February 14

St. Valentine's Day

Birthdays:

1977 ~ Anna Erschler, Russian mathematician.

1973 ~ Annalisa Buffa, Italian mathematician.

1968 ~ Scott McClellan, 25^th White House Press Secretary.  He served under President George W. Bush from July 2003 until May 2006.

1962 ~ Kevyn Aucoin (d. May 7, 2002), American make-up artist and photographer from Lafayette, Louisiana.  He died at age 40.

1960 ~ Meg Tilly (née Margaret Elizabeth Chan), American actress.

1959 ~ Renée Fleming, American soprano.

1951 ~ Terry Gross, Host of Fresh Air, which is on National Public Radio.

1948 ~ Raymond Joseph Teller, American magician, illusionist and comedian.  He is the silent half of the comedy/magic team of Penn and Teller.

1947 ~ Judd Alan Gregg, 76^th Governor of New Hampshire.  He served as Governor from January 1989 until January 1993.  He went on to serve as a United States Senator from New Hampshire from January 1993 until January 2011.

1946 ~ Gregory Hines (d. Aug. 9, 2003), American actor and dancer.  He died of liver cancer at age 57.

1944 ~ Carl Bernstein, American journalist.

1942 ~ Michael Rubens Bloomberg, American politician and 108^th Mayor of New York City.  He served as Mayor from January 2002 through December 2013.

1941 ~ Paul Efthenuis Tsongas (d. Jan. 18, 1997), American politician from Massachusetts.  He served in the United States House of Representatives and as a United States Senator.  He died of complications of pneumonia and non-Hodgkins’s lymphoma less than a month before his 56^th birthday.

1941 ~ Donna Shalala, 18^th Secretary of Health and Human Services.  She served under President Bill Clinton from January 1988 until January 1993.

1939 ~ Eugene Francis Fama, American economist and recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economic Science.  He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.

1936 ~ Fanne Foxe (née Annabelle Battistella), Argentine dancer and stripper, best known for being involved in a 1974 sex scandal with Congressman Wilber Mills.

1934 ~ Florence Henderson (d. Nov. 24, 2016), American actress.  She is best known for her role as Carol Brady on the television sit-com, The Brady Bunch.  She died at age 82.

1929 ~ Vic Morrow (né Victor Morozof, d. July 23, 1982), American actor.  He was killed at age 53 when the stunt helicopter he was in during the filming of The Twilight Zone crashed.

1921 ~ Hugh Malcolm Downs, American television host, best known for his role as co-host on the Today Show.

1917 ~ Herbert A. Hauptman (d. Oct. 23, 2011), American mathematician and chemist.  He was the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 94.

1913 ~ Jimmy Hoffa (né James Riddle Hoffa, presumed d. July 1975), American labor union leader.  He vanished in July 1975 and is presumed to have been killed.  His body has never been found.

1913 ~ Woody Hayes (né Wayne Woodrow Hayes, d. Mar. 12, 1987), American football player and college coach.  He had a long-term career coaching the football team at Ohio State University.  He died about a month before his 75^th birthday.

1911 ~ Willem Johan Kolff (d. Feb. 11, 2009), Dutch surgeon who was the father of artificial organs.  He died 3 days before his 98^th birthday.

1894 ~ Jack Benny (né Benjamin Kublesky, d. Dec. 26, 1974), American comedian.  He died at age 80.

1886 ~ Walter Liggett (d. Dec. 9, 1935), American newspaper editor who was murdered in a gangland shooting.  He was 49 years old.

1882 ~ John Barrymore (né John Sidney Blyth, d. May 29, 1942), American actor and member of the Barrymore acting dynasty.  His birthdate is sometimes listed as Feb. 15, 1882.  He died at age 60.

1868 ~ Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (d. Nov. 15, 1959), Scottish physicist and recipient of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the cloud chamber.  He died at age 90.

1859 ~ George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. (d. Nov. 22, 1896), American engineer and inventor of the Ferris Wheel.  He died at age 37 of typhoid fever.

1847 ~ Anna Howard Shaw (d. July 2, 1919), American suffragette.  She was also one of the first ordained Methodist ministers in the United States.  She died at age 72.

