February 14

Scott Winters February 14, 2024 0 Comments

A quick look at Today in History, check out some Celebrity Birthdays, and find out what Days of the Year to celebrate.

TODAY IN HISTORY:

1803 – The apple parer was patented by Moses Coates.

1849 – In New York, NY, James Polk became the first serving President to have his photograph taken. The photographer was Matthew Brady.

1859 – Oregon was admitted as the 33rd state.

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell filed for a patent for his telephone. The patent was officially issued on March 7, 1876.

1899 – Congress approved voting machines for use in federal elections.

1899 – The coldest temperature ever in recorded in Grand Rapids, MI was -24° F.

1903 – The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor was established. It would later be split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.

1912 – The first diesel engine submarine was commissioned in Groton, CT.

1912 – Arizona was admitted as the 48th state.

1920 – The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago, IL.

1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

1929 – The “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place in Chicago, IL. Seven gangsters who were rivals of Al Capone were killed.

1932 – The U.S. won the first bobsled competition at the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, NY.

1940 – The first porpoise born in captivity arrived at Marineland in Florida.

1946 – ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was unveiled. The device, which was the world’s first general purpose electronic computer, was built at the University of Pennsylvania.

1961 – Lawrencium, element 103, was first produced in Berkely, CA.

1962 – First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy took television viewers on a tour of the White House.

1966 – Rick Mount of Lebanon, IN, became the first high school, male athlete to be pictured on the cover of “Sports Illustrated”.

1966 – Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers set a National Basketball Association (NBA) record as he reached a career high of 20,884 points after seven seasons.

1968 – The fourth Madison Square Gardens opened.

1972 – In shows taped several weeks earlier, John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin a week long stint as co-hosts on television’s “The Mike Douglas Show”.

1980 – Walter Cronkite announced his retirement as anchorman from the “CBS Evening News”.

1983 – A 6-year-old boy became the first person to receive a heart and liver transplants in the same operation.

1985 – Cable News Network (CNN) reporter Jeremy Levin was freed. He had been being held in Lebanon by extremists.

1989 – Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie because of his novel “The Satanic Verses.”

1989 – The first satellite of the Global Positioning System (GPS) was placed into orbit around Earth.

1992 – The movie “Wayne’s World” premiered in theaters. The Wayne and Garth characters originally appeared on TV’s “Saturday Night Live”.

1997 – Astronauts on the Space Shuttle Discovery began a series of spacewalks that were required to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope.

1998 – Authorities officially announced that Eric Rudolph was a suspect in a bombing of an abortion clinic in Alabama.

2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.

2001 – Eminem pleaded guilty in a Michigan court to weapons charges in connection with an incident in which he allegedly pistol whipped a man he saw kissing his wife.

2002 – Sylvester Stallone filed a lawsuit against Kenneth Starr, alleging that Starr had given bad advice about selling Planet Hollywood stock.

2005 – The video-sharing website YouTube was launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world and a main source for viral videos.

2018 – A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL was one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 15 injuries

BIRTHDAYS:

Michael Bloomberg – 82 years old (1942) – Former New York City Mayor

Carl Bernstein – 80 years old (1944) – Journalist

Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling – 76 years old (1948) – Comedian, radio personality (“The Howard Stern Show”)

Pat O’Brien – 76 years old (1948) – Television personality (TV’s “CBS Sports”, “Access Hollywood”, “The Insider”)

Ray Teller – 76 years old (1948) – Comedian, magician (Pen and Teller) The silent half of Penn and Teller

Roger Fisher – 74 years old (1950) – Guitarist (Heart)

Ken Wahl – 67 years old (1957) – Actor (TV’s “Wiseguy”)

Meg Tilly – 64 years old (1960) – Actress (“The Big Chill,” “Agnes of God”, “Psycho 2”, “The Two Jakes”, “Sleep With Me”)

Dwayne Wiggins – 63 years old (1961) – Musician (Tony! Toni! Toné!)

Enrico Colantoni – 61 years old (1963) – Actor (TV’s “Just Shoot Me!”, “Veronica Mars”, “Flashpoint”, “Person of Interest”, “Carmilla”, movies “The Wrong Guy”, “Galaxy Quest”, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”, “Contagion”)

Zach Galligan – 60 years old (1964) – Actor (“Gremlins”, “Waxwork” and their sequels)

Jules Asner – 56 years old (1968) – TV host (“Wild On…”, “E! News Daily”)

Simon Pegg – 54 years old (1970) – Actor (“Shaun of the Dead”, “Hot Fuzz”, “Paul”, “The World’s End”, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”)

Drew Bledsoe – 52 years old (1972) – Football player

Rob Thomas – 52 years old (1972) – Lead singer (Matchbox 20)

Danai Gurira – 46 years old (1978) – Actress (TV’s “The Walking Dead”)

Richard Hamilton – 46 years old (1978) – Basketball player (The Detroit Pistons 2002-2011)

Tiffany Thornton – 38 years old (1986) – Actress (TV’s “Sonny With a Chance”, “Game Change”)

Freddie Highmore – 32 years old (1992) – Actor (TV’s “Bates Motel”, movies “The Art of Getting By”, “The Spiderwick Chronicles”, “August Rush”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Finding Neverland”)