"Happy Valentine's Day"

1778
The American ship “Ranger” carried the recently adopted Star and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.

1859
Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.

1899
Congress approved, and President McKinley signed, legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections.

1903
The Department of Commerce and Labor was established.

1912
Arizona became the 48th state of the Union.

1920
The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago, Illinois; its first president was Maude Wood Park.

1929
The “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down.

1941
“Reflections in a Golden Eye” by Carson McCullers was first published.

1945
Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the United Nations.

1962
First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted a televised tour of the White House.

1979
Adolph Dubs, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.

1984
Six year old Stormie Jones became the world's first heart-liver transplant recipient at Children's Hospital
of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
(She lived until December 1990.)

1990
94 people were killed when an Indian Airlines passenger jet crashed while landing at a southern Indian airport.