1838 ~ Margaret Eloise Knight (d. Oct. 12, 1914), American inventor who invented the machine that folds and glues paper to form the flat-bottomed brown paper bags.  She was born in York, Maine and died in Framingham, Massachusetts.  She died at age 76.

1819 ~ Christopher Sholes (d. Feb. 17, 1890), American journalist and inventor of the typewriter.  He died 3 days after his 71^st birthday.

1800 ~ Emory Washburn (d. Mar. 18, 1877), 22^nd Governor of Massachusetts.  He was Governor from January 1854 until January 1855.  He died about a month after his 77^th birthday.

1677 ~ Johann Ludwig Bach (d. May 1, 1731), German violinist and composer.  He died at age 54.

1613 ~ Samuel Butler (d. Sept. 25, 1680), English poet.  The actual date of his birth is unknown, but he was baptized on this date.  He died at age 67.

1602 ~ Francesco Cavalli (d. Jan. 14, 1676), Italian composer.  He died a month before his 74^th birthday.

1545 ~ Lucrezia de’Medici, Duchess of Ferrara (d. Apr. 21, 1561).  She was the first wife of Alfonso II d’Este.  She died at age 16, probably of tuberculosis.

1468 ~ Johannes Werner (d. May 1522), German mathematician and priest.  The exact date of his death is not known, but he is believed to have been 54 at the time of his death.

Events that Changed the World:

2005 ~ YouTube was launched.

1989 ~ Ruhollah Khomeini (1902 ~ 1989) issued a fatwas against Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) for his novel, The Satanic Verses, in which he urged Muslims to kill Rushdie.

1989 ~ Union Carbide agreed to a $470 Million settlement to the Indian government for damages resulting from the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

1962 ~ Jacqueline Kennedy gave television viewers a tour of the White House for the first time.

1961 ~ Lawrencium, element 103 on the periodic table, was first synthesized at the University of California.

1949 ~ The Israeli Knesset convened for the first time.

1946 ~ The Bank of England was nationalized.

1945 ~ The British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Ari Forces began fire-bombing the city of Dresden, German during World War II.

1929 ~ Seven people, including six gangster rivals of Al Capone’s gang, were murdered in Chicago, Illinois, in what became known as the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.

1924 ~ The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM.

1920 ~ The League of Women voters was founded in Chicago, Illinois.

1918 ~ The Soviet Union adopted the Gregorian calendar.

1912 ~ The first diesel-powered submarine was commissioned in Groton, Connecticut.

1912 ~ Arizona became the 48^th State of the Union.

1903 ~ The United States Department of Commerce and Labor was created.  It was later split into two distinct entities: the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.

1899 ~ The United States Congress approved the use of voting machines for federal elections.

1876 ~ Alexander Graham Bell (1847 ~ 1922) applied for a patent for the telephone.  Elisha Gray (1835 ~ 1901) also applied for a patent for a telephone on the same day, however, Bell’s patent beat out Gray’s.

1859 ~ Oregon became the 33^rd State of the Union.

1855 ~ A telegraph connection was completed between New Orleans, Louisiana and Marshall, Texas, which finally linked Texas to the rest of the United States.

1849 ~ U.S. President James Polk (1795 ~ 1849) became the first sitting President to have his photograph taken.

1556 ~ Thomas Cranmer (1489 ~ 1556) was declared a heretic by the Catholic Church.

1349 ~ Mobs in Strasbourg burned to death several hundred Jews.  The Jews who were not killed were forcibly removed from the city.

1130 ~ Innocent II was elected Pope.

1076 ~ Henry IV (1050 ~ 1106), Holy Roman Emperor was excommunicated by Pope Gregory VII (1015 ~ 1085) over tensions between Church and State authority.

1014 ~ Henry (973 ~ 1024) of Bavaria, King of Germany and Italy was Crown Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Benedict VIII.

Good-Byes:

2015 ~ Louis Jourdan (né Louis Robert Gendre, b. June 19, 1921), French actor.  He died at age 93.

