TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, FEB. 14, the 45th day of 2021. There are 320 days left in the year. This is Valentine’s Day.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 2018, a gunman identified as a former student opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, killing 17 people in the nation’s deadliest school shooting since the attack in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years earlier.
In 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 1876, inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied separately for patents related to the telephone. (The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell the rightful inventor.)
In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state of the Union as President William Howard Taft signed a proclamation.
In 1920, the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maud Wood Park.
In 1929, the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down.
In 1945, during World War II, British and Canadian forces reached the Rhine River in Germany.
In 1967, Aretha Franklin recorded her cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” at Atlantic Records in New York.
In 1979, Adolph Dubs, 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 when the surgery was performed at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. (She lived until November 1990.)
In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” a novel condemned as blasphemous.
In 2019, William Barr was sworn in for his second stint as the nation’s attorney general; he succeeded Jeff Sessions, who had been pushed out of office by President Donald Trump after Trump denounced Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Country singer Razzy Bailey is 82. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is 79. Jazz musician Maceo Parker is 78. Journalist Carl Bernstein is 77. Former Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., is 74. TV personality Pat O’Brien and magician Teller (Penn and Teller) are 73. Cajun singer-musician Michael Doucet (Beausoleil) is 70. Actor Ken Wahl is 64. Opera singer Renee Fleming is 62. Actor Meg Tilly and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly are 61. Actor Sakina Jaffey is 59. Actor Enrico Colantoni is 58. Former tennis player Manuela Maleeva is 54. Actor Simon Pegg is 51. Rock musician Kevin Baldes (Lit), rock singer Rob Thomas (Matchbox Twenty) and former NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe are 49. Actor Danai Gurira is 43. Actors Matt Barr and Stephanie Leonidas are 37. Actors Jake Lacy and Tiffany Thornton are 35. Actor Brett Dier is 31. Actor Freddie Highmore is 29.