February 15
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Events on This Day
1758 - Mustard, that tangy, yellow stuff made for hot dogs and hamburgers, was advertised for the first time in the U.S. Who do you think was responsible for bringing mustard to the U.S.A.? No, not French’s, nor Grey Poupon. It was Benjamin Jackson in Globe Mills, Germantown, Philadelphia.1799 - Printed ballots were authorized for use in elections in the State of Pennsylvania. Originally these ballots were called ‘vest-pocket tickets’. Why? Because the ballot ticket slid into a heavy-paper pocket which fit nicely in a vest pocket.
1842 - Adhesive postage stamps were used for the first time by the City Dispatch Post (Office) in New York City. They probably tasted just like today’s adhesive lick ’em and stick ’em stamps. Maybe flavored postage stamps will be the next great idea. Remember that you read about it first right here.
1875 - Mrs. Edna Kanouse of Watertown, WI gave birth to America’s first quintuplets. All five of the baby boys died within two weeks.
1889 - Norman Coleman became the first U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He had previously held the title of Commissioner of Agriculture.
1898 - The USS Maine exploded on this day in el Puerto De Habana, Cuba. The Maine had been sent to Cuba to help ‘calm’ the situation between Cuba and Spain. Although no one knows who and what caused the explosion, the U.S. blamed it on the Spaniards. The explosion, which killed 266 crewmen, marked the beginning of the Spanish-American War.
1932 - George Burns and Gracie Allen debuted as regulars on The Guy Lombardo Show on CBS radio. The couple was so popular that soon, they would have their own Burns & Allen Show. George and Gracie continued on radio for 18 years before making the switch to TV. All in all, they were big hits for three decades.
1940 - Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) was organized on this day -- to compete with ASCAP (American Society of Composers and Publishers). The two music licensing organizations’ goal was to ensure that composers, artists and publishers were properly paid for the use of their works.
1941 - Duke Ellington and his orchestra recorded one of big band’s all time classics on this day. Take the "A" Train was recorded at Victor’s Hollywood studio and became the Duke’s signature song.
1943 - My True Story was heard for the first time on ABC radio. The program continued for 17 years and was presented in cooperation with True Story magazine.
1944 - Allied forces bombed the monastery atop Monte Cassino in Italy. The monastery and abbey were reduced to rubble during the three-hour allied bombing raid.
1946 - Edith Houghton, age 33, was signed as a baseball scout by the Philadelphia Phillies; the first female scout in the major leagues.
1953 - The first American to win the women’s world figure skating championship was 17-year-old Tenley Albright. She won the competition in Davos, Switzerland.
1954 - Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line began on this day. The DEW Line was made up of radar stations with overlapping coverage; and the ability to detect aircraft and missiles within their areas of surveillance. It was designed and built as the primary air defence warning line in case of an over-the-pole invasion of North America.
1958 - Get A Job, by The Silhouettes, reached the top spot on the music Tunedex. It remained at #1 for two weeks. Talk about sudden change in American popular music! One week earlier, the number one song was Sugartime, by The McGuire Sisters, a song that definitely was not classified as rock ’n’ roll. Get A Job was replaced by Tequila, an instrumental by a studio group known as The Champs.
1965 - Canada displayed its new red and white Maple Leaf flag, which replaced the old Red Ensign standard.
1965 - This was a sad day in music, as singer Nat ‘King’ Cole died in Santa Monica, CA. The music legend was 45. Cole was born in Alabama and raised in Chicago. He first recorded in 1936, then formed the King Cole Trio in 1939 (he was the group’s pianist). He began his phenomenal solo career in 1950. Cole had feature roles in the films St. Louis Blues and Cat Ballou, and made many appearances in Hollywood and on TV. His own network show was abruptly canceled in the mid-1950s when sponsors refused to advertise on a program hosted by a black entertainer. His daughter, Natalie, became a pop music star with many hits in the 1990s -- including an album of standards made popular by her father: Mona Lisa, For Sentimental Reasons, Nature Boy, Too Young, Unforgettable, etc. With modern recording technology, she was able to record a duet with her father’s voice. Nat Cole was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1990.
1971 - After 1,200 years, Great Britain abandoned the 12-shilling system for the decimal system. Out with the old currency of pennies and shillings and in with decimal currency.
1978 - Boxer Leon Spinks defeated Muhammad Ali to win the universally recognized heavyweight boxing crown. Spinks won a split decision over Ali, who had held the title for seven years. The 24-year-old challenger had only seven professional fights to his credit. The title bout was held in the Pavilion at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
1982 - Sugar Ray Leonard, the welterweight boxing champion, knocked out Bruce Finch in the third round of a fight in Reno, NV. Leonard was injured in the second round and underwent retinal surgery in May. He retired -- for the first time -- in November 1982. He returned to the ring in 1984.
