Today in History

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2024. There are 321 days left in the year. This is Valentine's Day.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Feb. 14, 1967, Aretha Franklin recorded her cover of Otis Redding's "Respect" at Atlantic Records in New York.

On this date:

In 1876, inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied separately for patents related to the telephone. (The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell the rightful inventor.)

In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state of the Union as President William Howard Taft signed a proclamation.

In 1913, labor leader Jimmy Hoffa was born in Brazil, Ind.; college football coach Woody Hayes was born in Clifton, Ohio; sports broadcaster Mel Allen was born in Birmingham, Ala.

In 1924, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. of New York was formally renamed International Business Machines Corp., or IBM.

In 1929, the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone's gang were gunned down.

In 1945, during World War II, British and Canadian forces reached the Rhine River in Germany.

In 1984, 6-year-old Stormie Jones became the world's first heart-liver transplant recipient when the surgery was performed at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

In 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," a novel condemned as blasphemous.

In 2012, a fire broke out at a farm prison in Honduras, killing 361 inmates.

In 2013, double-amputee Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home in Pretoria, South Africa; he was later convicted of murder and served nearly nine years of a sentence of 13 years and five months before being released from prison in January 2024.

In 2017, a former store clerk, Pedro Hernandez, was convicted in New York of murder in one of the nation's most haunting missing-child cases, nearly 38 years after 6-year-old Etan Patz disappeared while on the way to a school bus stop.

In 2018, a gunman identified as a former student opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, killing 17 people in the nation's deadliest school shooting since the attack in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years earlier. (Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty to murder in October 2021 and was sentenced in November 2022 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)

Today's birthdays: Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is 82. Jazz musician Maceo Parker is 81. Journalist Carl Bernstein is 80. Former Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., is 77. TV personality Pat O'Brien is 76. Magician Teller (Penn and Teller) is 76. Cajun singer-musician Michael Doucet (Beausoleil) is 73. Actor Ken Wahl is 67. Opera singer Renee Fleming is 65. Actor Meg Tilly is 64. Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly is 64. Singer-producer Dwayne Wiggins is 63. Actor Sakina Jaffrey is 62. Actor Enrico Colantoni is 61. Actor Zach Galligan is 60. Former tennis player Manuela Maleeva is 57. Actor Simon Pegg is 54. Rock musician Kevin Baldes (Lit) is 52. Rock singer Rob Thomas (Matchbox Twenty) is 52. Former NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe is 52. Actor Danai Gurira is 46. Actor Matt Barr is 40. Actor Stephanie Leonidas is 40. Actor Jake Lacy is 38. Actor Tiffany Thornton is 38. Actor Brett Dier is 34. Actor Freddie Highmore is 32.