Today in History

278 – Reputed date of the execution of St Valentine, a Roman priest who conducted marriages in defiance of an imperial ban.

1663 – Canada becomes royal province of France.

1779 – Captain James Cook is murdered in Hawaii.

1895 –The Importance of Being Earnest ,by Oscar Wilde, right, opens in London.

1915 – New Zealand sends a ‘‘native contingent’’ of 500 soldiers to Egypt in World War I, the first use of Ma¯ori troops by the Government.

1929 – Sir Alexander Fleming introduces a mould by-product called penicillin to cure bacterial infections; seven rivals of the Al Capone gang in Chicago are murdered in what becomes known as the St Valentine’s Day Massacre.

1967 – Aretha Franklin records Respect.

1971 – US President Richard Nixon installs secret taping system in the White House. 1989 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran sentences British author Salman Rushdie to death for allegedly insulting Islam, sending him into hiding for years.

1998 – New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, opens in Wellington.

2005 – A powerful bomb kills former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and 13 other people.

2013 – South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius is charged with the murder of Reeva Steenkamp.

2018 – Expelled student Nikolas Cruz opens fire in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others.