On Feb. 14, in about the year 269, St. Valentine was beheaded in Rome during the persecution of Claudius the Goth.
In 1663 Canada became a royal province of France.
In 1778 the American ship Ranger carried the American flag to a foreign port for the first time when it sailed to France.
In 1849 James Polk became the first president to be photographed while in office, posing for Mathew Brady in New York City.
In 1859 Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.
In 1876 inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied separately for patents relating to the telephone. (The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell was the rightful inventor.)
In 1886 the West Coast citrus industry got its start as the first trainload of oranges left Los Angeles.
In 1894 Benjamin Kubelsky, who became famous as comedian Jack Benny, was born in Waukegan.
In 1912 Arizona was admitted as the 48th state.
In 1929 the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place when seven rivals of the Al Capone gang were murdered in a garage on North Clark Street in Chicago.
In 1933 Michigan Gov. W. A. Comstock ordered an eight-day bank holiday to check the financial panic sweeping his state.
In 1945 thousands of Allied planes staged an air raid on Dresden, Germany.
In 1962 First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy held a televised White House tour.
In 1969 Peruvian torpedo boats attacked U.S. tuna boats 260 miles off Peru and captured one, holding it until the captain paid a fine.
In 1974 special Watergate Prosecutor Leon Jawarski said President Richard Nixon had refused to release tapes and documents needed for the Watergate probe.
In 1979 Iranian guerrillas stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, trapping Ambassador William Sullivan and 100 members of his staff. Forces of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini later freed them. The incident foreshadowed the November embassy takeover.
In 1989 Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill author Salman Rushdie for writing “The Satanic Verses,” which the cleric condemmed as blasphemous.
