February 15th
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.
1958
"The Dick Clark Show" debuted on ABC-TV. Connie Francis, Pat Boone and Jerry Lee Lewis were the first performers to appear on the show.
1965
The Maple Leaf Flag officially became the new national flag of Canada.
1965
Musician Nat King Cole died at age 45.
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.
2005
YouTube, the popular Internet site on which videos may be shared and viewed by others, is launched in the United States.
2008
Business tycoon Steve Fossett, 63, was declared dead by a judge in Cook County, Ill., five months after his small plane vanished after taking off from an airstrip near Yerington, Nev. (Fossett's remains were discovered in October 2008 in California's Sierra Nevada mountains.)
Birthdays
91 Allan Arbus Actor ("M*A*S*H")
58 Jane Seymour Actress ("Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman")
54 Janice Dickinson Model
50 Joseph R. Gannascoli Actor ("The Sopranos")
38 Stevie Benton Rock musician (Drowning Pool)
37 Jaromir Jagr Hockey player
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piper0215 Cigar Asylum Inmate
77 Galileo Galilei 2/15/1564 - 1/8/1642 Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician
86 Susan B. Anthony 2/15/1820 - 3/13/1906 American crusader for the woman suffrage movement
31 Roger Chaffee 2/15/1935 - 1/27/1967 American astronaut killed in the Apollo fire
33 Chris Farley 2/15/1964 - 12/18/1997 Actor comedian