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1944–Journalist and author, Carl Bernstein, is born in Washington D.C. By the age of 22, Bernstein was a reporter for The Washington Post. He and another young reporter, Bob Woodward, checked out a burglary at the Democratic Party's office in the Watergate apartment complex, and traced the involvement of the White House. They were awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1973, the year before Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment. They went on to collaborate on the best-seller All the President's Men.


269–St. Valentine, a Roman priest, is martyred during the persecution of the Christians by Emperor Claudius II.

748–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.

945–Zhu Wenjin, Emperor of Min, dies in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China. He was a general of, and later a claimant of the throne of, the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period

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

1043–Gisela of Swabia, Queen consort of Germany and Empress consort of the Holy Roman Empire, dies of dysentery at the Imperial Palace of Goslar in Saxony, at age 52. She was the daughter of Duke Herman II of Swabia, and Gerberga of Burgundy, daughter of King Conrad the Peaceful. Both her parents were descendants of Charlemagne.

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

1130–Pope Innocent II is elected.

1140–Prince Leo I of Armenia dies imprisoned in Constantinople.

1317–Margaret of France, Queen of England, dies in Marlborough Castle, Wiltshire, England, at age 39.

1349–Approximately 2,000 Jews were burned to death by mobs or forcibly removed from the city of Strasbourg, France.

1368–Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, is born in Nuremberg, Kingdom of Germany. He was Prince-elector of Brandenburg from 1378 until 1388 and from 1411 until 1415, King of Hungary and Croatia from 1387, King of Germany from 1411, King of Bohemia from 1419, King of Italy from 1431, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, as the last male member of the House of Luxemburg.

1400–Richard II, King of England (1377-1399), is murdered in Pontefract Castle, West Yorkshire, England, at age 33.

1452–Italian ruler, Pandolfo Petrucci, is born in Republic of Siena, Italy.

1483–Mongolian Emperor, Babur, is born Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur in Andijan, Mughalistan (present-day Uzbekistan). He was a descendant of Genghis Khan on his mother’s side.

1502–The Catholic Monarchs issue a decree forcing Muslims in Granada to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain.

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–The coronation of Akbar I is held in the Mughal Empire.

1556–Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.

1655–Under their elected military leader, Clentaru, the Mapuche rise up against the Spanish in an insurrection in (present-day) central Chile.

1663–Canada becomes a Royal Province of France.

1670–Roman Catholic Emperor Leopold I chases the Jews out of Vienna, Austria.

1778–The U.S. flag makes its first appearance at a foreign port, flying aboard the ship USS Ranger, as it arrives in France.

1778–Composer, Fernando Sor, is born in Barcelona, Spain. He will compose some of the most beautiful works for classical guitar. Sor’s contemporaries considered him to be the best guitarist in the world.

1779–Explorer, James Cook, is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii, at age 50. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century.

1782–Burmese King, Singu Min, is executed by his uncle Bodawpaya in Ava, in Mandalay Region, Burma, at age 25.

1794–The first U.S. textile machinery patent is granted to James Davenport, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1797–In the French Revolutionary Wars, 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.

1803–The apple parer is patented by Moses Coats in Downington, Pennsylvania.

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

1804–Karadorde leads the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire.

1818–Frederick Douglass, is born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Talbot County, Maryland. He was an African-American social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, with an impressive ability for speechmaking and anti-slavery writing. A firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant, Douglass said, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."

1819–Christopher (Latham) Sholes is born in Mooresburg, Montou County, Pennsylvania. He invented the first practical typewriter and the QWERTY keyboard still in use today.

1831–Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.

1831–Politician, Vicente Guerrero, dies in Cuilapan, Oaxaca, Mexico, at age 48. He was the second President of Mexico.

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

1838–Inventor, Margaret E. Knight, is born in York, Maine. She came up with an improved paper bag machine, that makes bags with flat bottoms.

1843–According to the poster from which John Lennon took the lyrics (for his song on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), tonight's performance is indeed for the benefit of “Mr. Kite.” The erstwhile performer is expected to vault over men and horses, hoops and garters, lastly through a hogshead of real fire.

