Today in history

On Feb. 14, 1778, the American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.

In 1859 Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.

In 1895 Oscar Wilde’s final play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” opened in London.

In 1899 Congress approved, and President William McKinley signed, legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections.

In 1903 the Department of Commerce and Labor was established. (It was divided into separate Departments of Commerce and Labor in 1913.)

In 1912 Arizona became the 48th state.

In 1913 Woody Hayes, the Hall of Fame football coach at Ohio State for nearly three decades, was born Wayne Woodrow Hayes in Clifton, Ohio.

In 1920 the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maud Wood Park.

In 1945 Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the United Nations.

In 1962 first Kennedy televised tour House.

lady Jacqueline conducted a of the White

In 1975 British-born author P.G. Wodehouse died in Southampton, N.Y.; he was 93.

In 1979 Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.

In 1984

6-year-old

Stormie Jones became the world’s first heart-liver transplant recipient, at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh; she lived until November 1990. Also in 1984 Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Britain won the gold medal in ice dancing at the Sarajevo Olympics.

In 1985 CNN reporter Jeremy Levin, who was being held hostage by extremists in Lebanon, was freed.

In 1989 Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” a novel condemned as blasphemous.

In 1993 the body of James Bulger, a 2-year-old boy who had been lured away from his mother in a Liverpool, England, shopping mall two days earlier, was found along a stretch of railroad track. (Two 10year-old boys were later convicted of murdering James.)

In 1997 American Airlines and its pilots union continued contract talks as the clock ticked down to a midnight strike deadline. (The pilots did strike, but President Bill Clinton immediately intervened, ordering a 60-day “cooling off ” period.)

In 1999 John Ehrlichman, President Richard Nixon’s domestic affairs adviser who was disgraced and imprisoned for his role in the Watergate cover-up, died in Atlanta; he was 73.

In 2001 the Kansas Board of Education approved new science standards restoring evolution to the state’s curriculum.

In 2003 in a dramatic showdown, major powers rebuffed the United States in the U.N. Security Council and insisted on more time for weapons inspections in Iraq. (Earlier, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told the council his teams had not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.) Also in 2003 “Dolly” the cloned sheep was put to death after premature aging and disease marred her short existence and raised questions about the practicality of copying life.

In 2004 guerrillas overwhelmed a police station west of Baghdad, killing 23 people and freeing dozens of prisoners. Also in 2004 28 people were killed when the glass-and-concrete roof of an indoor water park in Moscow collapsed.

In 2005 former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated.

In 2006 Iran said it had resumed uranium enrichment; Russia and France immediately called on Iran to halt its work.

In 2008 a former student dressed in black walked onto the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire on a packed class; Steven Kazmierczak killed five students before committing suicide. Also in 2008 Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney endorsed John McCain for the party’s presidential nomination.

In 2013 Oscar Pistorius, the South African Olympic sprinter whose legs were amputated as a child, was charged with murder in the slaying of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a 30-year-old model, at his home in Pretoria. (He was later found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to 5 years in prison.)

Celebrity Birthdays

Actress Meg Tilly is (1960)

Actor

(1970)

Singer Rob Thomas is 46. (1972)

Actress

40. (1978)

Actor Freddie Highmore is 26. (1992) Simon Pegg Danai is

58. 48. Gurira is