Historical Events on February 14

Events 1 - 200 of 223

• 842 Charles II & Louis the German sign The Oaths of Strasbourg, a pact uniting their armies in fights against their older brother Lothar
• 1014 Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry II Holy Roman Emperor

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

• 1556 English Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared a heretic

• 1630 Dutch fleet of 69 ships reaches Pernambuco, Brazil
• 1670 Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I chases Jews out of Vienna

• 1766 Dutch governor Falck and King Keerthisiri Rajasinghe of Kandy sign Treaty of Batticaloa

• 1778 "Stars & Stripes" arrives in foreign port for 1st time (France)
• 1794 1st US textile machinery patent granted, to James Davenport, Philadelphia

• 1803 Apple parer patented by Moses Coats, Downington, Pennsylvania

• 1804 Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general who plotted to overthrow Napoleon in the Pichegru Conspiracy, arrested, and exiled to the United States
• 1804 Karadjordje 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

• 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 admitted as 33rd state of the Union
• 1862 Galena, 1st US iron-clad warship for service at sea, launched, Connecticut
• 1867 Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Co issues 1st policy
• 1867 Morehouse College organizes (Augusta Georgia)
• 1870 Esther Morris appointed US' first female in Justice of the Peace in South Pass City, Wyoming, after previous justice, R.S. Barr, resigned to protest passage of Wyoming Territory's women's suffrage amendment in 1869
• 1870 Seraph Young becomes the first woman to legally vote in the modern United States, two days after the Utah legislature passed a law allowing women the vote
• 1872 1st US state bird refuge authorized (Lake Merritt, California)

• 1879 Chilean troops occupy Antofagasta
• 1883 1st state labor union legislation; New Jersey legalizes unions
• 1887 Cubs sell Mike King Kelly to Boston for record $10,000
• 1889 1st train load of fruit (oranges) leaves LA for east
• 1894 Venus is both a morning star & evening star

• 1896 Stanley Cup, Victoria Skating Rink, Montreal, Quebec: Winnipeg Victorias beat Montreal Victorias, 2-0
• 1896 Theodor Hertzl's "Der Judenstaat" (The Jewish State) is published, proposing a Jewish homeland as a means of escaping anti-Semitism in Europe
• 1899 US Congress begins using voting machines
• 1900 Date of events in Australian movie "Picnic at Hanging Rock"
• 1900 Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country

• 1907 1st US foxhound association forms in NYC
• 1912 1st US submarines with diesel engines commissioned, Groton, Connecticut
• 1912 Arizona was admitted to the Union as the 48th state
• 1914 High Council of Labor forms in Hague Netherlands
• 1918 USSR adopts New Style (Gregorian) calendar (originally Feb 1)
• 1919 The Polish-Soviet War begins.
• 1919 United Parcel Service forms
• 1920 League of Women Voters forms in Chicago
• 1921 Canadian 5 cent nickel coin is authorized
• 1921 Little Review faces obscenity charges for publishing "Ulysses," in New York

• 1925 State of emergency crisis in Bavaria ends, NSDAP re-allowed

• 1928 Per-Erik Hedlund leads a Swedish sweep of the medals in the 50k cross-country at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; Gustaf Jonsson & Volgar Andersson take the minor medals

• 1931 Spanish government of General Damasco Berenguer falls

• 1932 The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show debuts on CBS radio, airing there until 1937, moving to NBC until 1949, and returning to CBS in 1949, before moving to television
• 1934 NHL Ace Bailey Benefit Game: Toronto beats All-Stars 7-3 in Toronto
• 1936 Karl Schäfer of Austria wins his 2nd consecutive men’s figure skating Olympic gold medal at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Games in Germany
• 1936 National Negro Congress organizes in Chicago
• 1936 Norwegian speed skater Ivar Ballangrud sets Olympic record 17:24.3 to win the 10,000m at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Games; his 3rd gold medal from 4 events and 4th career Olympic gold

