February 14 in History

February 14 is the 45th day of the year. There are 321 days remaining until the end of the year. 

• 1349 – Approximately 2,000 Jews were burned to death or forcibly removed from the city of Strasbourg by mobs.
• 1778 – The US flag was formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time.
• 1803 – Chief Justice John Marshall declared any act of Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void.
• 1819 – Christopher Sholes, American inventor of the QWERTY keyboard, was born. He died in 1890.
• 1849 – In New York City, James Polk became the first serving President of the US to have his photograph taken.
• 1852 – Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital providing in-patient beds specifically for children, was founded in London.
• 1855 – Texas was linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
• 1859 – Oregon was admitted as the 33rd US state.
• 1859 – George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., American engineer and inventor of the Ferris wheel, was born. He died in 1896.
• 1870 - Esther Hobart Morris became the first woman Justice of the Peace in America.
• 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied for a patent for the telephone.
• 1899 – Voting machines were approved by the US Congress for use in federal elections.
• 1912 – Arizona was admitted as the 48th US state.
• 1920 – The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago, Illinois.
• 1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
• 1946 – The Bank of England was nationalized.
• 1949 – The Knesset (Israeli parliament) convened for the first time.
• 1962 – First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy took TV viewers on a tour of the White House.
• 2000 – The first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid occurred when the NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around asteroid 433 Eros.