14 Feb History.

<< Feb 13| HISTORY “4” “2”DAY |Feb 15 >>
Events, deaths, births, of FEB 14
[For Feb 14 Julian go to Gregorian date: 1583~1699: Feb 24 — 1700s: Feb 25 — 1800s: Feb 26 — 1900~2099: Feb 27]

ALTERNATE SITES ALL FOR 040214 ANY DAY OF THE YEAR IN HISTORY ART “4” FEB 14

On a February 14:
2002 Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine researchers introduce the world's first cloned cat, born by Caesarean section on 22 December 2001 and called "Cc:" (“Cloned Cat” or “CopyCat”). Previously, researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine have cloned cattle, goats and pigs. — MORE

^ 2002 Free at last from prison, after 15 years, wrongly convicted as rapist.
      Exonerated by DNA testing, which the district attorney prevented for the last 7 years, Bruce Godschalk, 41, no longer inmate No. AY9638, walks out of the Montgomery County, Pennsysvania, Jail at 16:45, with less than $10 in his pocket, wearing a pair of old jeans, a T-shirt and no winter coat. With his lawyer, David Rudovsky, he has his first beer in 15 years.
      In 1986, when he was 26, Godschalk was convicted of raping two women, who lived in the same housing complex and sent to prison for 10 to 20 years. For seven years the Montgomery County district attorney's office fought his efforts to obtain DNA testing. In January 2002, two laboratories, one retained by the prosecution, the other by the defense, found the same results: Both rapes were committed by the same man, and that man was not Bruce Godschalk.
      The Montgomery County district attorney, Bruce L. Castor Jr., continued to resist Mr. Godschalk's release, saying that he believed the DNA testing was flawed and that he needed time to confirm the results. At long last, on 14 February 2002, after further testing did just that, Castor writes to Judge S. Gerald Corso of Common Pleas Court.: "I am not convinced that Bruce Godschalk is innocent, but I do not think there is sufficient evidence to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt" and suggests an immediate release.
      At the time of his arrest, Godschalk was living with his parents in the Philadelphia suburbs and working for a landscaper. He had two prior arrests; for possession of marijuana and driving while impaired. Six months after the two rapes, after studying Godschalk's picture in a mug shot array for more than an hour, one victim identified him as her rapist. The second victim could not make an identification. After several hours of interrogation, Godschalk made a confession that he later recanted. His motion to throw out the confession was denied in the trial, and Castor still insists that it was valid.
      While Godschalk was in prison, his sister (his only sibling), his father; and his mother all died. His mother left money in her will to pay for DNA testing. The tests cost about $10'000, said Barry Scheck, of the Innocence Project of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, which took on Godschalk's case after he wrote to them.prison

2000 La NASA, agencia espacial de Estados Unidos, consigue colocar a la nave espacial "Near" en la órbita del asteroide "Eros", todo un éxito pionero después de los sucesivos fracasos en Marte.

^ 1999 (Sunday) Clinton impeachment trial aftermath.
(1) After President Bill Clinton's acquittal on two articles of impeachment, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are urging Independent Counsel Ken Starr not to bring criminal charges against him.

"I think indicting the president would not be a great idea, but clearly that's something in the Congress that we can't control," Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) says on CNN's "Late Edition." He also says the independent counsel statute should <"absolutely not" be renewed. "I was one of the 21 people who voted against extending it in 1993," McConnell said. "I don't want it to be amended. I want it to be ended."

"Move on," Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York) now says on NBC's "Meet The Press.""I've had enough of everything, but particularly Kenneth Starr." Moynihan calls the independent counsel statute <"a post-Watergate, liberal notion, and it was a disaster."

The situation is best summed up by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a likely 2000 presidential candidate who voted to convict Clinton on both articles. McCain also urges Starr not to indict the president, saying there is an "overwhelming desire on the part of the American people and the Congress" to end the Lewinsky saga. "I can't pretend to tell Mr. Starr what his legal options are, but from a pure political standpoint, it's time to move on," McCain says on "Meet The Press." "And I think that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle share that view."
(2) There are also growing indications that the law authorizing independent counsels, set to expire this summer, may be yet another casualty of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Clinton supported its authorization in 1993. But in an interview aired today on "This Week," White House Chief of Staff John Podesta indicates that the White House may be of a different mind this time around, though he said no final decision has been made. "I think it's going to be very difficult to reauthorize this law — based on not just Mr. Starr's case but on a number of cases that people have looked at — without major, major revisions," he says.
Matt Drudge reports:
<BILL GIVES HILLARY LOVE PIN, VOWS NEVER TO CHEAT AGAIN
On Sunday evening in Mexico, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was spotted wearing a heart-shaped gold pin on her dark suit — a pin, sources say, that was given to her by her husband with a vow that he would never cheat on her again!
"It was a Valentine's Day gift," says a well-placed White House source traveling with the president. "He promised her that he will not hurt her anymore. The pin was a gift from his heart that came with a promise that he would remain faithful."
En route to Mexico, Mrs. Clinton walked through the press cabin aboard Air Force One and showed off the pin.
But one reporter who witnessed Mrs. Clinton's walk through the cabin felt that the First Lady was deliberately displaying the pin to show that all is now well between her and her husband.
"I think they were spinning us with all the fuss surrounding the pin," a network reporter e-mailed the DRUDGE REPORT from Mexico. "Monica's book is about to come out, and then the TV interview. I think they are trying hard to diffuse all of that."
Also on the plane ride down to Mexico the president shared a huge box of candy with reporters.
"Happy Valentine's Day," the president smiled.

1996 World chess champion Garry Kasparov, with White, after the Slav opening, draws his 4th game against the IBM supercomputer "Deep Blue," leaving the six-game match in Philadelphia tied after four games. (Kasparov loses on 10 Feb Game 1 — wins on 11 Feb Game 2 — draws on 13 Feb Game 3 — draws on 14 Feb Game 4 — wins on 16 Feb Game 5 — wins on 17 Feb Game 6) The game:
1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 c6 3. c4 e6 4. Nbd2 Nf6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 Bd6 7. e4 dxe4 8. Nxe4 Nxe4 9. Bxe4 O-O 10. O-O h6 11. Bc2 e5 12. Re1 exd4 13. Qxd4 Bc5 14. Qc3 a5 15. a3 Nf6 16. Be3 Bxe3 17. Rxe3 Bg4 18. Ne5 Re8 19. Rae1 Be6 20. f4 Qc8 21. h3 b5 22. f5 Bxc4 23. Nxc4 bxc4 24. Rxe8+ Nxe8 25. Re4 Nf6 26. Rxc4 Nd5 27. Qe5 Qd7 28. Rg4 f6 29. Qd4 Kh7 30. Re4 Rd8 31. Kh1 Qc7 32. Qf2 Qb8 33. Ba4 c5 34. Bc6 c4 35. Rxc4 Nb4 36. Bf3 Nd3 37. Qh4 Qxb2 38. Qg3 Qxa3 39. Rc7 Qf8 40. Ra7 Ne5 41. Rxa5 Qf7 42. Rxe5 fxe5 43. Qxe5 Re8 44. Qf4 Qf6 45. Bh5 Rf8 46. Bg6+ Kh8 47. Qc7 Qd4 48. Kh2 Ra8 49. Bh5 Qf6 50. Bg6 Rg8 . The opponents agree to a draw.

1996 Turncoat Texas Senator Phil Gramm abandons his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. (years earlier, as a Democratic Congressman, he had abandoned his party).
1992 Cease fire in Somalia begins.
1990 At a conference in Ottawa, the United States and its European allies agree with the Soviet Union and East Germany on a two-stage formula to reunite Germany.
1990 Por primera vez en treinta años tiene lugar en Johannesburgo (Sudáfrica) una asamblea general del Congreso Nacional Africano (ANC).
1990 Perrier recalls 160 million bottles of sparkling water after traces of benzene, a carcinogen, are found in some.