1849–James K. Polk becomes the first U.S. President to have his photograph taken.

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

1855–The state of Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Marshall, Texas.

1859–Oregon becomes the 33rd state of the United States of America.

1859–Engineer, George Washington Gale Ferris, the inventor of the ferris wheel, is born in Galesburg, Illinois. His amusement ride was unveiled at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893.

1876–Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually rules Bell the rightful inventor.

1879–The War of the Pacific breaks out when Chilean armed forces occupy the port city of Antofagasta, Bolivia.

1891–William Tecumseh Sherman dies of pneumonia in New York, New York, at age 71. He was a soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, for which he received recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy in conducting total war against the Confederate States.

1882–Actor, John Barrymore, is born John Sidney Blyth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was an actor of stage, screen and radio, and his success in motion pictures took place during both the silent and sound eras. He appeared in the films Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sherlock Holmes, Tempest, Dinner at Eight, and The Great Profile. He was the patriarch of the Barrymore acting dynasty. His children were Diana Barrymore and John Drew Barrymore; his brother was Lionel Barrymore and his sister was Ethel Barrymore; and Drew Barrymore is his granddaughter.

1894–Entertainer, Jack Benny, is born Benjamin Kubelski in Waukegan, Illinois. He was a comedian, vaudevillian, radio, television, and film actor, and violinist. He is best known for his television variety show, The Jack Benny Program, which ran from 1950 to 1965. The melody Love in Bloom was the theme for the show. He appeared in the films Artists and Models, Charley’s Aunt, The Horn Blows at Midnight, Who Was That Lady?, Gypsy, and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

1895–Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest opens in London, England.

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

1900–British forces begin the Battle of the Tugela Heights in an effort to lift the Siege of Ladysmith.

1902–Actress, Thelma Ritter, is born in Brooklyn, New York. She was best known for comedic roles as working class characters with strong personalities. She appeared in the films Call Northside 777, A Letter to Three Wives, All About Eve, Rear Window, Daddy Long Legs, A Hole in the Head, Pillow Talk, The Misfits, Birdman of Alcatraz, A New Kind of Love, Move Over, Darling, Boeing Boeing, and The Incident.

1903–The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor is established.

1907–Jockey-trainer, Johnny (Eric) Longden, is born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England.

1912–Arizona becomes the 48th state of the United States of America.

1912–In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel-powered submarine is commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

1913–Teamsters leader, Jimmy Hoffa, is born James Riddle Hoffa in Brazil, Indiana. He would mysteriously disappear in 1975, never to be found; it’s ironic that his middle name was Riddle.

1916–Character actor, Edward (Cuthbert) Platt, is born in Staten Island, New York. He is best known for the role of "The Chief" in the TV series Get Smart. He appeared in the films Rebel Without a Cause, Written on the Wind. Designing Women, North by Northwest, Pollyanna, The Explosive Generation, and Cape Fear.

1918–The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar.

1919–The United Parcel Service (UPS) is established.

1919–The Polish-Soviet War begins.

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

1921–The literary journal, The Little Review, faces obscenity charges in New York City for having published installments of James Joyce's novel Ulysses.

1921–TV journalist, Hugh Downs, is born in Akron Ohio. He is best known as the co-host of the NBC News program Today (1962-1971) and host of the game show Concentration (1958-1969).

1922–Italian scientist, Guglielmo Marconi, begins the first regular radio broadcasting transmission from England.

1922–Disc jockey, Murray “the K” Kaufman, is born in New York, New York. He was an influential rock and roll impresario and disc jockey of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. During the early days of Beatlemania, he frequently referred to himself as “the fifth Beatle.” Murray the K reached his peak of popularity in the mid-1960s when, as the top-rated radio host in New York City, he became an early supporter and friend of The Beatles. When the Beatles came to New York on February 7, 1964, Murray was the first DJ they welcomed into their circle, having heard about him and his Brooklyn Fox shows from American groups such as The Ronettes. Murray was invited by The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, to spend time with the group, and Murray persuaded his radio station (WINS) to let him broadcast his prime time show from the Beatles' Plaza Hotel suite. He subsequently accompanied the band to Washington, D.C. for their first U.S. concert, was backstage at their premiere on The Ed Sullivan Show, and roomed with Beatles guitarist, George Harrison, in Miami, Florida, broadcasting his nightly radio shows from their hotel room. He was invited to the set of A Hard Day's Night in England, and made several treks to Britain during 1964, giving WINS listeners more Beatle exclusives.

