^{“Destruction of the ‘Maine’ in Havana Harbor,” from America’s War for Humanity by John James Ingalls (New York: Thompson, 1898)}

Today in History

• The city of St. Louis, then in Spanish Louisiana, is founded (1764)
• Women attorneys gain the right to argue cases before the US Supreme Court (1879)
• The battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana Harbor, killing 274 and leading to the US declaring war on Spain (1898)
• The Great Race of Mercy: The second dogsled delivery of serum arrives in Nome, Alaska. The serum run inspires the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, run each year (1925)
• Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate FDR, but instead kills Chicago mayor Anton Cermak (1933)
• World War II: Singapore falls to the Japanese (1942)
• World War II: The assault on Monte Cassino, Italy, begins (1944)
• World War II: The third day of the bombing of Dresden, Germany (1945)
• The first electronic general-purpose computer, ENIAC, is dedicated (1946)
• The US and Canada agree to build the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line of radar stations in the Arctic (1954)
• Canada adopts the red-and-white maple leaf flag (1965)
• Decimal Day: The decimalization of British coinage is completed (1971)
• Sound recordings receive US copyright protection for the first time (1972)

Birthdays

• Galileo Galilei, astronomer, physicist, and mathematician (1564)
• Louis XV, French monarch (1710)
• Jeremy Bentham, philosopher who developed Utilitarianism (1748)
• Cyrus McCormick, founded International Harveste (1809)
• Charles Lewis Tiffany, founded Tiffany & Co. (1812)
• Susan B. Anthony, suffragist (1820)
• Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and philosopher (1861)
• Ernest Shackleton, polar explorer (1874)
• James Forrestal, first US Secretary of Defense (1892)
• Harold Arlen, composer (1905)
• Cesar Romero, actor (1907)
• Kevin McCarthy, actor (1914)
• Allan Arbus, actor (1918)
• Harvey Korman, actor and comedian (1927)
• Norman Bridwell, author and illustrator who created Clifford the Big Red Dog (1928)
• Claire Bloom, actress (1931)
• Roger B. Chaffee, astronaut (1935)
• Gregory McDonald, author of the Fletch novels (1937)
• Art Spiegelman, cartoonist (1948)
• Jane Seymour, actress (1951)
• Matt Groening, cartoonist who created The Simpsons (1954)
• Chris Farley, comedian (1964)

Deaths

• Lew Wallace, general and politician, author of Ben-Hur (1905)
• Nat King Cole, singer and pianist (1965)
• Wally Cox, actor (1973)
• Ethel Merman, singer (1984)
• Richard Feynman, physicist (1988)
• McLean Stevenson, actor (1996)
• Howard K. Smith, television journalist and anchor (2002)
• Vanity, singer-songwriter and dancer (2016)

Holidays and Celebrations

• Candlemas (Eastern Orthodox Christianity)
• ENIAC Day (Philadelphia)
• International Duties Memorial Day (Russia)
• John From Day (Vanuatu)
• Liberation Day (Afghanistan)
• Lupercalia (ancient Rome)
• National Flag of Canada Day (Canada)
• Parinirvana Day (Mahayana Buddhism)
• Statehood Day (Serbia)
• Susan B. Anthony Day (Florida)
• Total Defense Day (Singapore)

February 15 is the 46th day of the year. There are 319 days (320 in leap years) remaining until the end of the year.