^ 1989 Nicaragua's Sandinista government agrees to free elections
      At a meeting of the presidents of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua agrees to free a number of political prisoners and hold free elections within a year; in return, Honduras promises to close bases being used by anti-Sandinista rebels. Within a year, elections in Nicaragua resulted in the defeat of the Sandinistas, removing what officials during the administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) referred to as a "beachhead of communism" in the Western Hemisphere.
      Nicaragua had been a Cold War battlefield ever since the Sandinista regime came to power in 1979, following the overthrow of long-time dictator Anastacio Somoza. Almost immediately, US officials criticized the new government, claiming that it was leftist-possibly Marxist-in its orientation. As relations between the United States and Nicaragua worsened, and Nicaragua moved toward a closer relationship with the communist bloc, the Reagan administration took action to bring down the Sandinista government. The foundation of this effort was economic and military aid totaling nearly one billion dollars by 1988 to the so-called Contras-anti-Sandinista rebels operating from Honduras and Costa Rica. By the late 1980s, concerns about regional stability and the widening Contra war effort spurred other Central American governments to work toward a solution to the Nicaraguan conflict. The February 1989 agreement was the culmination of that work, with Nicaragua promising free elections within a year in exchange for Honduran promises to close the Contra bases within its borders.
      Contra leaders were quick to criticize the agreement, but it was obvious that their days were numbered. The Sandinista government declared that the agreement symbolized the failure of the US effort to bring it down through force. Officials of the new administration of President George Bush in the United States adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards events in the region. Ronald Reagan and other officials who served during his tenure, however, were quick to take credit for the outcome of the meeting-despite the fact that they had not participated in it. They claimed that the US pressure during the previous eight years, particularly support of the Contras, had forced the Sandinistas to agree to elections. When the Sandinistas-who were heavily favored to win the election — went down to a shocking electoral defeat in February 1990, Reaganites claimed total victory.

1989 Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offers $1 million-$3 million bounty for Salman Rushdie's death because of his “blaphemous” novel, Satanic Verses. — Jomeini llama a los musulmanes del mundo entero para ejecutar al escritor indio-británico Salman Rushdie, por entender que su obra "Versos satánicos" ofende al Islam.
1989 Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million in damages to the government of India in a court-ordered settlement of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster.
1988 Alfredo Stroessner re-elected President of Paraguay.
1985 The US Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism announced their decision to begin accepting women as rabbis.
1984 Konstantin Chernenko was chosen to be general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Yuri Andropov.
1984 Stormie Jones, 6, undergoes the first ever heart-liver transplant.
1979 Shan Kuo-Hsi, SJ [03 Dec 1923–], is consecrated bishop of Hwalien, Taiwan.
1971 Richard Nixon installs secret taping system in White House.

^ 1970 In US, 55% oppose immediate withdrawal from Vietnam.
Despite an increasingly active antiwar movement, a Gallup Poll shows that a majority of those polled (55%) oppose an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. Those that favored American withdrawal had risen from 21 percent, in a November poll, to 35 percent. President Nixon had taken office in January 1969 promising to bring the war to an end, but a year later the fighting continued and support for the president's handling of the war had begun to slip significantly.

1967 The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (“Treaty of Tlatelolco”) is opened for signature at Mexico City. It is signed that same day by Mexico, El Salvador, Uruguay, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Haiti, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, and Chile. It would be signed later by Nicaragua (15 Feb 67) — Paraguay (26 Apr 67) — Brazil (09 May 67) — Trinidad and Tobago (27 Jun 67) — Dominican Republic (28 Jul 67) — Jamaica (26 Oct 67) — Barbados (18 Oct 68) — Grenada (29 Apr 75) — Bahamas (29 Nov 76) — Cuba (25 Mar 95). It would not be signed by the US.
1963 Harold Wilson es escogido líder del Partido Laborista británico.

^ 1962 US advisors in Vietnam may fire in self-defense
President John F. Kennedy authorizes US military advisors in Vietnam to return fire if fired upon. At a news conference, he said, "The training missions we have [in South Vietnam] have been instructed that if they are fired upon, they are of course to fire back, but we have not sent combat troops in [the] generally understood sense of the word." In effect, Kennedy was acknowledging that US forces were involved in the fighting, but he wished to downplay any appearance of increased American involvement in the war. The next day former Vice President Nixon expressed hopes that President Kennedy would "step up the build-up and under no circumstances curtail it because of possible criticism."

1960 Marshal Ayub Khan elected President of Pakistan.
1960 France explodes its first atomic bomb.
1958 Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan forms.— Jordania e Irak crean una federación como réplica a la fundación de la RAU.
1956 Indonesia withdraws from Netherlands Indonesian Union

^ 1956 Khrushchev denounces personality cult of Stalin
The Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, a historic meeting of the Soviet leadership, opens in Moscow. During the secret proceedings, Nikita Khrushchev, the new Soviet leader, denounces the policies of Joseph Stalin, the totalitarian leader of the USSR. from 1924 to 1953. Khrushchev calls into question the "personality cult" of Soviet leaders like Stalin and his predecessor Vladimir Lenin, and argues that it is time for the Soviet leadership to end their public veneration of Stalin, a brutal leader who killed at least ten million Soviet citizens for political and economic reasons during his three decades of rule. In the years following the Twentieth Party Congress, Soviet authorities almost uniformly condemn Stalinism, and on 31 October 1961, Stalin’s embalmed body is removed from public display in Lenin’s tomb in Moscow’s Red Square, and shunted off to a more discreet location.

1950 USSR and China sign friendship treaty — Stalin y Mao firman en Moscú el pacto de amistad China-URSS.
1949 Russian-born English chemist and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, 74, was elected first president of the newly restored modern state of Israel.
1949 first session of Knesset opens in Jerusalem.
1946 Bank of England nationalized — Política de nacionalizaciones en Gran Bretaña, entre ellas la del Banco de Inglaterra.
1945 Perú, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador join the United Nations.
1945 During World War II, the Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the Germans.
1945 US 8th Air Force begins bombing Dresden.
1944 Anti-Japanese revolt on Java
1943 German offensive through de Faid-pass Tunisia — II Guerra Mundial: contraofensiva alemana en Túnez, dirigida por el general Von Arnim.
1943 Soviets recapture Rostov
1942 Japanese parachutists land near oil center Palembang Sumatra
1941 German Africa Corps lands in Tripoli, Libya
1940 British merchant vessel fleet is armed.
1931 Spanish government of General Damasco Berenguer falls — El general Dámaso Berenguer dimite como presidente del Gobierno español seis días después de publicarse la convocatoria oficial de elecciones.
1921 Little Review faces obscenity charges for publishing Ulysses, New York.
1920 The League of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.

^ 1919 Wilson presents League of Nations Covenant
In Paris, the draft of the League of Nations covenant is presented by US President Woodrow Wilson to the peace conference seeking an official end to World War I. In January of 1918, President Wilson first announced his concept of a world body that would help maintain peace in the postwar world by seeking diplomatic solutions to international conflicts. In November, the guns fell silent on the Western Front and Wilson traveled to Europe where he headed the American delegation to the peace conference meeting at Paris. Functioning as the moral leader of the Allies, Wilson struggled to orchestrate a just and lasting peace, but the other victorious Allies opposed most of his peace terms for the conquered Central Powers. The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 10 July 1919, called for stiff reparations payment from the former Central Powers and other demanding terms, and was regarded with increasing bitterness in Germany. However, Wilson’s League of Nations was established as part of the treaty, and the president returned to the United States to campaign for Senate approval. In the fall of 1919, Wilson suffered a severe stroke, which contributed to his uncharacteristic failure to reach a compromise with his congressional opponents to the League of Nations. Later in the year, the Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or approve the League of Nations, and the international organization proceeded without the contribution of America. In 1920, President Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Price for his peace efforts.

1918 (Thursday) USSR and Estonia start using the New Style (Gregorian) calendar (the previous day was Wednesday 31 January Old Style, or Julian)
1916 El Gobierno británico aprueba el plan de guerra del mariscal francés Joseph Joffre.
1912 Arizona becomes 48th US state.
1910 Cincuenta mil manifestantes piden en Berlín un sistema electoral libre, igualitario, directo y secreto en Prusia.
1899 US Congress approves, and President McKinley signs, legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections.
1894 Venus is both a morning star and evening star.
1889 Father Juan Soldevilla y Romero [20 or 29 Oct 1843 – assassinated 04 June 1923] is appointed Bishop of Tarazona, Spain. He would be appointed Archbishop of Saragossa on 16 December 1901 and made a cardinal on 15 December 1919.