1924–The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is founded by Thomas Watson.

1926–Film and television producer, Al Brodax, is born Albert Philip Brodax in Brooklyn, New York. He joined King Features Syndicate in 1960, as the head of their then newly created film and TV development department. Brodax was the producer of King Features' animated revival of Krazy Kat, as well as Cool McCool, Beetle Bailey, Snuffy Smith, and Casper the Friendly Ghost. He was later involved in the production of The Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine.

1929–Seven rivals of mobster, Al Capone, are murdered in a Chicago, Illinois, garage. The bloodbath is remembered as the “St. Valentine's Day Massacre.”

1929–Actor, Vic Morrow, is born in the Bronx, New York. He appeared in the films The Blackboard Jungle, King Creole, God’s Little Acre, Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, The Bad News Bears, and Twilight Zone: The Movie.

1931–Singer, Phyllis McGuire, of The McGuire Sisters, is born in Middletown, Ohio. The trio had hits with Sincerely, He, Sugartime, and May You Always.

1934–Actress, Florence (Agnes) Henderson, is born in Dale, Indiana. She is best known for the role of Carol Brady on the sitcom The Brady Bunch (1969-1974).

1937–Blues guitarist, “Magic Sam” Maghett, is born Samuel Gene Maghett in Grenada, Mississippi. His guitar style, vocals, and songwriting ability have inspired and influenced many blues musicians.

1941–The 1,000,000th vehicle makes its way through the New York Midtown Tunnel.

1941–Brian Holland, producer and songwriter with the legendary Holland-Dozier-Holland team at Motown, is born in Detroit, Michigan. Among his songs are Please Mr. Postman and Where Did Our Love Go?

1942–The Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.

1942–Business magnate, Michael (Reubens) Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City (2002-2013), is born in Boston, Massachusetts. In September 2013, Forbes magazine reported Bloomberg's wealth as $33 billion, and ranked him as the 13th richest person in the world.

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

1943–Singer, Eric Anderson, is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His best-known songs from the 1960s folk era are Violets of Dawn, Come to My Bedside, and Thirsty Boots. In 1970, Andersen took part in the Festival Express tour across Canada with the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, and Delaney & Bonnie.

1943–Film producer and director, Aaron Russo, is born in Brooklyn, New York. His films include The Rose, Partners, Trading Places, Teachers, and Wise Guys.

1944–A British submarine sinks a German-controlled Italian submarine in the Strait of Malacca.

1944–Journalist and author, Carl Bernstein, is born in Washington D.C. By the age of 22, Bernstein was a reporter for The Washington Post. He and another young reporter, Bob Woodward, checked out a burglary at the Democratic Party's office in the Watergate apartment complex, and traced the involvement of the White House. They were awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1973, the year before Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment. They went on to collaborate on the best-seller All the President's Men.

1944–Film director, Alan (William) Parker, is born in Islington, London, England. His films include Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express, Fame, Shoot the Moon, Pink Floyd: The Wall, Birdy, Mississippi Burning, The Commitments, The Road to Wellville, Evita, Angela’s Ashes, and The Life of David Gale.

1945–On the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces begin their attacks.

1945–A navigational error leads to the mistaken bombing of Prague, Czechoslovakia, by an American squadron of B-17s assisting in the Soviet's Vistula-Oder Offensive.

1945–In World War II, Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans.

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

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

1946–An electronic brain, or computer, begins working at the University of Pennsylvania, taking seconds to do calculations which normally takes hours. It is called ENIAC or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer.

1946–The Bank of England is nationalized.

1946–Ernest Hemingway marries his fourth and last wife, Mary Welch, in Havana, Cuba.

