February 14 birthdays & history

Famous people born on February 14

• 1967Mark Rutte, Dutch businessman and politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
• 1970Simon Pegg, English actor, director, and producer
• 1869Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist and meteorologist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1404Leon Battista Alberti, Italian painter, poet, and philosopher
• 1987Edinson Cavani, Uruguayan footballer
• 1988Ángel Di María, Argentinian footballer
• 1951Kevin Keegan, English footballer and manager
• 1992Christian Eriksen, Danish footballer
• 1895Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist
• 1983Bacary Sagna, French footballer

What happened on February 14

• 1849In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
• 1852The Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children, was founded in London.
• 1855Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
• 1859Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
• 1876Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
• 1899Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.
• 1903The United States Department of Commerce and Labor is established (later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor).
• 1914The animated film Gertie the Dinosaur was released, later greatly influencing future animators such as the Fleischer brothers and Walt Disney.
• 1924The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was renamed as International Business Machines (IBM), later growing into one of the world's largest companies by market capitalization.
• 1990The NASA space probe Voyager 1 took Pale Blue Dot, a photograph of Earth from a record distance of 40.5 astronomical units (6.06 billion km; 3.76 billion mi).
• 1992Sri Temasek, the official residence of the prime minister of Singapore, was declared a national monument.
• 2005The online video platform YouTube was founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim.

Also observed on February 14

• Statehood Day (Arizona, United States)
• Statehood Day (Oregon, United States)
• Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Armenian Apostolic Church)
• Parents' Worship Day (parts of India)