^ 1886 First trainload of oranges leaves Los Angeles
     The first shipment loaded exclusively with oranges leaves Los Angeles' River Station. Traveling via the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railways, the shipment heads east to the Missouri River on express train time. [photo: This view is looking southwest. The building on the left is the ticket office and hotel; on the right is the freight depot. River Station was the city's only railroad depot at the time.]
      Destined to become one of the state's major exports, the first trainload of oranges grown by southern California farmers leaves Los Angeles via the transcontinental railroad. The Spanish had established Los Angeles, one of the oldest cities in the Far West, in 1781 to help colonize the region. For several decades, the city was the largest center of population in Mexican California. Mexican settlement and development of California, however, proceeded very slowly, and Los Angeles developed little real economic or political power during this period. By the time the US took control of California in 1848, Los Angeles still only had just over 1610 inhabitants.
      As Anglo-Americans began to assert their control over California, they gradually broke up the large Hispanic ranches and replaced them with a more diversified farming economy. With irrigation, southern California proved an ideal environment for growing many crops, particularly valuable fruits like oranges. During the 1870s and 1880s, state railroad lines linking Los Angeles into the new system of transcontinental railways created additional moneymaking opportunities. Settlers, tourists, and health seekers all boarded trains to travel to the Pacific, where the sunny climate and beautiful scenery promised a new and better life.
      The healthful new California lifestyle became closely associated in the public mind with the sweet fruits that grew so abundantly in the orchards around Los Angeles. Taking advantage of the rapid transportation capabilities of the transcontinental lines, Los Angeles area orchard owners began shipping their oranges to the East in 1886. As the city grew, it subdivided many nearby orchards and pushed the orange growers out into regions like Orange County. There the orange growers steadily increased the size of their orchards to the point where local supplies of water for irrigation were inadequate. Determined to sustain their agricultural and real estate booms, Los Angeles residents undertook a massive program of hydraulic engineering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Engineers took water from the distant mountains to transform the arid southern California ecosystem into a green agricultural and residential paradise.
oranges

      The resulting growth was astonishing. In 1880, just before the first trainload of oranges departed, Los Angeles had 11'183 inhabitants. A decade later, the population had ballooned to 102'479. By 1920, there would be more than half a million residents. Los Angeles was already well on its way to becoming the largest urban center in the American West.
History of California citrus
     In ancient Sanskrit, oranges and lemons were called "nagrunga" and "nimbu." Over the centuries, as they traveled from east to west, they became known as "orange" and "lemon." From India and China to Algeria and Spain they traveled, delicacies enjoyed mostly by the rich and the royal. Gradually, "nagrunga" gained in sweetness and "nimbu" lost its bitterness, taking on a zesty tart tang. [more]
      But the history of California citrus can be directly traced to a wandering Kentucky trapper and a middle-aged couple from Maine. The trapper, William Wolfskill, first settled in what is now Los Angeles in 1841, where he planted hundreds of orange and lemon seedlings on two acres at Central Avenue and East Fifth Street, later the site of the Southern Pacific Central Station.
      Wolfskill's trees, "Mediterranean Sweets" that he obtained from the San Gabriel Mission, flourished so well that he expanded his efforts to 70 acres. The resulting fruit, known as "Wolfskill Oranges," became famous throughout the Southland for their wonderful sweet taste. Soon, he began shipping his oranges and lemons north to San Francisco, where the California gold rush was just getting under way. By 1875, Wolfskill had planted groves of nearly 17'000 orange trees, representing a large proportion of all the trees in the state. But his were not the only oranges gaining fame.
      Five years earlier, Maine residents Luther and Eliza Tibbets moved to Riverside to escape the cold Eastern winters. They wrote to the US Department of Agriculture requesting information on the types of trees to plant around their new home and were rewarded when Agricultural Commissioner William Saunders sent them three "navel" orange trees from Brazil, in an attempt to see if the foreign trees would flourish in the California climate. Although one tree did not survive (reputedly due to a wandering cow), the other two thrived. Soon word spread throughout the area of the miraculous new seedless oranges being grown by the Tibbets in Riverside.
      Demand eventually became so great for the navel oranges, the Tibbets began selling budstock off the two trees for the unheard-of price of $5 a bud. Unwittingly, the Tibbets had created the beginnings of wholesale production of citrus fruit in the state. [more]
      Meanwhile, Wolfskill had undertaken another bold venture as a citrus farmer. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad, he was able to load a freight car full of oranges in 1877 and send them East to St. Louis — the first time citrus was shipped any great distance. Although it took a month for the freight car to arrive, the fruit was still in good condition, and amazed residents quickly bought out the entire shipment. With this undertaking, Wolfskill started wholesale marketing of California citrus. Between the intrepid trapper and the Eastern-bred Tibbets, the seeds of an entire industry had been successfully planted. Today, visitors to Riverside can still visit the "parent" navel orange tree.

1879 Chilean troops occupy Antofagasta.
1866 Jesse and Frank James stage the first daylight bank robbery in US history, making off with $57'000 in Liberty, Missouri.

^ 1864 Sherman enters Meridian, Mississippi
      Union General William T. Sherman enters Meridian, Mississippi, during a winter campaign that served as a precursor to his "March to the Sea." This often-overlooked campaign was the first attempt by the Union at total warfare, a strike aimed not just at military objectives but also at the will of the Rebel population.
      Sherman launched the campaign from Vicksburg, Mississippi, with the goal of destroying the rail center at Meridian and clearing central Mississippi of Confederate resistance. Sherman believed this would free additional Federal troops that he hoped to use on his planned campaign against Atlanta, Georgia, in the following months.
      Sherman led 25'000 soldiers east from Vicksburg and ordered another 7000 under General William Sooy Smith to march southeast from Memphis, Tennessee. They planned to meet at Meridian in eastern Mississippi. The Confederates had few troops with which to stop Sherman. General Leonidas Polk had less than 10'000 men to defend the state. Polk retreated from the capital at Jackson as Sherman approached, and some scattered cavalry units could not impede the Yankees' progress. Polk tried to block the roads to Meridian so the Confederates could move as many supplies as possible from the city's warehouses, but Sherman pushed into the city on 14 February under a torrential rain.
      After capturing Meridian, Sherman began to destroy the railroad and storage facilities while he waited for the arrival of Smith. Sherman later wrote: "For five days, 10'000 men worked hard and with a will in that work of destruction...Meridian, with its depots, storehouses, arsenals, hospitals, offices, hotels, and cantonments no longer exists." Sherman waited until 20 February for Smith to arrive, but Smith never reached Meridian. On 21 February, Confederate troops under General Nathan Bedford Forrest waylaid Smith at West Point, Mississippi, and dealt the Federals a resounding defeat. Smith returned to Memphis, and Sherman turned back towards Vicksburg.
      Ultimately, Sherman failed to clear Mississippi of Rebels, and the Confederates repaired the rail lines within a month. Sherman did learn how to live off the land, however, and took notes on how to strike a blow against the civilian population of the South. He used that knowledge with devastating results in Georgia later that year.