1946–Actor-dancer, Gregory (Oliver) Hines, is born in New York, New York. He started out in a dance act with his older brother and father, called Hines, Hines, and Dad. He appeared in the films Wolfen, Deal of the Century, The Cotton Club, White Nights, Running Scared, Tap, A Rage in Harlem, and Waiting to Exhale.

1947–Folksinger, Tim Buckley, is born Timothy Charles Buckley III in Washington, D.C. Although Buckley did not achieve commercial success during his lifetime, he has been admired by later generations for his innovation as a musician and his vocal ability. He was the father of singer, Jeff Buckley.

1948–Magician, Teller, of Penn & Teller, is born Raymond Joseph Teller in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Apart from professional conferences and interviews, Teller almost never speaks while performing. Early in his career, he found that if he maintained silence throughout his act, spectators refrained from throwing beer and heckling him and focused more on his performance.

1949–The Knesset (Israeli Parliament) convenes for the first time.

1949–The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada, marking the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

1950–During the Chinese Civil War, the National Revolutionary Army instigates the unsuccessful Battle of Tianquan against the People's Liberation Army.

1951–Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta to take the Middleweight Boxing Championship.

1951–Musician, Michael Doucet, is born in Lafayette, Louisiana. He is a Cajun fiddler, singer, and songwriter, who founded the band BeauSoleil. He learned the banjo by age six, the guitar by age eight, and was researching Cajun music once he was in college. He revived many of the old Cajun songs that had not been recorded, and whose musicians from that era were gone. In 2005, Doucet was one of 12 recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts.

1951–American ice skater, JoJo Starbuck, is born Alicia Starbuck in Birmingham, Alabama.

1952–The VI Winter Olympic Games open in Oslo, Norway.

1956–The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union begins in Moscow, Russia. On the last night of the meeting, in a secret speech, Premier Nikita Khrushchev condemns Joseph Stalin's crimes.

1957–Lionel Hampton’s only major musical work, King David, makes its debut at New York’s Town Hall. The four-part symphony jazz suite is conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.

1958–The Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan is formed.

1958–CBS-TV newsman, Walter Cronkite, reports the Iranian government has banned rock and roll on the grounds that it's against the concepts of Islam and also a hazard to health. Iranian doctors have advised the “extreme gyrations” of rock an roll dances are injurious to the hips.

1960–Actress, Meg Tilly, is born Margaret Elizabeth Chan in Long Beach, California. She appeared in the films Fame, Tex, Psycho II, The Big Chill, Agnes of God, Valmont, The Two Jakes, Leaving Normal, and Sleep with Me. Actress, Jennifer Tilly, is her sister.

1961–Element 103, Lawrencium, is first produced in Berkeley, California.

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

1964–British Invasion duo, Chad and Jeremy, guest star on ABC-TV's The Patty Duke Show.

1966–Australian currency is decimalized.

1970–According to a headline in Billboard, the Recording Industry Association of America is "Mounting Total War Against Tape Pirating of Pre-recorded Music."

1970–The album, Live at Leeds, is recorded by The Who.

1971–President Richard Nixon installs a secret taping system in the White House.

1972–John Lennon and Yoko Ono co-host The Mike Douglas Show for a full week.

1972–The 1950s tribute musical, Grease, opens off-Broadway at New York City's Eden Theatre, featuring Barry Bostwick and Adrienne Barbeau. The play is an instant hit, moving to Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre for a record 3,388 performances.

1972–Rob Thomas, lead singer of Matchbox Twenty, is born Robert Kelly Thomas in Landstuhl, West Germany.

1974–Rolling Stone reports that David Bowie has declined an offer from a gay liberation group who asked him to compose "the world's first Gay National Anthem."

1974–Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille (aka The Captain and Tennille) are married in Virginia City, Nevada.

1975–Writer, P.G. Wodehouse, dies of a heart attack in Southampton, New York, at age 93. He is best known for the “Jeeves and Wooster” and “Blandings Castle” novels and short stories, but Wodehouse was also a playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of 15 plays and of 250 lyrics for over 30 musical comedies.

1976–The U.S. conducts a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.

