St. Valentine beheaded

On February 14 around the year 278 A.D., Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed.

Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.

When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was carried out on February 14, on or about the year 270. Legend also has it that while in jail, St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer’s daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it “From Your Valentine.”

This was a little about the History of Valentine’s day. Below is a list of other events which have happened on 14th of February in the past. While we celebrate 14th of February as a day of Love, Romance and Happiness, it might not be that happy and romantic for some.

842 – Charles II & Louis the German sign treaty
1009 – First known mention of Lithuania, in the annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg.
1014 – Pope Benedict VIII crowns Henry II, Roman German emperor
1076 – Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV
1130 – Jewish Cardinal Pietro Pierleone elected as anti-pope Anacletus II

1400 – King Richard II of England (1377 -13 99) is murdered at Pontefract Castle.
1540 – Emperor Charles V enters Ghent without resistance, executes rebels
1556 – Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared a heretic
1610 – Polish king Sigismund III, Forges Dimitri #2 & Romanov family sign covenant against czar Vasili Shushki
1613 – King James I’s daughter Elizabeth marries Frederik
1630 – Dutch fleet of 69 ships reaches Pernambuco Brazil
1670 – Roman Catholic emperor Leopold I chases Jews out of Vienna
1689 – English parliament places Mary Stuart/Prince Willem III on the throne
1711 – Handel’s opera Rinaldo, premieres
1743 – Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister.
1746 – Henry Pelham appointed English premier
1766 – Dutch governor Falck signs Treaty of Batticaloa with rebels
1778 – “Stars & Stripes” arrives in foreign port for 1st time (France)
1779 – James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
1794 – 1st US textile machinery patent granted, to James Davenport, Phila
1803 – Apple parer patented by Moses Coats, Downington, Penn
1803 – Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void.
1804 – Karadjordje leads the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire.
1831 – Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.
1848 – James K Polk became 1st pres photographed in office (Matthew Brady)
1849 – In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
1855 – Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
1859 – Oregon admitted as 33rd state
1862 – Galena, 1st US iron-clad warship for service at sea, launched, Conn
1867 – Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Co issues 1st policy
1867 – Morehouse College organizes (Augusta Georgia)
1872 – 1st state bird refuge authorized (Lake Merritt CA)
1876 – A G Bell & Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor
1879 – Chilean troops occupy Antofagasta
1883 – 1st state labor union legislation; NJ legalizes unions
1887 – Cubs sell Mike King Kelly to Boston for record $10,000
1889 – 1st train load of fruit (oranges) leaves LA for east
1890 – 1st NSW v South Australia 1st-class cricket game
1894 – Venus is both a morning star & evening star
1895 – Oscar Wilde’s “Importance of Being Earnest,” opens in London
1896 – George Lohmann takes a hat-trick v S Africa, 8-7 for inning
1896 – South Africa all out for 30 v England – their lowest ever
1896 – Stanley Cup: Winnipeg Victorias beat Montreal Victorias, 2-0
1896 – Theodor Herzl publishes “Der Judenstaat”
1899 – US Congress begins using voting machines
1900 – Date of events in movie “Picnic at Hanging Rock”
1900 – Russia responds to international pressure to free Finland by tightening imperial control over the country.