1862 Union ironclad gunboats attack Fort Donelson, Tennessee
1859 Oregon admitted as 33rd state of the US.

1849 In New York City Matthew Brady takes the first photograph of a US President in office: James K. Polk [1795-1849] [<<<]

^ 1842 The Boz Ball celebrates Dickens Fans of Charles Dickens organize the Boz Ball, an elite party for the celebrated writer who had arrived in the United States in January for a five-month tour. (Dickens' earliest works had been published under the pseudonym Boz.) Only members of New York's aristocracy were invited to the ball, with each guest's background and pedigree thoroughly inspected. Tickets were priced at the outrageous sum of $10. The event, held at the Park Theater in New York, sold out, and event organizers later held two more sold-out balls, open to the general public. Charles Dickens had become one of the most popular writers in England nearly with the publication of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers. The short sketches, which Dickens published under the pseudonym "Boz," were originally commissioned as captions for humorous drawings. Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown in debtors' prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors' jail became topics of several of Dickens' novels. In his late teens, Dickens became a reporter and started publishing humorous short stories when he was 21. In 1836, a collection of his stories was published: Sketches by Boz, later known as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. The same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, with whom he would have nine children. The short sketches in his collection were originally commissioned as captions for humorous drawings by caricature artist Robert Seymour, but Dickens' whimsical stories about the kindly Samuel Pickwick and his fellow club members soon became popular in their own right. Only 400 copies were printed of the first installment, but by the 15th episode 40'000 copies were printed. When the stories were published in book form in 1837, Dickens quickly became the most popular author of the day. In 1838, Dickens published Oliver Twist, followed by Nicholas Nickleby (1839). In 1841, Dickens published two more novels, then spent five months in the US, where he was hailed as a literary hero. Dickens churned out major novels every year or two, usually serialized in his own circular. Among his most important works are David Copperfield (1850), Great Expectations (1861), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Beginning in 1850, he published his own weekly circular of fiction, poetry, and essays called Household Words. In 1858, Dickens separated from his wife and began a long affair with a young actress. In the late 1850s, he began a series of public readings, which became immensely popular. He died in 1870 at the age of 58, with his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, still unfinished. DICKENS ONLINE:
American Notes for General Circulation: 1 (1842) American Notes for General Circulation: 2 (1842) American Notes for General Circulation (1874) Barnaby Rudge (PDF) Barnaby Rudge Barnaby Rudge (zipped PDF) A Child's History of England A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol (PDF) A Christmas Carol (zipped PDF) A Christmas Carol: The Reading Version David Copperfield David Copperfield (zipped PDF) Dombey and Son (PDF) Great Expectations Great Expectations (PDF) Great Expectations (zipped PDF) The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (PDF) The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (zipped PDF) The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (zipped PDF) The Old Curiosity Shop The Old Curiosity Shop The Old Curiosity Shop (zipped PDF) The Perils of Certain English Prisoners	Bleak House Bleak House Bleak House (zipped PDF) Little Dorrit Little Dorrit (PDF) Little Dorrit (zipped PDF) Hard Times Hard Times Hard Times (zipped PDF) The Chimes The Chimes The Battle of Life The Holly Tree Hunted Down The Lamplighter The Cricket on the Hearth Doctor Marigold The Life of Our Lord Mugby Junction A Message from the Sea Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings To Be Read at Dusk Tom Tiddler's Ground Pictures from Italy Reprinted Pieces Sketches by Boz Somebody's Luggage	Mudfog and Other Sketches Master Humphrey's Clock The Mystery of Edwin Drood The Mystery of Edwin Drood Oliver Twist Oliver Twist (PDF) Oliver Twist (zipped PDF) Our Mutual Friend Our Mutual Friend (PDF) The Pickwick Papers The Pickwick Papers The Pickwick Papers (zipped PDF) The Seven Poor Travellers Sketches of Young Couples Sketches of Young Gentlemen Speeches, Literary and Social Sunday Under Three Heads A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities A Tale of Two Cities (zipped PDF) The Uncommercial Traveller The Wreck of the Golden Mary co-author of: No Thoroughfare No Thoroughfare editor of: A House to Let

1746 Henry Pelham appointed English premier.
1689 English parliament places Mary Stuart/Prince Willem III on the throne
1670 Roman Catholic emperor Leopold I chases Jews out of Vienna.
1633 Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition.
1610 Polish king Sigismund III, Forges Dimitri #2 and Romanov family sign covenant against czar Vasili Shushki
1556 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared a heretic.
1130 Gregorio Papareschi elected as Pope Innocent II — (3 hours later) Jewish Cardinal Pietro Pierleone elected as anti-pope Anacletus II
1076 Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV
1014 Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry II, Roman German emperor
0842 Charles II and Louis the German sign treaty — La langue française émerge des serments de Strasbourg.

TO THE TOP

^ Deaths which occurred on a February 14:
2004 Some 40 persons of the more than 420 in the area under the 20-meter-high glass roof directly over the children's pool of the indoor Transvaal water park, on the southwestern outskirts of Moscow, Russia, who die as it collapses at 19:20 and during the next day while trapped under the debris. 111 persons are injured.
2004:: 14 Iraqi policemen, 4 civilians, and 4 of some 70 attackers of a police station in Fallujah, Iraq, from which they free the 75 prisoners there, who were all arrested for common crimes such as theft and murder. 25 policemen and 10 other persons are wounded.
2003 Ziad al-Shaer, 24, and Muhammad Hamad Qashta, 20, Palestinians, when Israeli troops blasted an infiltration tunnel at the border with Egypt in Rafah, Gaza Strip..
2003 Dolly Finn Dorset, born on 05 July 1996, killed because she was suffering from progressive lung disease, at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is survived by her offsprings, Bonnie born on 13 April 1998, and triplets (2 males, 1 female) born on 24 March 1999, and by their father David Welsh Mountain. First mammal cloned from an adult, Dolly, a sheep of the Finn Dorset breed, seemed to have aged at almost twice the normal rate for sheep, which can live 12 years. Late in 2001 she was already suffering from arthritis in the hip and knee of her left hind leg. [December 1997 photo below]

2003 Major Henry Angarita, head of the local SIJIN (Sección Judicial y de Investigación), and at least 14 others, including a 6-year-old girl and 8 policemen who were raiding a house in the Villa Magdalena neighborhood of Neiva, departamento del Huila, Colombia, where a large number of mortar shells are made to explode at 05:45 (10:45 UT) destroying also some neighboring houses. 30 are injured.
2003 Paul Everett Meehl, 83, of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, US psychologist, author of Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and Review of the Evidence (1954)
2002 Abdul Rahman, [< photo] Afghan interim administration aviation and tourism minister, at the Kabul airport late in the day. murdered. It is made to appear that it is by a mob of hajjis enraged that he was about to fly to New Delhi on an official trip while they faced interminable delays awaiting flights to Mecca. But the next day provisional president Hamid Karzai states that those who storm Rahman's plane, beat him, and throw him out to the ground, were executing a plan hatched by a conspiracy involving government officials, who considered Rahman a turncoat for switching from their anti-Talaban faction to another. Three of the conspirators are believed to have left soon after the murder, on hajji flights for Saudi Arabia: Gen. Abdullah Jan Tawhidi, the deputy intelligence chief; Gen. Kalandar Beg, deputy of the technical office of the defense ministry; and Halim, an official of the Justice Ministry. Three others are soon arrested in Kabul, including Abdul Rehim. Rahman had been a member of the Jamiat e-Islami party, which is the northern alliance faction of ex-President Burhanuddin Rabbani and slain opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massood. But sometime during the Taliban years, he left the party and switched his alliance to a group loyal to exiled king Zaher Shah.
2002 Three Israelis soldiers, in a Merkava tank (the first one destroyed by Palestinians) destroyed by a 200-kg bomb exploding under it on the Kami-Netzarim road, as the tank was coming to the aid of a settlers' convoy headed for the Netzarim enclave settlement that was stopped at about 21:00 by a bomb exploding harmlessly next to an armored bus and by machinegun fire which caused no injuries. The Palestinian Salahudin Brigade, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees group, announces that it carried out the attack. The al-Aqsa intifada body count is now at least 844 Palestinians and 259 Israelis. About 6000 Jews live in 22 settlements in the Gaza Strip, surrounded by a million resentful Palestinians.
2001 Sgt. Kochava Polanski, 19, Cpl. Alexander Manevitz, 18, 1st Sgt. Ofir Magidish, 20., L-R, Sgt. Rahel Levy, 19, Sgt. David Elouz, 21, Sgt. Julie Weiner, 21 [photo of the 6 Israeli soldiers, left to right, and top to bottom >], and two Israeli civilians, by a bus driven by Palestinian, which crashes into a bus stop crowded with Israeli soldiers and civilians, in Asur, south of Tel Aviv, at 07:50. Twenty Israelis are injured. Police cars chase the bus over 15 km and then fire on it, causing it to crash into a truck, and seriously injuring the bus driver, Khalil Abu Olbeh, 35, father of 5 from Gaza City. He worked for the Israeli bus company Egged since 5 years ago, driving Palestinian laborers from Gaza to Israel, and had completed his morning run.
2000 Salem al-Ajami, 23, by Russian armor he was facing as a volunteer on the Chechen side, from Kuwait.
1995 U Nu PM of Burma (1948-56, 57-58, 60-62)
1994 Donald Judd, US Minimalist sculptor born in 1928 — LINKS
1991 Some 130 Iraqi civilians, by British jet fighters raiding the town of Fallouja.
1988 Nora Astorga, líder sandinista, embajadora de Nicaragua en la ONU.
1980 Más de 200 personas por inundaciones en Irán.
1979 Adolph Dubs, US ambassador to Afghanistan, is kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.
1975 Pelham G Wodehouse, 93, English/US writer (Piccadilly Jim) — P.G. Wodehouse, escritor humorista inglés.
1975 Julian S Huxley, 87, English scholar/director-general (UNESCO) — Julian Huxley, reputado biólogo británico.
1969 Vito Genovese, 71, US mafia chief.
1943 David Hilbert, 81, German mathematician (Hilbert Space)

