TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 15, the 46th day of 2023. There are 319 days left in the year. On this date in:

1764: The site of present-day St. Louis was established by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau.

1879: President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court.

1898: The U.S. battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.

1933: President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed more than four weeks later.

1944: Allied bombers destroyed the monastery atop Monte Cassino in Italy. 1950: Walt Disney’s animated film “Cinderella” premieres in Boston.

1961: 73 people, including an 18-member U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.

1965: Singer Nat King Cole, 45, died in Santa Monica, California.

1967: The rock band Chicago was founded by Walter Parazaider, Terry Kath, Danny Seraphine, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow and Robert Lamm; the group originally called itself The Big Thing, then Chicago Transit Authority. 1992: A Milwaukee jury found that Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed and mutilated 15 men and boys. (The decision meant that Dahmer, who had already pleaded guilty to the murders, would receive a mandatory life sentence for each count; Dahmer was beaten to death in prison in 1994.)

2003: Millions of protesters around the world demonstrated against the prospect of a U.S. attack on Iraq.