1903 – US Dept of Commerce & Labor forms
1907 – 1st US fox hound association forms in NYC
1912 – 1st US submarines with diesel engines commissioned, Groton, Ct
1912 – Arizona was admitted to the Union as the 48th state
1914 – High Council of Labor forms in Hague Netherlands
1918 – H Atteridge & S Rombergs musical “Sinbad,” premieres in NYC
1918 – USSR adopts New Style (Gregorian) calendar (originally Feb 1)
1919 – United Parcel Service forms
1919 – The Polish-Soviet War begins.
1920 – League of Women Voters forms in Chicago
1921 – Canadian 5 cent nickel coin is authorized
1921 – Little Review faces obscenity charges for publishing “Ulysses,” NY
1924 – IBM Corporation founded by Thomas Watson
1925 – State of emergency crisis in Bayern ends, NSDAP re-allowed
1929 – St Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago, 7 gangsters killed
1931 – Bradman scores 152 Aust v WI, 154 minutes, 13 fours 2 fives
1931 – Spanish Govt of General Damasco Berenguer falls
1932 – S Africa all out for 36 in 1st innings v Aust (Ironmonger 5-6)
1934 – NHL Ace Bailey Benefit Game: Toronto beats All-Stars 7-3 in Toronto
1936 – National Negro Congress organizes in Chicago
1936 – US female Figure Skating championship won by Maribel Vinson
1936 – US male Figure Skating championship won by Robin Lee
1939 – Victor Fleming replaces George Cukor as director of Gone With the Wind
1940 – British merchant vessel fleet is armed
1941 – 1,000,000th vehicle traverses the NY Midtown Tunnel
1941 – Carson McCuller’s “Reflections in a Golden Eye” published
1941 – Cebrie Park in the Bronx renamed Halsey Street
1941 – German Africa Corps lands in Tripoli, Libya
1942 – Japanese parachutists land near oil center Palembang Sumatra
1942 – Rotterdam’s Maas tunnel opens
1942 – Battle of Pasir Panjang contributes to the fall of Singapore.
1943 – German offensive through de Faid-pass Tunisia
1943 – Soviets recapture Rostov
1943 – World War II: Rostov-on-Don, Russia is liberated.
1944 – Anti-Japanese revolt on Java
1944 – Carl Wick publishes “Salmon Trolling for Commercial & Sport Fishing
1945 – 8th Air Force bombs Dresden
1945 – Peru, Paraguay, Chile & Ecuador joins UN
1945 – World War II: Prague is bombed probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.
1945 – World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans.
1946 – Bank of England nationalized
1949 – 1st session of Knesset (Jerusalem Israel)
1949 – Dutch Drees govt presents plan for the building of 30,000 houses
1950 – Moroney scores cricket twin centuries for Australia at Johannesburg
1950 – USSR & China sign peace treaty
1951 – Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta & takes middleweight title
1952 – 6th Olympic winter games open at Oslo, Norway
1952 – Comedian Joey Adams marries gossip columnist Cindy Heller
1954 – Beverly Hanson wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1954 – Sen John Kennedy appears on “Meet the Press”
1954 – WTOC TV channel 11 in Savannah, GA (CBS) begins broadcasting
1955 – WFLA (now WXFL) TV channel 8 in Tampa-St Petersburg, FL (NBC) begins
1956 – 20th Congress of CPSU opens in Moscow
1956 – Indonesia withdraws from Neth Indonesian Union
1956 – Verhoeven/Nauta/De King/Wijnhout win Dutch 11 city skate
1957 – Georgia Senate unanimously approves Sen Leon Butts’ bill barring blacks from playing baseball with whites
1958 – Arab Federation of Iraq & Jordan forms
1959 – $3.6 million heroin seizure in NYC
1960 – Beverly Hanson wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1960 – Marshal Ayub Khan elected president of Pakistan
1961 – Element 103, Lawrencium, 1st produced in Berkeley Calif
1961 – Louise Suggs wins LPGA Royal Poinciana Golf Invitational
1962 – 1st lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducts White House tour on TV
1963 – US launches communications satellite Syncom 1