^ 1943 The first killed in the battle of the Kasserine Pass, as it begins.
      German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps start an offensive against an Allied defensive line in Tunisia, North Africa. The Kasserine Pass was the site of the United States' first major battle defeat of the war. General Erwin Rommel was dispatched to North Africa in February 1942, along with the new Afrika Korps, to prevent his Italian Axis partner from losing its territorial gains in the region to the British. Despite his skill, until this point Rommel had been unable to do much more than manage his own forces' retreats, but the Battle of Kasserine Pass would finally display the "Desert Fox's" strategic genius.
      In the Battle of El Alamein in August 1942, British General Bernard Montgomery pushed Rommel out of Egypt and into Tunisia, behind the Mareth Line, a defensive fortification built by Vichy French forces.
      After taking several months to regroup, Rommel decided on a bold move. Rommel set his sites of Tunis, Tunisia's capital and a key strategic goal for both Allied and Axis forces. Rommel determined that the weakest point in the Allied defensive line was at the Kasserine Pass, a 3-km-wide gap in Tunisia's Dorsal Mountains, which was defended by American troops. His first strike was repulsed, but with tank reinforcements, Rommel broke through on February 20, inflicting devastating casualties on the US forces. The Americans withdrew from their position, leaving behind most of their equipment. More than 1000 American soldiers were killed by Rommel's offensive, and hundreds were taken prisoner. The United States had finally tasted defeat in battle.

^ 1940 Day 72 of Winter War: USSR aggression against Finland.
More deaths due to Stalin's desire to grab Finnish territory.
Russians lose 30'000-40'000 in Summa
       Eastern Isthmus: fierce fighting in Taipale results in the enemy retaking the Kirvesmäki stronghold which had been recaptured by Finnish troops during the night. After a massive artillery barrage lasting two hours the Russians launch an assault in both Terenttilä and Kirvesmäki.
      The attack is supported by both aircraft and tanks. Lack of sufficient available strength makes it impossible for the Finnish troops to respond effectively.
      The ferocity of the battle is illustrated by the fact that the commander of the company with responsibility for the front has to be replaced three times within the space of just a few hours due to the death or injury of his predecessor.
      There is a lull in the fighting at 5.35 p.m. In compliance with their orders the Finnish troops in Summa pull out of their positions in the Lähde sector. Fortunately there is no enemy attack during the withdrawal, reorganization and regrouping of the Finnish defences. The Finns also succeed in reinforcing their troops in the Summa sector.
      The Russians lose 30,000-40,000 men in Summa. The enemy awards an assault tank brigade trapped in a 'motti' 300 roubles to distribute among the troops in honour of the 22nd anniversary of the Red Army.
      In the north, the Finnish 9th Division suspends attacks on the Kuhmo 'mottis'.
      Commander-in-Chief Mannerheim, the commanding officer of the Army of the Isthmus, and the commanding officer of II Army Corps meet in Saarela manor house to discuss the situation on the Isthmus.
      Viipuri: enemy bombers damage the castle bridge and Viipuri Castle itself.
      On the home front, Soviet bombers hit Hamina.
      The Finnish Government publishes a note aimed at foreign powers on the Soviet Union's infringements of the customs of war.
      Abroad: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain informs Finland's diplomatic representative in London, Georg Gripenberg that the United Kingdom is prepared to supply Finland with thirty 84 mm field cannons and 30,000 shells. This is around a third of what Finland had asked for.

^ Venäläiset menettävät 30 000-40 000 miestä suurtaisteluissa Talvisodan 77. päivä, 14.helmikuuta.1940
      Taipaleessa taistellaan ankarasti. Suomalaiset menettävät viime yönätakaisin valtaamansa Kirvesmäen tukikohdan.
      Venäläiset aloittavat voimakkaan kaksituntisen tulikeskityksen jälkeen hyökkäyksen sekä Terenttilässä että Kirvesmäessä.
      Lentokoneet ja panssarivaunut tukevat vihollisen hyökkäystä.
      Suomalaisten vastaiskut käytettävissä olevin vähäisin voimin jäävät tuloksettomiksi.
      Taistelun rajuutta kuvaa, että rintamavastuussa olevan komppanian päällikkö vaihtuu muutaman tunnin kuluessa kolmasti kaatumisten tai haavoittumisten johdosta.
      Taistelu taukoaa klo 17.35. Saamansa käskyn mukaisesti suomalaisjoukot irtautuvat Lähteen lohkon asemista Summassa.
      Suomalaisten onneksi vihollinen ei hyökkää. Vetäytyminen, joukkojen järjestely ja puolustuksen uudelleen-ryhmittäminen saadaan suorittaa rauhassa. Suomi saa myös joukkojen täydennystä Summan lohkolle.
      9. Divisioona keskeyttää hyökkäykset motteja vastaan Kuhmossa.
      Venäläiset menettävät 30 000-40 000 miestä Summan suurtaisteluissa.
      Vihollinen myöntää motissa olevalle hyökkäysvaunuprikaatille 300 ruplaa joukkojen palkitsemiseen puna-armeijan 22-vuotisjuhlan kunniaksi.
      Ylipäällikkö, Kannaksen Armeijan komentaja ja II Armeijakunnan komentaja neuvottelevat Kannaksen tilanteesta Saarelan kartanossa.
      Vihollinen pommittaa Viipuria: linnansilta ja itse Viipurin linna kärsivät vahinkoja.
      Kotirintamalla vihollinen pommittaa Haminaa.
      Suomen hallitus julkaisee ulkovalloille suunnatun nootin Neuvostoliiton sodankäyntitapojen rikkomuksista.
      Ulkomailta: Englannissa pääministeri Chamberlain ilmoittaa Suomen lähettiläs Gripenbergille, että Englanti on valmis luovuttamaan Suomelle 30 kappaletta 84 mm:n kenttäkanuunoita ja niihin 30 000 ammusta. Tämä on noin kolmannes suomalaisten pyytämästä määrästä.