• 1940 British merchant vessel fleet is armed
• 1941 Carson McCuller's "Reflections in a Golden Eye" published
• 1941 Cebrie Park in the Bronx renamed Halsey Street
• 1941 German Afrika Korps lands in Tripoli, Libya
• 1941 One millionth vehicle traverses the NY Midtown Tunnel
• 1942 Japanese parachutists land near oil center Palembang, Sumatra
• 1942 Rotterdam's Maas tunnel opens
• 1942 The Polish resistance movement, the Home Army, is formed and will eventually become the largest resistance movement in occupied Europe
• 1942 World War II: Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.
• 1943 German offensive against US troops through de Faid-pass, Tunisia begins, starting the Battle of Sidi Bou Zid
• 1943 The Soviet Union recaptures the city of Rostov-on-Don, liberating Russia from the German 17th Army during WWII
• 1944 Anti-Japanese revolt on Java
• 1944 Carl Wick publishes "Salmon Trolling for Commercial & Sport Fishing"
• 1945 Peru, Paraguay, Chile & Ecuador joins UN

• 1945 World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans.
• 1945 World War II: Prague is bombed probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.
• 1949 1st session of Knesset (Jerusalem Israel)
• 1949 Dutch Drees government presents plan for the building of 30,000 houses
• 1950 Moroney scores cricket twin centuries for Australia at Johannesburg
• 1950 USSR & China sign peace treaty

• 1952 Giant slalom event for women debuts at the Winter Olympics at Oslo Games; American skier Andrea Mead-Lawrence wins gold ahead of Dagmar Rom of Austria and German Annemarie Buchner
• 1952 VI Winter Olympic Games open at Oslo, Norway
• 1953 "Trionfo di Afrodite (Triumph of Aphrodite)", the final work of Carl Orff's Trionfi trilogy premieres at La Scala in Milan, Italy

• 1954 WTOC TV channel 11 in Savannah, GA (CBS) begins broadcasting
• 1955 WFLA (now WXFL) TV channel 8 in Tampa-St Petersburg, Florida (NBC) begins
• 1956 20th Congress of CPSU opens in Moscow
• 1956 Indonesia withdraws from Netherlands Indonesian Union
• 1956 Verhoeven, Nauta and De King/Wijnhout win Dutch 11 city skate
• 1957 Georgia Senate unanimously approves Sen Leon Butts' bill barring blacks from playing baseball with whites

• 1958 Arab Federation of Iraq & Jordan forms
• 1959 $3.6 million heroin seizure in NYC
• 1960 2nd Daytona 500: Junior Johnson survives a 37 car crash on Turn 4 to win driving a John Masoni owned Chevrolet
• 1960 Marshal Ayub Khan elected President of Pakistan
• 1961 Element 103, Lawrencium, 1st produced in Berkeley Calif

• 1963 US launches communications satellite Syncom 1

• 1965 7th Daytona 500: Fred Lorenzen wins driving for Holman-Moody; race ends on lap 133 due to persistent rain
• 1966 Australian currency is decimalised, and decimal currency postage stamps introduced
• 1966 Russian writers Andrei Sinyavsky & Joey Daniel found guilty under the offense of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda for publishing their satirical writings abroad

• 1967 Latin American nuclear free zone proposal drawn up
• 1968 Norwegian 15k Olympic cross country champion Harald Grønningen wins his second gold medal of the Grenoble Winter Olympics in the 4 x 10k relay
• 1968 Soviet Union goes 1-2 in pairs figure skating at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; husband & wife team Oleg Protopopov and Liudmila Belousova edge teammates Tatiana Zhuk and Alexander Gorelik
• 1968 WHKY TV channel 14 in Hickory, NC (IND) begins broadcasting

• 1971 Movie "Ben Hur" 1st shown on television

• 1971 Tehran agreement signed; oil companies accept 55 percent tax rate, immediate increase in posted prices, and further successive increases
• 1972 CBS "Late Movie" premieres

• 1972 Lord Widgery arrives in Coleraine, where the 'Bloody Sunday' (30 January 1972) Tribunal was to be based, and holds a preliminary hearing
• 1972 Luna 20 (Russia) launched to orbit & soft landing on Moon

