- Celebrated as (Saint) Valentine’s Day around the world, now one of the most widely observed unofficial holidays in which romantic greeting cards and gifts are exchanged.
EVENTS
- 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.
- 1849 – Photographer Mathew Brady took the first photograph of a U.S. President in office, James Polk.
- 1918 – The movie Tarzan of the Apes is released.
- 1924 – IBM corporation founded.
- 1929 – The St. Valentine’s Day massacre occurred in Chicago as seven members of the Bugs Moran gang were gunned down by five of Al Capone’s mobsters posing as police.
- 1949 – The Knesset, the parliament of Israel, convenes for the first time. The term “Knesset” is derived from the Hebrew name of an ancient Great Assembly: Anshei Knesset HaGedolah.
- 1989 – Union Carbide finally agrees to pay damages to the Indian government for the Bophal disaster. The company had a yearly turnover of 9.5 billion USD at the time; up to 25,000 people had died in the tragedy.
- 2000 – First spacecraft orbits an asteroid.
- 2003 – Dolly the sheep is put to death. Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult, had shown signs of premature aging and contracted various diseases.
- 2005 – Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is assassinated. Several sources reported that the U.N. Special Tribunal for Lebanon found compelling evidence for the Lebanese militia Hezbollah’s involvement.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1818 – Frederick Douglass (American author, activist)
- 1859 – George Ferris (Invented the Ferris Wheel)
- 1894 – Jack Benny (Actor)
- 1913 – Jimmy Hoffa (Labor Union Leader)
- 1921 – Hugh Downs (TV News Anchor)
- 1934 – Florence Henderson (Actress)
- 1942 – Michael Bloomberg (Mayor of New York City)
- 1943 – Maceo Parker (American saxophonist)
- 1946 – Gregory Hines (Dancer and Actor)
- 1951 – Kevin Keegan (English footballer)
- 1972 – Drew Bledsoe (Football Player)