1977–Singer, Nathan Osmond, of The Osmond Brothers, is born in Utah.

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.

1980–News anchorman, Walter Cronkite, announces his retirement from the CBS Evening News.

1980–The XIII Winter Olympic Games open in Lake Placid, New York.

1981–A fire in a nightclub in Dublin, Ireland, kills 48 people.

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

1985–Hostage, Jeremy Levin, a reporter for CNN, is released in Beirut.

1987–Boardwalk and Baseball opens in Florida. When Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich swept through Florida on a buying frenzy, acquiring everything in sight (including Sea World, Stars Hall of Fame, and Cypress Gardens) they also bought Circus World, which they remodeled into Boardwalk and Baseball. The theme is now a turn-of-the-century seaside boardwalk, and a baseball stadium was built north of the park, which lured the Kansas City Royals away from Terry Park in Ft. Myers.

1988–Composer, Frederick Loewe, dies in Palm Springs, California, at age 86. He collaborated with lyricist, Alan Jay Lerner, on a series of Broadway musicals, including the long-running My Fair Lady and Camelot. Loewe was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.

1989–Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offers up to $3 million bounty on Salman Rushdie, due to his novel The Satanic Verses.

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

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

1989–Singer, Courtney Love, marries vocalist, James Moreland.

1990–Perrier recalls 160 million bottles of sparkling water after traces of benzene, a carcinogen, are found.

1990–The space probe, Voyager 1, takes a photograph of the entire solar system. The photograph it takes of Earth, later become famous as “Pale Blue Dot.”

1990–Indian Airlines Flight 605 crashes in Bangalore, India, killing 92 people.

1990–Five to 10 inches of snow falls across Iowa, and six to 12 inches blankets northern Illinois. Later, air traffic comes to a halt at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. And more than 250 traffic accidents are reported around Des Moines, Iowa, during the evening rush hour.

1991–Actress, Meg Ryan, marries actor, Dennis Quaid.

1993–Singer, Harry Nilsson, suffers his first heart attack.

1995–U Nu, first Prime Minister of Burma, dies in Bahan Township, Yangon, Myanmar, at age 87.

1996–The Beatles’ second “new” single, Real Love, is beamed to U.K. radio stations, via satellite, for broadcast at 8:10 a.m. on Valentine’s Day.

1998–An oil tanker train collides with a freight train in Yaoundé, Cameroon, spilling fuel oil. Someone scavenging the oil creates a massive explosion that kills 120 people.

1998–Actress, Sharon Stone, marries San Francisco Examiner executive editor, Phil Bronstein, in Beverly Hills, California.

1999–John Ehrlichman, former Nixon White House aide, dies of complications from diabetes in Atlanta, Georgia, at age 73. He served 18 months in prison for his role in the Watergate coverup.

1999–Singer, Buddy Knox, dies of lung cancer in Bremerton, Washington, at age 65. He is best known for his hit song Party Doll.

1999–Doug Weston, who operated the club, The Troubadour, in Santa Monica, California, dies of pneumonia in a local hospital at age 72. During the 1960s and 1970s, The Troubadour was one of the Los Angeles area's prime talent showcases.

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

2003–Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult, is put to death at age six, due to premature aging and disease.

2003–English jockey, Johnny Longden, dies in Banning, California, at age 96.

2004–The roof of the Transvaal water park in a suburb of Moscow, Russia, collapses, killing more than 25 people and wounding more than 100 others.

2004–Dallas, Texas, receives three inches of snow, marking the greatest snowfall there since 1978. The harsh weather causes numerous traffic accidents, power outages, and flight cancellations at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

2005–Lebanon's former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, is assassinated, causing the country to fall into chaos.

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.

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

2008–Oasis singer, Liam Gallagher, marries singer, Nicole Appleton, at the Westminster Register Office in London, England.

2008–In the Northern Illinois University shooting, a gunman opens fire in a lecture hall, killing six people (including himself) and injuring and 21 others.

2009–Over $17 billion is spent on Valentine’s Day gifts.

