Today in History

1349   2,000 jews are burned at the stake in Strasbourg, Germany.  
1400   The deposed Richard II is murdered in Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire.  
1549   Maximilian II, brother of the Emperor Charles V, is recognized as the future king of Bohemia.  
1779   American Loyalists are defeated by Patriots at Kettle Creek, Ga.  
1797   The Spanish fleet is destroyed by the British under Admiral Jervis (with Nelson in support) at the battle of Cape St. Vincent, off Portugal.  
1848   James Polk becomes the first U.S. President to be photographed in office by Matthew Brady.  
1859   Oregon is admitted as the thirty-third state.  
1870   Esther Morris becomes the world's first female justice of the peace.
1876   Rival inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both apply for patents for the telephone.  
1900   General Roberts invades South Africa's Orange Free State with 20,000 British troops.
1904   The "Missouri Kid" is captured in Kansas.  
1912   Arizona becomes the 48th state in the Union.  
1915   Kaiser Wilhelm II invites the U.S. Ambassador to Berlin in order to confer on the war.  
1918   Warsaw demonstrators protest the transfer of Polish territory to the Ukraine.  
1920   The League of Women Voters is formed in Chicago in celebration of the imminent ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.
1924   Thomas Watson founds International Business Machines Corp.  
1929   Chicago gang war between Al Capone and George "Bugs" Moran culminates with several Moran confederates being gunned down in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  
1939   Germany launches the battleship Bismark.  
1940   Britain announces that all merchant ships will be armed.  
1942   Japanese paratroopers attack Sumatra. Aidan MacCarthy's RAF unit flew to Palembang, in eastern Sumatra, where 30 Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed A-28 Hudson bombers were waiting.  
1945   800 Allied aircraft firebomb the German city of Dresden. Smaller followup bombing raids last until April with a total death toll of between 35,000 to 130,000 civilians.  
1945   The siege of Budapest ends as the Soviets take the city. Only 785 German and Hungarian soldiers managed to escape.  
1949   The United States charges the Soviet Union with interning up to 14 million in labor camps.
1955   A Jewish couple loses their fight to adopt Catholic twins as the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to rule on state law.
1957   The Georgia state senate outlaws interracial athletics.  
1965   Malcolm X's home is firebombed. No injuries are reported.  
1971   Moscow publicizes a new five-year plan geared to expanding consumer production.  
1973   The United States and Hanoi set up a group to channel reconstruction aid directly to Hanoi.
1979   Armed guerrillas attack the U.S. embassy in Tehran.  
1985   Vietnamese troops surround the main Khmer Rouge base at Phnom Malai.
1989   Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini charges that Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, is blasphemous and issues an edict (fatwa) calling on muslims to kill Rushdie.