^ Ryssarna mister 30'000-40'000 man i stora sammandrabbningar Vinterkrigets 77 dag, den 14 februari 1940
     Blodiga strider pågår i Taipale. Finland förlorar igen basen i Kirvesmäki som återerövrades i natt. Efter två timmar av häftiga eldkoncentrationer anfaller fienden både i Terenttilä och Kirvesmäki. Flygplan och pansarvagnar stöder fiendens anfall.
      De finska motattackerna med de fåtaliga styrkorna ger inget resultat.
      På grund av att kompanichefen som ansvarar för fronten stupar eller såras byts ledningen tre gånger under några timmar, vilket beskriver hur våldsamma striderna är.      Kl. 17.35 görs ett uppehåll i striderna. Enligt order lösgör sig de finska trupperna från Lähdeavsnittets ställningar i Summa.
      Till all lycka anfaller fienden inte. Finnarna kan i lugn och ro retirera, ordna trupperna och omgruppera försvaret. Trupperna får också förstärkning till avsnittet i Summa.
      Den 9. Divisionen koncentrerar anfallen mot mottin i Kuhmo.
      Ryssarna mister 30 000-40 000 man i de stora sammandrabbningarna i Summa.      Fienden belönar stridsvagnsbrigaden som befinner sig i mottin med 300 rubel med anledning av Röda Arméns 22-årsfest.
      Överbefälhavaren, kommendören för armén på Näset och kommendören för den II Armékåren förhandlar på Saarela gård om situationen på Näset.
      Fienden bombar Viborg: slottsbron och själva slottet lider skador.
      På hemmafronten bombar fienden Fredrikshamn.
      Finlands regering riktar en not åt främmande makter om att Sovjetunionen bryter mot krigföringsetiketten.
      Utrikes: I England meddelar statsminister Chamberlain åt Finlands ambassadör Gripenberg att England är redo att överlåta 30 stycken 84 mm:s fältkanoner och tillhörande 30 000 projektiler. Det här är ungefär en tredjedel av den mängd som Finland har anhållit om.

1936 Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn, who, on behalf of Al Capone had organized the Valentine's Day Massacre of 7 of Bugs Moran's men, is killed by a burst of machine-gun fire from Moran in a crowded bowling alley. Moran would never be charged with this murder.

^ 1929 Pete Gusenberg, Frank Gusenberg, Johnny May, James Clark, Adam Heyer, Al Weinshank, and Dr. Reinhardt H. Schwimmer: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre ordered by Al Capone.
In Chicago, the first organized crime massacre of national notoriety occurs when gunmen in the employment of gangster Al Capone murder seven members of the "Bugs" Moran gang in a garage on North Clark Street. Al Capone, born in New York, had come to Chicago in the early years of Prohibition and joined organized crime boss John Torrio in the establishment of a lucrative bootleg alcohol business. After murdering most of his opponents, "Scarface" Capone took over from Torrio, and built a powerful crime syndicate that received tribute from businessmen and politicians and controlled gambling and prostitution in Chicago. However, in the late 1920s, Capone’s absolute rule over the city’s organized crime was still contested by an old Chicago rival, George "Bugs" Moran, the head of the North Siders gang. In February of 1929, Capone ordered Moran and his gang eliminated.
"Machine Gun" McGurn was given complete control of the hit. McGurn put together a first rate team of out-of-towners. Fred "Killer" Burke was the leader and was assisted by gunman James Ray. Two other important members of the team were John Scalise and Albert Anselmi who had been used in the murder of Frankie Yale. Joseph Lolordo was another, as were Harry and Phil Keywell from Detroit's Purple Gang. McGurn, like Capone, wanted to be far away from the scene of the crime so he took his girlfriend Louise Rolfe and checked into a hotel. Later he married her so that she would not be able to testify against him.
The massacre re-enacted

      On February 14, St. Valentine’s Day, Capone’s hit men lured the Moran gang to a garage on North Clark Street with an offer of buying some high quality whiskey at a low price. After the Moran gang arrived, the assassination squad, dressed in police uniforms, entered the garage pretending to be police raiders. The seven North Siders, apparently caught red-handed, lined up against the wall obediently. Moments later, Capone’s men opened fire, killing six of the men instantly and fatally wounding the seventh. "Bugs" Moran himself, who was late for the meeting, spotted the assassins entering the garage in their police uniforms, and thus was able to escape.
     One of the seven victims was Johnny May, an ex-safecracker who had been hired by George "Bugs" Moran as an auto mechanic. He was working on a truck that morning, with his dog tied to the bumper, while six other men waited for the truck of hijacked whiskey to arrive. The men were Frank and Pete Gusenberg, who were supposed to meet Moran and pick up two empty trucks to drive to Detroit and pick up smuggled Canadian whiskey; James Clark, Moran's brother-in-law; Adam Heyer; Al Weinshank; and Reinhardt Schwimmer, a young optometrist who had befriended Moran and hung around the liquor warehouse just for the thrill of rubbing shoulders with gangsters.
      The story of the so-called "St. Valentine’s Day Massacre" garners national attention, and Al Capone, the obvious perpetuator of the deed, becomes a household name. Although Capone himself was in Florida at the time, and little is found to directly connect him to the crime, his new notoriety encourages various law enforcement agencies to step up their investigation of the elusive crime boss.
      The mob hit known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place in Chicago on this day. In order to perpetrate the hit, members of Al Capone’s gang reportedly fitted a Cadillac touring sedan to the specifications of the Chicago police department. Under the guidance of Capone lieutenant Ray Nitty, the murderers sought out the garage of one "Bugs" Moran with the intention of killing him. Fearing the possibility of misidentifying Mr. Moran, the henchman killed all seven of the men in the garage. Without the help of their modern-day Trojan Horse—the Cadillac Sedan which gang member Bryan Bolton claimed to have personally purchased from the Cadillac Car Company on Michigan Avenue in Chicago — the gang would not have been able to infiltrate "Bugs" Moran’s garage with such ease.
the corpses

      In Chicago, gunmen in the suspected employment of organized-crime boss Al Capone murder seven members of the George "Bugs" Moran North Siders gang in a garage on North Clark Street. The so-called St. Valentine's Day Massacre stirred a media storm centered on Capone and his illegal Prohibition-era activities and motivated federal authorities to redouble their efforts to find evidence incriminating enough to take him off the streets.
      Alphonse Capone was born in Brooklyn in 1899, the son of Italian immigrants from Naples. The fourth of nine children, he quit school after the sixth grade and joined a street gang. He became acquainted with Johnny Torrio, a crime boss who operated in Chicago and New York, and at the age of 18 Capone was employed at a Coney Island club owned by gangster Frankie Yale. It was while working there that his face was slashed in a brawl, earning him the nickname "Scarface."
      In 1917, his girlfriend became pregnant and they married, and the couple moved with their son to Baltimore, where Capone attempted a respectable life working as a bookkeeper. In 1921, however, his old friend Johnny Torrio lured him to Chicago, where Torrio had built up an impressive crime syndicate and was beginning to make a fortune on the illicit commerce of alcohol, which was banned in 1919 by the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Capone demonstrated considerable business acumen and was appointed manager of a Torrio speakeasy. Later, Torrio put him charge of the suburb of Cicero. Unlike his boss, who was always discreet, Capone achieved notoriety as he fought for control of Cicero and was even tried (unsuccessfully) for murder.
      In 1925, Torrio was shot four times by Bugs Moran and Hymie Weiss, who were associates of a gangster slain by Torrio's men. Torrio lived, but four weeks later he appeared in court and was sentenced to nine months stemming from a police raid of a brewery he owned. About a month later, he called Capone from jail to tell him that he was retiring and handing the business over to him.
      Capone moved his headquarters to the luxurious Metropole Hotel, where he became a visible figure in Chicago public life as his crime empire steadily expanded. After a prosecutor was killed by some of Capone's henchmen, the Chicago police moved aggressively against his criminal operations, but they couldn't make any charges stick. Capone bought a luxurious estate in Miami as a retreat from all this unwanted attention.
      Capone was in Florida in February 1929 when he gave the go-ahead for the assassination of Bugs Moran. On 13 February, a bootlegger called Moran and offered to sell him a truckload of high quality whiskey at a low price. Moran took the bait and the next morning pulled up to the delivery location where he was to meet several associates and purchase the whisky. He was running a little late, and just as he was pulling up to the garage he saw what looked like two policemen and two detectives get out of an unmarked car and head to the door. Thinking he had nearly avoided being caught in a police raid, Moran drove off. The four men, however, were Capone's assassins, and they were only entering the building before Moran's arrival because they had mistaken one of the seven men inside for the boss himself.
      Wearing their stolen police uniforms and heavily armed, Capone's henchmen surprised Moran's men, who agreed to line up against the wall. Thinking they had fallen prey to a routine police raid, they allowed themselves to be disarmed. A moment later, they were gunned down in a hail of shotgun and submachine-gun fire. Six were killed instantly, and the seventh survived for less than an hour.
     The US public was shocked and outraged by the cold-blooded Valentine's Day killings, and many questioned whether the sin of intemperance outweighed the evil of Prohibition-era gangsters like Capone. Although, as usual, he had an air-tight alibi, few doubted his role in the massacre. The authorities, particularly affronted by the hit men's use of police uniforms, vowed to bring him to justice.
      With a mandate from Herbert Hoover, the new president, the Treasury Department led the assault against Capone, hoping to uncover enough evidence of Prohibition offenses and federal income tax evasion to bring him to justice. In May 1929, Capone was convicted for carrying a concealed weapon and sent to prison for 10 months. Meanwhile, Treasury agents, like Eliot Ness, continued to gather evidence.
      In June 1931, Capone was indicted for income tax evasion. On 17 October, primarily on the basis of testimony by two former bookkeepers, he was found guilty on several counts. One week later, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison and $80'000 in fines and court costs. He entered Atlanta penitentiary in 1932 and in 1934 was transferred to the new Alcatraz Island prison in San Francisco Bay. By that time, Prohibition had been repealed, and Capone's empire had collapsed.
      At Alcatraz, the syphilis Capone had contracted in his youth entered a late stage, and he spent his last year in prison in the hospital ward. In 1939, he was released after only six and a half years in jail as the result of good behavior and work credits. He was treated in a Baltimore hospital and in 1940 retired to his Miami estate, where he lived until his death in 1947. He was outlived by his rival Bugs Moran, who later died of lung cancer

     Three men dressed as police officers enter gangster Bugs Moran's headquarters on North Clark Street in Chicago, line seven of Moran's henchmen against a wall, and shoot them to death. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, as it is now called, was the culmination of a gang war between arch rivals Al Capone and Bugs Moran. George "Bugs" Moran was a career criminal who ran the North Side gang in Chicago during the bootlegging era of the 1920s. He fought bitterly with "Scarface" Al Capone for control of smuggling and trafficking operations in the Windy City. Throughout the 1920s, both survived several attempted murders. On one notorious occasion, Moran's gang drove 10 cars past Capone's headquarters and showered the building with thousands of bullets in the middle of the day. A $50'000 bounty on Capone's head was the final straw for the gangster. He ordered that Moran's gang be destroyed.
      On 14 February, a delivery of bootleg whiskey was expected at Moran's headquarters. But Moran was late and happened to see police officers entering his establishment. Moran waited outside, thinking that his gunmen inside were being arrested in a raid. However, the disguised assassins were actually killing the seven men inside. The murdered men included Moran's best killers, Frank and Pete Gusenberg. Reportedly Frank was still alive when real officers appeared on the scene. When asked who had shot him, the mortally wounded Gusenberg kept his code of silence, responding, "No one, nobody shot me."
      The St. Valentine's Day Massacre actually proved to be the last confrontation for both Capone and Moran. Capone was jailed in 1931 and Moran lost so many important men that he no longer could control his territory. On the seventh anniversary of the massacre, Moran caught up with Jack McGurn, one of the Valentine's Day hit men, and killed him with a burst of machine-gun fire in a crowded bowling alley. Moran, who was never charged with this murder, was relegated to small-time robberies until he was sent to jail in 1946. He died in Leavenworth Federal Prison in 1957 of lung cancer.

1927: 600 personas en un terremoto en el sur de Yugoslavia.
1926 Juan Benlloch y Vivó, Valencian born on 29 December 1864; ordained a Catholic priest on 25 February 1888; appointed Apostolic Administrator of Solsona on 16 December 1901 and consecrated a bishop on 02 February 1902; appointed Bishop of Urgel on 06 December 1906; appointed Archbishop of Burgos on 07 January 1919; made a cardinal on 07 March 1921.
1917 Diego Euclides de Angulo y Lemos, político conservador colombiano.
1907 Adolf Seel, German artist born on 01 March 1829.
1894 Catalan, mathematician.
1891 William Tecumseh Sherman, 71, Union Civil War General (captured Atlanta) (“War is hell”), born on 08 February 1820.
1888 Arthur Johann Severin Nikutowski, German artist born on 09 January 1830.
1881 Fernando Wood, born on 14 June 1812, US congressman (1841-1843, 1863-1865, 1867-1881) and mayor of New York City (1855-1857, 1859-1861), Civil War leader of the Northern peace Democrats (“Copperheads”), caricatured by Thomas Nast [27 Sep 1840 – 07 Dec 1902] in the 02 January 1864 Harper's Weekly.
1868 Emilius-Ditlev Baerentzen, Danish artist born on 30 October 1799.
1831 Vincente Guerrero Mexican revolutionary hero.
1799 Luis Paret y Alcazar, Spanish artist born on 11 February 1746.
1780 Gabriel Jacques de Saint-Aubin, French painter, draughtsman, and etcher, born on 14 April 1724. — MORE ON DE SAINT~AUBIN AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
1779: 413 personas al ceder en su inauguración el puente sobre el Guadalete en Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz).

^ 1779 James Cook, murdered in Hawaii
Captain James Cook, the great English explorer and navigator, is murdered by natives of Hawaii during his third visit to the Pacific island group. In 1768, Cook, a surveyor in the British Royal Navy, was commissioned a lieutenant in command of the H.M.S. Endeavor, and sailed on an expedition to chart the course of the planet Venus. In 1771, Cook returned to England having explored the coast of New Zealand and Australia and circumnavigated the globe. Beginning in 1772, he commanded a major mission to the South Pacific, and over the next three years explored the Antarctic region, charted the New Hebrides, and discovered New Caledonia. In 1776, he sailed from England again as commander of the H.M.S. Resolution and Discovery and in 1778 made his first visit to the Hawaiian Islands, which he named the Sandwich Islands in honor of one of his patrons, John Montague, the Earl of Sandwich. Cook and his crew were welcomed by the Hawaiians, who may have attached religious significance to one of the first extended stays on their islands by Europeans. Almost a year later, Cook’s two ships returned to Hawaii, and after a month of exploiting the Hawaiians’ hospitality, it became clear that the Englishmen had overstayed their welcome. On February 4, 1779, the British ships sailed from Kealakekua Bay but rough seas damaged the foremast of the Resolution and, after only a week at sea, the Cook’s expedition was forced to return to Hawaii. The Hawaiians greeted Cook and men with hurled rocks and stole a small cutter vessel from the Discovery. Negotiations with King Kalaniopuu for the return of the cutter collapsed after a lesser Hawaiian chief was shot to death, and a mob of Hawaiians descended on Cook’s party. The captain and his men fired on the angry Hawaiians, but they were soon overwhelmed, and only a few managed to escape to the safety of the Resolution. Captain Cook himself was killed by the mob.

1744 Hadley, mathematician.
1540 Rebels in Ghent, executed by emperor Charles V, after entering without resistance.
1405 Timur/Tamerlan "Lenk" [Crippled], 68, Mongols monarch
1400 Richard II, 33, king of England (1377-99), murdered
1349 2000 Jews burned at the stake in Strasbourg France.
0869 Cyrillus Greek apostle of Slavs.

Births which occurred on a February 14:
1949 Rafael Angel Calderón Fournier, presidente de Costa Rica.

^ 1946 Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrate the ENIAC for the first time. ENIAC, which occupied a 140-square-meter room, contained nearly 18'000 vacuum tubes and 6000 manual switches. The Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory commissioned the computer in 1943 to speed the calculation of firing tables for World War II artillery. Unfortunately, by the time the computer was finished, the war had been over for three months. Still, the project wasn't a total loss: The computer successfully performed complex routines in a fraction of a second and set the stage for future generations of increasingly sophisticated computers.