• 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
• 1978 In girls' HS basketball, Chicago Latin beats Harvard St George
• 1979 In Kabul, Muslims kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police

• 1980 US launches Solar Maximum Mission Observatory to study solar flares
• 1981 Stardust Disaster: A fire in a Dublin nightclub kills 48 people
• 1982 "Night of 100 Stars", an all-star variety special celebrating the centennial of the Actors' Fund of America, takes place at NYC's Radio City Music Hall

• 1984 Canadian speed skater Gaétan Boucher takes out the 1,000m gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics; also wins 1,500m; narrowly beats Soviet skater Sergey Khlebnikov in both events

• 1985 Hostage CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is released in Beirut
• 1987 Detroit Pistons-Philadelphia 76ers game draws crowd of 53,745 at Pontiac Silverdome, Pontiac; third largest crowd in NBA history; Pistons win, 125-107
• 1988 30th Daytona 500: Bobby Allison beats his son, Davey, to the finish line; remembered for Richard Petty's rollover crash in the tri-oval on lap 106, rolls over 8 times and hit by Brett Bodine; walks away unhurt

• 1989 African National Congress (ANC) opens office in Amsterdam

• 1989 The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System are placed into orbit.
• 1989 Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 mill damages for Bhopol disaster
• 1989 World's 1st satellite Skyphone opens
• 1990 Perrier recalls 160 million bottles of sparkling water after traces of benzene, a carcinogen, are found in some
• 1990 Space probe Voyager 1 takes a photograph of the entire solar system, the images transmitted in real-time with earth a 'pale blue dot'

• 1991 NL Cy Young winner Doug Drabek wins record $3 mil salary arbitration
• 1992 American sprinter Andre Cason runs world record 60m indoor (6.41s) in Madrid, Spain
• 1992 Cease fire in Somalia begins

• 1992 Kieren John Perkins swims world record 800m freestyle (7:46.60)
• 1992 Merlene Ottey runs world record 60m indoor (6.96 sec)

• 1993 Fire in Linxi department store in Tangshan China, kills 79

• 1995 Wellington 2-498d & 4-475 beat Canterbury 496 & 2-476d

• 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 Fishing vessel Tullaghmurray Lass sinks off the coast of Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland killing three members of the same family on board
• 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 country to fall into chaos.
• 2005 Online video sharing site YouTube is launched in the United States by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim; headquarteredin San Bruno, California
• 2005 Seven people are 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.
• 2008 Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 24 casualties; 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 18 injured.
• 2010 52nd Daytona 500: Jamie McMurray, driving for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing wins; Mark Martin, oldest polesitter in Daytona 500 history at 51 years, 27 days

• 2010 America's Cup: Team USA defeats Alinghi 2-0 to win in Spain
• 2011 The 2011 Bahraini uprising commenced.
• 2013 A suicide bombing kills 4 police officer and injures 5 in Dagestan
• 2013 Japan remains in recession as the economy shrinks by a further 0.1%
• 2013 Oscar Pistorius, a South African amputee sprinter, is charged with the murder of Reeva Steenkamp
• 2013 The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, will be switched off for two years for upgrading
• 2013 The recession in the Eurozone economy deepens with a fall of 0.6% in GDP in the fourth quarter of 2012

• 2014 Britain's Lizzy Yarnold wins her first of 2 consecutive Olympic women's skeleton gold medals in Sochi; also wins event in Pyeongchang (2018)

• 2014 Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta resigns after less than a year in office
• 2014 Swiss cross country skier Dario Cologna wins his 2nd gold medal of the Sochi Winter Olympics in the 15k classical; also wins 30k skiathlon

• 2018 Dutch speed skater Jorien ter Mors wins her 3rd career Olympic gold medal in the 1,000m at Pyeongchang; 1,500m and team pursuit champion in Sochi (2014)
• 2018 Ex-student Nikolas Cruz shoots and kills 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Florida, before being captured

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