February 15
1764
St. Louis, Mo., was founded as a French fur-trading post.
1879
President Rutherford Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court.
1898
USS Maine blew up in Havana harbor, touching off the Spanish-American War.
1913
The New York Armory Show opened, introducing America to Picasso, Duchamp, and Matisse.
1933
Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak was killed in an assassination attempt on president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami.
1965
The Maple Leaf Flag officially became the new national flag of Canada.
1989
More than 100,000 Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan almost 10 years after the USSR invaded the country.
2002
Olympics officials resolved the judging scandal by awarding Canadian pairs figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier a gold medal while allowing the Russians, Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, to keep their medal.
2003
Millions of protesters around the world demonstrated against the threat of a U.S. war on Iraq.
2012
A prison fire in Comayagua, Honduras killed 360.
Birthdays
Galileo Galilei
1564–1642, Italian Astronomer.
Pedro Menendez de Aviles
colonizer (1519)
John Sutter
pioneer (1803)
Cyrus McCormick
inventor (1809)
Charles Lewis Tiffany
merchant (1812)
Susan B. Anthony
reformer (1820)
Elihu Root
cabinet member and diplomat (1845)
Alfred North Whitehead
mathematician and philosopher (1861)
Ernest Henry Shackleton
antarctic explorer (1874)
John Barrymore
actor (1882)
Jane Seymour
actress (1951)