Today In History...

In 1778 The American ship Ranger carries the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.

In 1848 President Polk is the first U.S. President to be photographed while

in office as he posed for Matthew Brady in New York.

In 1859 Oregon becomes the 33rd U.S. state.

In 1876 Inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray apply separately for patents related to the telephone. (The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell the rightful inventor.)

In 1895 Oscar Wilde's final and possibly most enduring play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," opens at the St. James's Theatre in London.

In 1903 The U.S. Department of Commerce And Labor is established.

In 1912 Arizona becomes the 48th U.S. state.

In 1918 Leon Forrest Douglass displays his color-movie device.

In 1920 The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago.

In 1929 Seven rivals of Al Capone's gang are gunned down in a Chicago garage

in what becomes known as the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

In 1941 "Reflections in a Golden Eye" by Carson McCullers is first published.

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

In 1954 Senator John F. Kennedy appears on "Meet the Press."

In 1955 Jewish couples are forbidden to adopt a Catholic baby, the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to get involved.

In 1957 Georgia outlaws interracial athletic contests.

In 1962 First lady, Jackie Kennedy takes millions on a televised tour of the White House.

In 1966 Wilt Chamberlain sets NBA scoring record of 20,884 over 7 seasons.

In 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson orders the CIA to stop covert activities on American college campuses.

In 1971 President Richard Nixon installs a secret taping system in White House.

In 1972 The film "Cabaret" opens in theaters.

In 1979 Adolph Dubs, an American ambassador to Afghanistan is assassinated.

In 1984 6-year-old Stormie Jones becomes the world's first heart-liver transplant recipient at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. (She lived until November 1990.)

In 1984 Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean of Britain win the gold medal in ice dancing at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.

In 1985 Conservative Jews approve women as rabbis.

In 1985 CNN reporter Jeremy Levin, being held hostage by Moslem extremists in Lebanon is released.

In 1989 Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini puts a $1 million bounty on Salman Rushdie's head calling his book "The Satanic Verses" blasphemous.

In 1989 India agrees to drop all prosecutions for the 3500-death Bhopal poison tragedy in return for Union Carbide's paying $470 million.

In 1990 94 people are killed when an Indian Airlines passenger jet crashes while landing at a southern Indian airport.

In 1991 Two San Francisco men became the first couple to register as "domestic partners" under a new city ordinance.

In 1991 The Academy Award-winning film "Silence of the Lambs" premieres.

In 1992 American speed skater Bonnie Blair wins her second gold medal of the Albertville Olympics, in the 1,000-meters event.

In 1992 The former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Moldova, and Azerbaijan reject a proposal for a unified army.

In 1993 Two-year-old James Bulger is found beaten to death on a stretch of railroad track in Liverpool, England. Two boys, aged 10, were later convicted of the slaying.

In 1994 At the Winter Olympics in Norway, speedskater Dan Jansen slips and falls during the 500 meters race.

In 1995 A federal judge rejects the Justice Department's proposed antitrust settlement with Microsoft Corp. He is later overruled.

In 1996 Texas Senator Phil Gramm bowed out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

In 1998 Russia's Ilya Kulik wins the men's figure skating gold medal at the Nagano Olympics.

In 1999 President Clinton, accompanied by first lady Hillary, begins a visit to Mexico.

In 1999 John D. Ehrlichman, President Nixon's domestic affairs adviser imprisoned for his role in the Watergate cover-up that ultimately led to Nixon's resignation, dies in Atlanta at age 73.

In 2000 Three tornadoes move across rural southwest Georgia, killing 20.

In 2000 Two sophomores at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, are found shot to death in a fast-food restaurant two blocks from the school, which was still reeling from the April 1999 massacre.

In 2001 A Palestinian crashes a bus into Israeli soldiers and civilians standing at a bus stop in Azur, Israel, killing eight. (The driver, Khalil Abu Olbeh, was later sentenced to eight life terms.)

In 2003 "Dolly" the cloned sheep is put to death after premature aging and disease marred her short existence and raised questions about the practicality of copying life. 

In 2017 St. Valentine's Day.

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