Sign In
Create Account
Feb. 14th: The 45th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 320 days remain until the end of the year (321 in leap years).
1400
The deposed Richard II is murdered in Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire.
1549
Maximilian II, brother of the Emperor Charles V, is recognized as the future king of Bohemia.
1779
American Loyalists are defeated by Patriots at Kettle Creek, Ga.
1797
The Spanish fleet is destroyed by the British under Admiral Jervis (with Nelson in support) at the battle of Cape St. Vincent, off Portugal.
1848
James Polk becomes the first U.S. President to be photographed in office by Matthew Brady.
1859
Oregon is admitted as the thirty-third state.
1870
Esther Morris becomes the world's first female justice of the peace.
1876
Rival inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both apply for patents for the telephone.
1900
General Roberts invades South Africa's Orange Free State with 20,000 British troops.
1904
The "Missouri Kid" is captured in Kansas.
1912
Arizona becomes the 48th state in the Union.
1915
Kaiser Wilhelm II invites the U.S. Ambassador to Berlin in order to confer on the war.
1918
Warsaw demonstrators protest the transfer of Polish territory to the Ukraine.
1920
The League of Women Voters is formed in Chicago in celebration of the imminent ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.
1924
Thomas Watson founds International Business Machines Corp.
1929
Chicago gang war between Al Capone and George "Bugs" Moran culminates with several Moran confederates being gunned down in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
1939
Germany launches the battleship Bismarck.
1940
Britain announces that all merchant ships will be armed.
1942
Japanese paratroopers attack Sumatra. Aidan MacCarthy's RAF unit flew to Palembang, in eastern Sumatra, where 30 Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed A-28 Hudson bombers were waiting.
1945
800 Allied aircraft firebomb the German city of Dresden. Smaller followup bombing raids last until April with a total death toll of between 35,000 to 130,000 civilians.
1945
The siege of Budapest ends as the Soviets take the city. Only 785 German and Hungarian soldiers managed to escape.
1949
The United States charges the Soviet Union with interning up to 14 million in labor camps.
1955
A Jewish couple loses their fight to adopt Catholic twins as the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to rule on state law.
1957
The Georgia state senate outlaws interracial athletics.
1965
Malcolm X's home is firebombed. No injuries are reported.
1971
Moscow publicizes a new five-year plan geared to expanding consumer production.
1973
The United States and Hanoi set up a group to channel reconstruction aid directly to Hanoi.
1979
Armed guerrillas attack the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
1985
Vietnamese troops surround the main Khmer Rouge base at Phnom Malai.
1989
Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini charges that Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, is blasphemous and issues an edict (fatwa) calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie.
Want more random daily historical events? You know what to do. 
bully