2013 ~ Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp (b. Aug. 19, 1983), South African model.  She was murdered by her boyfriend, Olympian Oscar Pistorius.  She was 29 years old.

2013 ~ Ronald Myles Dworkin (b. Dec. 11, 1931), American legal scholar who based law in morality.  He was a Constitutional law scholar.  He was born in Providence, Rhode Island.  He died in London, England at age 81.

2011 ~ Chuck Allen (né Charles Lee Allen, b. Sept. 13, 1936), American surfing coach turned snowboard evangelist.  He was 74 years old.

2011 ~ Sir George Shearing, OBE (b. Aug. 13, 1919), British pianist with a signature sound.  He was born blind to working-class parents in London and became one of the best known jazz pianists of his time.  He died at age 91.

2010 ~ Doug Fieger (né Douglas Lars Fieger, b. Aug. 20, 1952), American new-wave rocker who co-wrote My Sharona.  He had been the lead singer of The Knack.  He died of cancer at age 57.

2010 ~ Dick Francis (né Richard Stanley Francis, b. Oct. 31, 1920), British jockey who was a best-selling novelist.  He died at age 89.

1999 ~ John Ehrlichman (b. Mar. 20, 1925), key figure in the events leading to the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon administration.  He was also the 12^th White House Counsel and served during the Nixon Administration.  He died of complications of diabetes at age 73.

1991 ~ John Alexander McCone (b. Jan. 4, 1902), 6^th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  He served under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from November 1961 until April 1965.  He died at age 89.

1988 ~ Frederick Loewe (b. June 10, 1901), Austrian-American composer who collaborated with Alan Jay Lerner to compose many Broadway musicals.  He died at age 86.

1975 ~ Sir Julian Huxley (b. June 22, 1887), British biologist.  He died at age 87.

1975 ~ Sir P.G. Wodehouse (né Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, b. Oct. 15, 1881), English author.  He died at age 93.

1943 ~ David Hilbert (b. Jan. 23, 1862), German mathematician.  He died 22 days after his 81^st birthday.

1943 ~ Alice Henry (d. Mar. 21, 1857), Australian suffragist, journalist and trade unionist.  She died at age 85.

1894 ~ Eugène Charles Catalan (b. May 30, 1814), Belgian mathematician.  He died at age 79.

1891 ~ William Tecumseh Sherman (b. Feb. 8, 1820), American Union general in the American Civil War.  Prior to serving in the Army, he served as the president of the Louisiana State University.  He died 6 days after his 71^st birthday.

1884 ~ Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (b. July 29, 1861), first wife of Theodore Roosevelt.  She died following complications of childbirth at the age of 22.

1881 ~ Fernando Wood (b. June 14, 1812), Mayor of New York City.  He first served from January 1855 until January 1858, and his second term was from January 1860 until December 1862.  He died at age 68.

1831 ~ Vicente Guerrero (b. Aug. 10, 1782), 2^nd President of Mexico.  He served as President from April 1829 until December 1829.  He died at age 48.

1780 ~ Sir William Blackstone (b. July 10, 1723), English politician and lawyer.  He died at age 56.

1779 ~ Captain James Cook (b. Nov. 7, 1728), British naval officer and explorer.  Under the Julian calendar, is birthday is considered to have been on October 17, 1728.  He was killed at age 50 in a confrontation with natives on the Hawaiian Islands.

1744 ~ John Hadley (b. Apr. 16, 1682), English mathematician and inventor of the octant, an instrument used in navigation.  He died at age 61.

1400 ~ King Richard II of England (b. Jan. 6, 1367).  He was overthrown in 1399 and was imprisoned in the London Tower.  He died and was likely murdered from starvation on orders of Henry Bolingbroke.  He was 33 years old at the time of his death.

1317 ~ Marguerite of France (b. 1282), Queen of Edward I of England.  The date of her birth is not known.

945 ~ Zhu Wenjin, Chinese emperor of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.  The date of his birth is not known.

869 ~ St. Cyril (b. 827), Greek monk and theologian.

270 ~ St. Valentine (b. 226), the traditional date for the death of St. Valentine.  Very little else is known about St. Valentine.