1986 - Whitney Houston reached the #1 spot on the music charts. Her single, How Will I Know, replaced a song recorded by her first cousin, Dionne Warwick (That’s What Friends Are For). Whitney is the daughter of singer Cissy Houston. This day also saw Sade’s album Promise hit #1 in the U.S.
1990 - England and Argentina agreed to restore full diplomatic relations, severed in the 1982 Falkland Islands war.
1992 - Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Schuman died in New York at 81 years of age.
1994 - Viacom was victorious in its acquisition of Paramount Communications. Viacom paid $9.75 billion, or about $80.61 a share in cash and stock.
1995 - U.S. President Bill Clinton and former presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush joined legendary entertainer Bob Hope in a foursome at the Bob Hope Classic golf tournament. It was the first time three U.S. Presidents played in one foursome -- and Clinton was the first sitting Chief Executive since Ford in 1975 to play at a PGA Tour event.
1998 - Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500. Earnhardt won the race on the 50th Anniversary of NASCAR, the 40th Anniversary of the Daytona 500 and his 20th running of the race. During a post-race interview he took a stuffed toy monkey and threw it on the ground and said, “Now I have that monkey off my back!”
1998 - Two Japanese ski jumpers, Kazuyoshi Funaki and Masahiko Harada, won gold and bronze medals in the 120-meter event at the Nagano Olympics.
2002 - Films debuting in U.S. theatres: Crossroads, starring Britney Spears, Anson Mount, Zoe Saldana, Taryn Manning, Kim Cattrall, Dan Aykroyd and Justin Long; Hart’s War, with Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard, Cole Hauser, Marcel Iures, Linus Roache and Vicellous Shannon; John Q, starring Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, James Woods, Anne Heche, Ray Liotta, Kimberly Elise, Eddie Griffin, Shawn Hatosy and Daniel E. Smith; and Return to Neverland, with Blayne Weaver, Harriet Kate Owen, Corey Burton, Jeff Bennett, Kath Soucie, Roger Rees and Spencer Breslin.
2003 - Millions of protesters, many of them marching in the capitals of America’s allies, demonstrated against U.S. plans to attack Iraq.
2004 - Two fires in China kill 92 people: A fire swept through a shopping center in northeastern China, killing 53 people. Hours later, another fire in a temple in southeastern China killed 39 people.
2004 - Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Daytona 500 on the same track where his father was killed three years earlier.
2006 - Robert Rich, inventor of frozen non-dairy topping, died at 92 years of age. In 1990 Rich was among the first to be inducted into the Frozen Food Hall of Fame.
2006 - A U.S. Congressional committee report, A Failure of Initiative, cited major failures at all levels of government in the handling of Hurricane Katrina. Several top Bush administration officials were singled out for criticism.
2007 - Oscar-winning Hollywood songwriter Ray Evans died at the age of 92. Evans enjoyed a career that spanned five decades with longtime parter Jay Livingston -- Evans wrote the lyrics, while Livingston composed the melodies. Livingston and Evans won three Academy Awards: in 1948 for the song Buttons and Bows, written for the movie The Paleface; in 1950 for the song Mona Lisa, written for the movie Captain Carey, U.S.A.; and in 1956 for the song Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be), featured in the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Man Who Knew Too Much and sung by Doris Day.
2008 - A new computer virus called Mocmex, a Trojan Horse from China, was discovered in digital photo frames. The virus blocked antivirus software from over 100 security vendors and collected passwords for online games.
2009 - A team led by Marie Dutreix of the Curie Institute in Paris, France announced a weapon against cancer. The molecular decoy mimics DNA damage and prompts cancerous cells to kill themselves.
2009 - Police in Malaysia arrested 26 unmarried Muslim couples in hotel rooms during Operation Valentine, aimed at curbing illegal premarital sex in the extremely conservative country. State authorities carry out raids each year on Valentine’s Day.
2010 - At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain Microsoft announced its new Windows Phone 7 software. In case you were curious, the Mobile World Congress is the combination of the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry and a congress featuring prominent chief executives representing mobile operators, vendors and content owners from across the world.
2010 - Astronauts successfully attached a new observation deck to the International Space Station. The success came after a long, frustrating night spent dealing with stuck bolts and wayward wiring.
2011 - Hardline Iranian lawmakers called for the country’s opposition leaders to face trial and be put to death. This, a day after clashes between opposition protesters and security forces left two people dead and dozens injured. Thousands turned out for the opposition rally in solidarity with Egypt’s popular revolt that had toppled President Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years in power.
2012 - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had added 3,000 centrifuges to its uranium enrichment effort increasing the total to 9,000. This, as he unveiled a progress report in Iran’s controversial nuclear program. Iran began loading domestically-made nuclear fuel rods into its Tehran research reactor.