1963 - First successful kidney transplant
1966 – Australia introduces 1st decimal currency postage stamps
1966 – Wilt Chamberlain breaks NBA career scoring record at 20,884 points
1966 – Writers Andrei Sinjavski & Joeij Daniel found guilty
1966 – Australian currency is decimalised.
1967 – Aretha Franklin records “Respect”
1967 – Latin American nuclear free zone proposal drawn up
1968 – Pennsylvania Railroad/NYC Central merge into Penn Central
1968 – WHKY TV channel 14 in Hickory, NC (IND) begins broadcasting
1970 – “Gantry” closes at George Abbott Theater NYC after 1 performance
1971 – Movie “Ben Hur” 1st shown on television
1971 – Richard Nixon installs secret taping system in White House
1972 – John & Yoko co-host “Mike Douglas Show” for entire week
1972 – Luna 20 (Russia) launched to orbit & soft landing on Moon
1975 – Bomb explodes at annex of Amsterdam metro station
1976 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1978 – 1st “micro on a chip” patented by Texas Instruments
1978 – In girls’ HS basketball, Chicago Latin beats Harvard St George
1979 – “Whoopee!” opens at ANTA Theater NYC for 204 performances
1979 – In Kabul, Muslims kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
1980 – “West Side Story” opens at Minskoff Theater NYC for 341 performances
1980 – 13th Winter Olympic games open in Lake Placid, NY
1980 – US launches Solar Maximum Mission Observatory to study solar flares
1981 – Stardust Disaster: A fire in a Dublin nightclub kills 48 people
1982 – “Night of 100 Stars” takes place at NY’s Radio City Music Hall
1982 – Hollis Stacy wins LPGA S&H Golf Classic
1984 – Singer Elton John marries Renate Blauel in Sydney Australia
1985 – Hostage CNN reporter Jeremy Levin is released in Beirut
1987 – 53,745 largest NBA crowd to date-Phila at Detroit
1988 – 49th PGA Seniors Golf Championship: Gary Player
1988 – Alfredo Stroessner re-elected president of Paraguay
1988 – Bobby Allison at 50 becomes oldest driver to win Daytona 500
1988 – General hospital star Jackie Zeman marries Glenn Gorden
1988 – Patty Sheehan wins LPGA Sarasota Golf Classic
1989 – African National Congress (ANC) opens office in Amsterdam
1989 – Boxer Mike Tyson divorces actress Robin Givens
1989 – Khomeini orders Moslems to murder “Satanic Verses” novelist Salman Rushdie
1989 – Robin Givens is granted a divorce from Mike Tyson in Dom Rep
1989 – Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 mill damages for Bhopol disaster
1989 – World’s 1st satellite Skyphone opens
1989 – The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System are placed into orbit.
1990 – Alan Ayckbourn’s “Man of the Moment,” premieres in London
1990 – Perrier recalls 160 million bottles of sparkling water after traces of benzene, a carcinogen, are found in some
1990 – Space probe Voyager 1 takes photograph of entire solar system
1991 – “Mule Bone” opens at Ethel Barrymore Theater NYC for 67 performances
1991 – NL Cy Young winner Doug Drabek wins record $3 mil salary arbitration
1992 – Andre Cason runs world record 6 m indoor (6.41 sec)
1992 – Cease fire in Somalia begins
1992 – Kieren John Perkins swims world record 800m freestyle (7:46.60)
1992 – Merlene Ottey runs world record 60m indoor (6.96 sec)
1993 – Fire in Linxi department store in Tangshan China, kills 79
1994 – Alexander Golubev skates Olympic record 500m (36.33)
1994 – Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia (51) weds Deborah Koons
1994 – Andrei Chikatilo, a Russian serial killer is executed by shooting.
1995 – Roseanne weds bodyguard Ben Thomas
1995 – Wellington 2-498d & 4-475 beat Canterbury 496 & 2-476d
1998 – Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Robert Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
2000 – The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
2002 – The Tullaghmurray Lass sinks off the coast of Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland killing three members of the same family on board.
2004 – In a suburb of Moscow, Russia, the roof of the Transvaal water park collapses, killing more than 25 people, and wounding more than 100 others.
2005 – Lebanon’s former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, is assassinated, prompting the country to fall into chaos.
2005 – Seven people are killed and 151 wounded in a series of bombings by suspected Al-Qaeda-linked militants that hit the Philippines’ Makati financial district in Metro Manila, Davao City, and General Santos City.
2008 – Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 24 casualties; 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 18 injured.