American composer (b. 1901)

● 1989 - James Bond, American ornithologist (b. 1900)

● 1994 - Andrei Chikatilo, Russian serial killer (executed) (b. 1936)

● 1994 - Michael V. Gazzo, American actor (b. 1923)

● 1995 - U Nu, Burmese politician (b. 1907)

● 1999 - John Ehrlichman, American presidential advisor (b. 1925)

● 2002 - Nándor Hidegkuti, Hungarian footballer (b. 1922)

● 2003 - Dolly the sheep, first cloned mammal (b. 1996)

● 2003 - Johnny Longden, English jockey (b. 1907)

● 2004 - Marco Pantani, Italian cyclist (b. 1970)

● 2005 - Najai Turpin, American boxer

● 2005 - Rafik Hariri, Lebanese politician and billionaire businessman (b. 1944)

● 2006 - Shoshana Damari, the "Queen of Israeli song" (b. 1923)

● 2006 - Lynden David Hall, British singer (b.1974)

● 2006 - Darry Cowl, French musician and actor (b. 1925)

HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Abraham of Carrhae
● St. Antoninus of Sorrento
● St. Auxentius
● St. Conran
● Sts. Cyril, monk/missionary to the Slavs and Methodius, bishop/missionary to the Slavs, patron saints of Europe.
● St. Dionysius
● St. Eleuchadius
● St. Maro
● St. Nostrianus
● St. Theodosius
● St. Valentine, physician/martyr/patron of lovers

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for February 1 (Civil Date: February 14)
● Martyr Tryphon of Campsada (Lampsakon) near Apamea in Syria.
● Martyrs Perpetua, a woman of Carthage, and the catechumens Saturus, Revocatus, Saturninus, Secundulus, and Felicitas.
● St. Peter the Galatian, hermit near Antioch in Syria.
● St. Vendemianus (Bendemianus), hermit of Bithynia.
● St. Basil, Archbishop of Thessalonica.
● New-Martyr Anastasius at Anaplus.
● St. Tryphon of Pechenga and Kola.
● St. Bridget (Brigit) of Ireland.
● New-Martyr priest Peter Skipetrov (1918).

● Greek Calendar:
● St. Timothy the Confessor.
● Martyrs Theonas, two children, and Karion.

● Lutheran and Anglican:
● Sts. Cyril, monk/missionary to the Slavs and Methodius, bishop/missionary to the Slavs

● Admission Day to the United States:
● Oregon (1859) 33rd State
● Arizona (1912) 48th State

● Bulgaria : Viticulturists' Day/Trifon Zarezan, cult of Dionysus

● Denmark : Gaekkebrev/Fjörtende Februar-gift exchanges by school kids

● Mexico : Day of National Mourning (Vincent Guerrero-1831)

● Western World - Valentine's Day. (269)

● Iraq - 'Communist Martyrs Day' celebrated by Iraqi Communist Party.


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:

On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Permanent Backlink to Post