2013 - A meteor, estimated to weigh about 10 tons, streaked through the sky and exploded with the power of an atomic bomb over Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains of Russia. Its sonic blasts shattered countless windows and injured hundreds of people. The event was captured by many personal/dash cams and mobile phones and, as a result, was seen around the world.
2014 - Two people died in weather-related incidents as storms continued to batter Great Britain. 22 severe flood warnings were in place with more heavy rain and wind expected.
2014 - Apple opened its first retail store in South America. The Rio de Janeiro outlet offered the 16GB Apple iPhone 5s for $1,076.
2015 - HSBC bank, Britain’s largest, issued a public apology after it helped rich clients dodge taxes. Bank representatives described the the media firestorm that followed the tax dodging allegations as “painful” and insisted the bank has changed the way it does business.
2016 - President Barack Obama opened a two-day meeting with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at Sunnylands, a California resort. Obama called the landmark gathering on U.S. soil a reflection of his personal commitment to an enduring partnership with the diverse group of countries in SE Asia.
2016 - Australian officials said they had discovered $1.26 billion worth of methylamphetamine (ice) hidden in imported boxes of silicon bra inserts and art supplies. Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the operation used information gathered through new co-operation between Australian Federal Police and China’s National Narcotics Control Commission. And police at Mexico City’s international airport said they found a shipment of lollipops (headed to Omaha, Nebraska) with each piece of candy containing a capsule of methamphetamine.
2017 - As POTUS Donald Trump welcomed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, Trump said the U.S. would “encourage, really, a great peace deal... but it is the parties themselves that must directly negotiate.”
2017 - White House chief of staff Reince Priebus asked FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to dispute media reports that Donald Trump’s campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the 2016 presidential lection -- which Comey and McCabe declined to do.
2018 - Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull banned government employees from having sex with members of the staff. This, as deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce battled for his political survival following revelations of a relationship with a former staffer.
2018 - Pennsylvania’s Attorney General said seven guards were charged with sexually abusing inmates at the Lackawanna County Prison in Scranton, PA. The guards faced charges of institutional sexual assault against female inmates over a period lasting several years, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced. The defendants, all employees at the prison, allegedly abused their power to create a decade-long culture of sexual abuse and assault, according to prosecutors.
2019 - New movies showing in U.S. theatres included: Donnybrook, with Margaret Qualley, Frank Grillo and Jamie Bell; The Lears, starring Bruce Dern, Anthony Michael Hall and Sean Astin; Mega Time Squad, with Morgan Albrecht, Yoson An and Jaya Beach-Robertson; the animated Ruben Brandt, Collector, with characters voiced by Iván Kamarás, Gabriella Hámori, Zalán Makranczi and Csaba Márton; and Sorry Angel, with Vincent Lacoste, Pierre Deladonchamps and Denis Podalydès.
2019 - The U.S. announced an ambitious effort to develop technologies to recycle lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, cellphones and other sources. The launch of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) first lithium-ion battery recycling center, called the ReCell Center, will help the United States grow a globally competitive recycling industry and reduce reliance on foreign sources of battery materials.
2019 - Maryland Coast Guard Lt. Paul Hassan, a self-described white nationalist, was arrested on gun and drug charges. Several days later, Hassan was charged with plotting to kill a long list of prominent journalists and -- Democratic politicians.
2020 - Northrop Grumman launched its Cygnus capsule from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Virginia. The nearly 4-ton shipment, including candy and cheese for the astronauts, arrived at the orbiting lab on Feb 18.
2021 - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Congress would establish an independent commission to investigate the “facts and causes” of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a “terrorist mob” of former President Donald Trump’s supporters.
2021 - A rare deep freeze in Texas raised demand for power and forced the state’s electric grid operator to impose rotating blackouts. The actions left more than 2 million customers without electricity.
2021 - Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, ordered companies it invests in globally to boost the number of women on their boards and to consider setting targets if fewer than 30% of their directors are female.
2022 - President Biden rejected former POTUS Trump’s executive privilege claims and ordered White House visitor logs to be released to the panel investigating the Jan 6, 2021 U.S. Capital attack. Biden’s White House counsel granted congressional investigators access to the data given the urgency of their work.
2022 - U.S. researchers reported that vaccinating of pregnant women against the coronavirus may help prevent COVID-19 hospitalizations in infants after they are born. This was especially so, if the expecting mothers got the shots later in their pregnancy.
2023 - Scientists were warning that the Thwaites Glacier, the so-called ‘Doomsday Glacier’ -- the size of Florida, was weakening, threatening a global sea level rise of 1.6 meters (5.249 feet).
2023 - The U.S. said no fighter jets would be given to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had sought fighter jets to help sustain his war effort, arguing that they are urgently needed to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks. U.S. officials announced they are finalizing plans to send 30 American tanks to Ukraine. Pentagon and White House officials have expressed confidence that sending tanks would not risk greater escalation with Russia.
