DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Tuesday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2023. There are 320 days left in the year. This is Valentine’s Day. On this date 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.)
1912: Arizona became the 48th state of the Union as President William Howard Taft signed a proclamation.
1913: Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa was born in Brazil, Ind.; college football coach Woody Hayes was born in Clifton, Ohio; sports broadcaster Mel Allen was born in Birmingham, Ala.
1924: The Computing-tabulating-recording Co. of New York was formally renamed International Business Machines Corp., or IBM.
1929: The “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down.
1945: During World War II, British and Canadian forces reached the Rhine River in Germany.
1967: Aretha Franklin recorded her cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” at Atlantic Records in New York.
1984: Six-year-old Stormie Jones became the world’s first heart-liver transplant recipient when the surgery was performed at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
1989: Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses,” a novel condemned as blasphemous.
2022: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to try to quell the protests by truck drivers and others who paralyzed Ottawa and blocked border crossings in anger over the country’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Jazz saxophonist Maceo Parker is 80. TV personality Pat O’brien (“The Insider,” “Access Hollywood”) is 75. Magician Teller of Penn and Teller is 75. Actor Ken Wahl (“Wiseguy”) is 66. Opera singer Renee Fleming is 64. Actor Meg Tilly is 63. Actor Valente Rodriguez (TV’S “George Lopez,” film’s “Erin Brockovich”) is 59. Bassist Ricky Wolking of The Nixons is 57. Actor Simon Pegg (2009’s “Star Trek”) is 53. Bassist Kevin Baldes of Lit is 51. Singer Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty is 51. Actor Danai Gurira (“Black Panther”) is 45. Actor Matt Barr (“Blood and Treasure”) is 39. Actor Jake Lacy (“The Office”) is 37. Actor Tiffany Thornton (“Sonny With A Chance”) is 37. Actor Freddie Highmore (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Bates Motel”) is 31.