1945 Hans Adam prince of Liechtenstein.
1941 Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers is first published.
1940 Porpoise first born in captivity in US (Marineland, Florida)
1939 German battleship DKM Bismarck is launched [photo >] in the presence of Hitler. It would then be outfitted, including the addition of a new "clipper" bow (which the Germans called an "Atlantic" bow), commissioned in August 1940, run trials during the following months, and be fully ready for service late in 1940. It would be sunk by the British navy on 27 May 1941.
1928 Juan García Hortelano, escritor español.
1924 IBM Corporation founded by Thomas Watson
1920 League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago; its first president is Maude Wood Park.
1919 United Parcel Service forms
1913 Jimmy Hoffa Teamsters leader who disappeared in 1975.
1908 Felipe María Garin, investigador artístico y académico español.

^ 1903 US Departement of Commerce and Labor is established
Congress followed the lead of President Theodore Roosevelt and passed legislation that gave birth to the Department of Commerce and Labor, as well as the Bureau of Corporations. Under the charge of Secretary of Commerce and Labor George B. Cortelyou, who was appointed on February 16, the newly formed departments were charged with probing into the activities of corporations involved in interstate trade. For the president, the quick creation of these organizations was another visible symbol of his campaign to clamp down on business corruption. While these efforts proved popular with the public, they rankled business leaders who felt that Roosevelt was waging an unfair fight to limit the size and, more importantly, the profits of the nation's leading corporations. Despite his avowed stance as a trustbuster, Roosevelt was not necessarily opposed to businesses becoming profit-churning behemoths. And, he took some pains to assure the business community that the new departments were in fact "sane and conservative" steps towards cleansing corporate America. "The legislation," Roosevelt wrote in response to his critics, "was moderate. It was characterized throughout by the idea that we were not attacking corporations, but endeavoring to provide for doing away for any evil in them."

1898 Jorge Mañach y Robato, escritor y político cubano.
1896 Milne, mathematician.
1895 The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde's last play, opens at the St. James' Theatre in London.
1891 Celso Lagar, Spanish artist who died in 1966.
1882 George Jean Nathan, US author, editor, and drama critic, who died on 08 April 1958.

^ 1877 Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, radio pioneer
Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, a US electrical engineer, invented the crystal detector, a key component in early radio and a forerunner of the transistor. In addition, Pickard was one of the first scientist to demonstrate the wireless electromagnetic transmission of speech when, in 1899, he transmitted a spoken message over a distance of 16 km. Pickard died on 08 January 1956.

1877 Edmund Landau, mathematician. He died in 1938.
1876 The telephone: Alexander Graham Bell files an application for its patent.
1873 Albert Guillaume, French artist who died in 1942.
1869 Charles T. R. Wilson, Scottish physicist (Wilson cloud chamber-Nobel). He died on 15 November 1959.
1861 Peder Vilhelm Ilsted, Danish artist who died in 1933.
1860 Léon Marie Gaussson, French artist who died on 27 October 1944.
1859 George Washington Gale Ferris engineer/inventor (Ferris Wheel)
1854 Rudolf Ernst, Austrian artist specializes in Orientalism who died in 1932. — links to images.
1850 Eugène Henri Cauchois, French artist who died on 11 October 1911.
1847 Anna Howard Shaw, US minister, lecturer, and one of the most influential leaders of the women's suffrage movement. She died on 02 July 1919.
1846 Julian Scott, US artist who died on 04 July 1901.
1845 Quintin Hogg, English philanthropist and social reformer who died on 17 January 1903. [Did Hogg hog the limelight?[
1836 Valentine Cameron Prinsep, Indian British Pre-Raphaelite painter who died on 11 November 1904. — MORE ON PRINSEP AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
1839 Hankel, mathematician

^ 1819 Christopher Sholes, inventor of the typewriter
Christopher Sholes, a US printer and newspaper editor by trade, developed a page numbering machine in the mid-1800s. A friend suggested he modify the machine into a letter-printing device. Sholes patented the typewriter in 1868 and sold the rights to Remington in 1873. The typewriter served as the basis for the modern computer keyboard. Sholes died on 17 February 1890.

1817 Frederick Douglass African-American abolitionist/lecturer/editor.
1814 Joseph Urbain Mélin, French artist who died on 28 November 1886.
1811 Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, escritor y político argentino.
1796 Valentín Carderera y Solano, pintor, arqueólogo, y escritor español.
1790 Pierre Duval-Lecamus, French artist who died on 29 July 1854.
1790 Louise Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont, French artist who died on 09 December 1870.
1766 (possibly up to 3 days later) Thomas Robert Malthus, Rookery, Surrey, England, economist and demographer notorious for his theory (disproved by later experience, at least into the 21st century) that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply and must be curbed to ensure prosperity. Malthus died on 23 December 1834. — MALTHUS ONLINE: An Essay on the Principle of Population — An Essay on the Principle of Population — The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn — An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent — An Investigation of the Cause of the Present High Price of Provisions — Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws
1713 Jan Ten Compe, Dutch artist who died on 11 November 1761. — more
1635 The Boston Public Latin School is founded. It is the oldest public school in the United States.
1575 Giovanni-Andrea Donducci “il Mastelletta”, Italian artist who died on 25 April 1655. — more
1515 Frederick III the Pious, elect of the Palts
1483 Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah prince/founder Mogols-dynasty
1468 Werner, mathematician.

CURVES OF THE DAY:
heart-shaped curve

Cardioid:
Cartesian equation:
(x^2 + y^2 - 2ax)^2 = 4a^2(x^2 + y^2)
Polar equation:
r = 2a(1 + cos(t))
heart-shaped curve

Celebrations: Arizona 1912, Oregon 1859 : Admission Day / Bulgaria : Viticulturists' Day/Trifon Zarezan, cult of Dionysus / Denmark : Gaekkebrev/Fjörtende Februar—gift exchanges by school kids / Mexico : Day of National Mourning (Vicente Guerrero-1831)
Holy Days: Western Christian World: Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) in 1893, 1899, 1961, 1972, 2051, 2056, 2113, 2124 — Ash Wednesday in 1877, 1888, 1923, 1934, 1945, 1956, 2018, 2029, 2040, 2108 / St Valentine, physician/martyr/patron of lovers. One of the great commercialized days of the US which have spread around the world./ St. Cyril, monk/missionary to the Slavs and St Methodius, bishop/missionary to the Slavs / Santos Valentín, Cirilo, Metodio, Juan Bautista, Zenón, Agatón y Antonio.

Three Saints, birds, Chaucer, and Saint Valentine's Day

Click on icon below for full image of SAINT VALENTINE, by a XVIth-century Tyrolean

Click on detail below for complete picture ST. VALENTINE'S DAY — THE OLD STORY IN ALL LANDS by Winslow Homer [1836~1910]

“KISS” MASTERPIECES:
— Klimt ::: The Kiss (1908) _ detail — Alma~Tadema ::: A Kiss (1891) — Cassatt ::: Maternal Kiss (1897) — Cassatt ::: A Kiss for Baby Anne (1897)
— Gérard ::: Amor and Psyche (Psyche Receiving the First Kiss of Love)
— Klimt ::: Beethoven Frieze: This kiss for the whole world — Briullov ::: Italian Woman Blowing a Kiss (1826)
— Brancusi ::: The Kiss (1908) — Hayez ::: The Kiss (1859)
— Munch ::: The Kiss (1921) — Munch ::: The Kiss (1892) — Munch ::: The Kiss (1897)
— Picasso ::: The Kiss (1969) — Gloag ::: The Kiss of the Enchantress — Stuck ::: The Kiss of the Sphinx (1895)
— Nicolo da Bologna ::: The Marriage; the Kiss of the Bride (initial P); the Bride Abandoned (initial D) (1355)
— Fragonard ::: The Stolen Kiss (1788) _ detail — Doisneau ::: Kiss by the Hotel de Ville (1950 photo)

Thought for the day: “Love that's wise will not say all it means.” — Edwin Arlington Robinson, US poet [1869-1935].

TO THE TOP

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO “HISTORY 4 2DAY”
http://www.safran-arts.com/42day/history/h4feb/h4feb14.html
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/all42day/history/h4feb/h4feb14.html
http://h42day.0catch.com/history/h4feb/h4feb14.html
http://www.ifrance.com/7aujourdhui/history/h4feb/h4feb14.html
updated Sunday 15-Feb-2004 14:34 UT

site safe for children