Today:
270: Saint Valentine, a Roman priest, is executed under the rule of Emperor Claudius II, eventually leading to the creation of the holiday that bears his name.
1349: Hundreds of Jewish residents are burned alive in Strasbourg, France, during a massacre fueled by false accusations that they were responsible for spreading the Black Death.
1779: English explorer Captain James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians during a skirmish at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii.
1818: Frederick Douglass, the famed American social reformer, abolitionist, and writer, is born into slavery in Maryland (he later chose February 14 as his birthday).
1859: Oregon is admitted to the Union as the 33rd U.S. state.
1876: Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both apply for a patent for the telephone on the same day, sparking one of the most famous legal battles in patent history.
1912: Arizona is admitted as the 48th state, becoming the last of the contiguous United States to join the Union.
1929: Seven members of Chicago’s North Side Gang are murdered in the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, an event widely believed to have been orchestrated by Al Capone.
1946: ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer, is formally dedicated and unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania.
2005: The domain name for the video-sharing website YouTube is registered by former PayPal employees Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim.