February 14th
Today in America's Present Past
1794 | Entrepreneur James Davenport patients textile machinery.
1804 | Entrepreneur and inventor Ottis Tufts was born.
1808 | Founding: John Dickinson died.
1817 | Frederick Douglass was born.
1819 | Entrepreneur Christopher Latham Sholes was born.
1824 | General Winfield Scott Hancock was born.
1838 | Inventor Margaret E. Knight was born.
1844 | Explorer John C. Fremont becomes the first American to discover Lake Tahoe.
1845 | SCOTUS: Justice Samuel Nelson is sworn in.
1847 | Suffragette Anna Howard Shaw was born.
1849 | POTUS: The first photograph of a sitting U.S. President, James Polk, is taken.
1859 | Statehood: Oregon joins the Union.
1859 | Entrepreneur George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. was born.
1867 | Moorehouse College is founded.
1870 | Civil Rights: The first female voter, Seraph Young, casts a legal vote in Utah.
1876 | Inventors Alexander Bell and Elisha Gray file patents for the telephone.
1883 | New Jersey becomes the first state to legalize unions.
1889 | Indian Wars: Jim Jumper massacre.
1891 | William Tecumseh Sherman died.
1894 | Comedian Jack Benny was born.
1899 | John Herman Randall, Jr. was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
1903 | POTUS: Republican President Theodore Roosevelt signs legislation creating the U.S. Department of Labor & Commerce.
1912 | Statehood: Arizona joins the Union.
1912 | Historian Edmund G. Love was born in Flushing, Michigan.
1912 | U.S. Navy commissions its first diesel-powered submarines.
1913 | Union leader Jimmy Hoffa was born.
1919 | Entrepreneur James Casey launches United Parcel Service.
1920 | League of Women Voters forms.
1922 | Douglas MacArthur wed Louise Cromwell Brooks.
1929 | St. Valentine’s Day massacre.
1931 | Film “Dracula” featuring Bela Lugosi is released.
1934 | Actress Florence Henderson was born.
1942 | Entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg was born.
1943 | Entrepreneur Sam Walton weds Helen Robson.
1944 | Journalist Carl Bernstein was born.
1945 | WWII: Allied bombers accidentally bomb Prague, Czech Republic.
1945 | Actor Gregory Hines was born.
1948 | Magician Teller was born.
1951 | Boxer Sugar Ray Robinson wins the middleweight title, defeating Jake LaMotta.
1956 | Baseballer Willie Mays weds Margherite Wendall Chapman.
1957 | Civil Rights: Georgia Senate passes legislation banning interracial baseball.
1957 | Original Video Jockey Alan Hunter was born.
1962 | First televised tour of the White House hosted by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
1963 | U.S. launches first communication satellite Syncom 1.
1967 | Entertainer Aretha Franklin recorded “Respect.”
1972 | Musician Rob Thomas was born.
1975 | Author P.G. Wodehouse died.
1978 | Texas Instruments patients the “microchip.”
1989 | Author Salman Rushdie is the target of a death bounty by radical Islamic leaders in Iran.
1989 | The U.S. launches its initial Global Positioning System satellites first.
1991 | The film “Silence of the Lambs” was released.
2015 | Poet Philip Levine died.
2016 | Author Steven Stucky died.