2009–Drummer, Louie Bellson, dies in Los Angeles, California, at age 84. At age 15, he pioneered the double-bass drum set-up. Between 1943 and 1952, Bellson performed with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, and Duke Ellington.

2010–Doug Fieger, of The Knack, dies of lung cancer in Woodland Hills, California, at age 57. The group had the biggest hit song of 1979 with My Sharona. Fieger wrote the song for Sharona Alperin, who later became his girlfriend. Alperin visited Fieger frequently during his final months.

2011–The TV game show, Jeopardy!, begins airing the first of three episodes pitting human players Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings against an IBM computer named "Watson."

2011–Jazz pianist, George Shearing, dies of heart failure in New York, New York, at age 91. He composed over 300 songs, including the jazz standard Lullaby of Birdland.

2012–Singer-songwriter, Dory Previn, dies from complications of a stroke in Southfield, Massachusetts, at age 86. She married composer, André Previn in 1959. The couple collaborated on songs recorded by Rosemary Clooney, Chris Connor, Vic Damone, Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr., Doris Day, Jack Jones, Carmen McRae, Matt Monro, Leontyne Price, and Nancy Wilson. She later married actor, Joby Baker, and the couple remained together up to her death.

2013–The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, is switched off for two years for upgrading.

2013–Steam for Linux is released, beginning the expansion of Valve's game service onto the free and open-source platform.

2015–A spree killer murders two people in Copenhagen, Denmark, in an attack at Swedish artist Lars Vilks. A second attack takes place at the Great Synagogue. The gunman is killed by the police in the early morning of February 15th.

2015–Actor, Louis Jordan, dies in Beverly Hills, California, at age 93. He appeared in the films Letter from an Unknown Woman, Madame Bovary, The Happy Time, Three Coins in a Fountain, Julie, Gigi, The Best of Everything, Can-Can, Irma la Douce, Made in Paris, A Flea in Her Ear, Octopussy, and Year of the Comet.

2016–Jocelerme Privert is elected as the interim President of Haiti, pending elections later in the year.

2016–Members of the British indie band, Viola Beach (Kris Leonard, River Reeves, Tomas Lowe, and Jack Dakin), die in a road accident in Stockholm, Sweden. Their manager, Craig Tarry, is also killed. The band’s car plunged 80 feet from a highway bridge into a canal.

2017–Joseph Clancy, Director of the U.S. Secret Service, announces his retirement, effective March 4th.

2017–Astronomers discover 60 new planets orbiting stars near the Earth's solar system, with evidence of an additional 54 others.

2017–A Russian spy ship is spotted patrolling off the East Coast of the United States, near Delaware.

2018–A strand of white hair belonging to George Washington is found tucked into a shabby, leather-bound 18th-century almanac at the Union College library in Schenectady, New York.

2018–Authorities are looking for someone who has bombarded a lawyer by sending over 100 pizzas to his office in Dortmund, Germany. The annoyed lawyer pressed charges in January, and said he had no idea who was behind the unwanted food deliveries.

2018–Actor, Luke Wilson, pulls a woman from her flipped BMW after deadly car crash in Pacific Palisades, California. Wilson's car was sideswiped moments before the crash by a runaway Ferrari.

2018–Lois Barker, dies in Morristown, New Jersey, at age 95. She played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) during the 1950 season. Barker entered the league at age 27 with the Grand Rapids Chicks, being used primarily in the outfield and at third base. The film, A League of Our Own, told the story of the AAGPBL.

2018–Jazz musician, Al Garner, dies in England, at age 88.


PHOTOS TOP TO BOTTOM: St. Valentine; Richard II, King of England; Frederick Douglass; "Benefit of Mr. Kite" poster; the first ferris wheel; Thelma Ritter; Edward Platt; Murray “the K” Kaufman; Vic Morrow; Florence Hendrson; Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward; the ENIAC computer; Tim Buckley; Meg Tilly in Valmont; Chad and Jeremy on The Patty Duke Show; P.G. Wodehouse; Boardwalk and Baseball; Perrier; Doug Weston's Troubadour; Johnny Longden; the album Get The Knack; and Louis Jourdan.
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