February 14th: Today in History

by Samantha Polon

Wednesday February 14, 2007

This Valentine’s Day, take time out of your busy schedule to look back at the origins of the holiday. Saint Valentine’s Day, which is in fact a liturgical feast, has not always been about romantic picnics, cynical singles and pink teddy bears. This feast day was first declared in 496 A.D. by Pope Gelasius and was dedicated to the martyred Saint Valentine of Ancient Rome.

In 1859, Oregon is recognized as the 33rd U.S. state.

The first patent for a telephone is sent in to the United States Patent Office on this day in 1876. Alexander Graham Bell thinks his telephone patent is the only appication, when in fact there is one other applicant: Elisha Gray.

The first Tarzan movie, Tarzan of the Apes, is released on February 14th, 1918.

1929: The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. A a result of gangsters George Moran and Al Capone’s escalating conflict, seven members of Moran’s crime ring are shot dead by Capone’s henchmen.

Michael Bloomberg, a generally very rich man and, as it happens, mayor of New York City, was born in this day in 1942.

On February 14, 1945, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru officially joined the United Nations.

For the Iraqi Communist Party, Valentine’s Day is celebrated as Communist Martyr’s Day.

Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, died on this day in 2003.