2024 - Movies opening in the U.S included: Argylle, starring Henry Cavill, Daniel Singh and Dua Lipa; and Scrambled, with Yvonne Strahovski, Clancy Brown and Lindsey Morgan.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day February 15
1803 - John Sutter
early California settler: owned Sutter’s Mill near Sacramento, site of first gold strike in U.S.; died June 18, 18801809 - Cyrus H. McCormick
inventor: mechanical reaper; died May 13, 18841812 - Charles Lewis Tiffany
jeweler whose name was synonymous with highest quality jewelry; died Feb 18, 19021820 - Susan B. (Brownell) Anthony
suffragist: 1st American woman to be pictured on a coin: the Susan B. Anthony dollar; died Mar 13, 19061882 - John Sidney Barrymore
actor: Beau Brummel, Bulldog Drummond, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Grand Hotel; brother of Lionel & Ethel; died May 29, 19421905 - Harold Arlen (Hyman Arluck)
composer w/Ted Koehler: Stormy Weather, It’s Only a Paper Moon; w/Gershwin & Mercer: That Old Black Magic; Oscar-winning songwriter: Somewhere Over the Rainbow [1939]; died Apr 23, 19861907 - Cesar Romero
actor: The Cisco Kid, Batman, The Thin Man, Diamond Jim, Vera Cruz, Passport to Danger, Around the World in Eighty Days, Donovan’s Reef, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Falcon Crest; died Jan 1, 19941914 - Kevin McCarthy
actor: Final Approach, Ghoulies 3, The Howling, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, Matinee, Murder, She Wrote; died Sep 11, 20101918 - Hank Locklin (Lawrence Hankins Locklin)
country singer: Please Help Me I’m Falling, Send Me the Pillow You Dream On; died Mar 8, 20091923 - Adolfo (Adolfo Sardina)
fashion designer: fashion-wear, sportswear, personal leather goods, accessories; died Nov 27, 20211927 - Harvey Korman
Emmy Award-winning performer/music/variety show: The Carol Burnett Show [1972, 1974]; actor: The Tim Conway Show, Blazing Saddles, High Anxiety; died May 29, 20071929 - Graham Hill
auto racer: Indianapolis 500 winner [1966]; killed in crash of his private plane Nov 29, 19751929 - James Schlesinger
U.S. Secretary of Defense [1973-1976]; Secretary of Energy [1977]; died Mar 27, 20141931 - Claire Bloom
actress: Separate Tables, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Queenie, Alexander the Great, Anastasia, Brideshead Revisited1935 - Susan Brownmiller
author: Against Our Will, Femininity1941 - Brian Holland
songwriter: Motown’s Holland-Dozier-Holland: Baby Love, Stop! In the Name of Love, solo: Don’t Leave Me Starvin’ for Your Love1942 - Sherry (Sharon) Jackson
actress: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ma and Pa Kettle series, The Breaking Point, The Mini-Skirt Mob, The Incredible Hulk: Married, Stingray1944 - Mick Avory
musician: drums: group: The Kinks: You Really Got Me, All Day and All of the Night, A Well Respected Man, Sunny Afternoon, Lola, Celluloid Heroes1945 - John Anthony Helliwell
musician: saxophone: group: Supertramp: Dreamer, Bloody Well Right1947 - Marisa Berenson
actress: Cabaret, Barry Lyndon; model1947 - David Brown
musician: bass: group: Santana: Soul Sacrifice, Samba Pa Ti, Black Magic Woman, Evil Ways, Oye Como Va1947 - Rusty Hamer
actor: Make Room for Daddy; died Jan 18, 19901948 - Ron (Ronald Charles) Cey
The Penguin: baseball: LA Dodgers [World Series: 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981/all-star: 1974-1979], Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics1949 - Ken Anderson
football: Cincinnati Bengals quarterback: Super Bowl XVI1951 - Melissa Manchester
singer: Don’t Cry Out Loud, Midnight Blue, You Should Hear How She Talks About You; more1951 - Jane Seymour (Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg)
Emmy-award winning actress: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman [1996], Onassis: The Richest Man in the World [1988]; Live and Let Die, Somewhere in Time, East of Eden [TV], Lassiter, War and Remembrance, B Positive1954 - Matt Groening
cartoonist: The Simpsons1955 - Christopher McDonald
actor: Everything’s Alright, Barry Munday, Spooner, Mad Money, You’ve Reached the Elliotts, Grind, 61*, Isn’t She Great, Family Law1959 - Ali (Alistair) Campbell
musician: guitar, lead singer: group: UB40: Food for Thought, My Way of Thinking, I Think It’s Going to Rain, Dream a Lie, Red Red Wine, Don’t Break My Heart [w/Chrissie Hynde], Orchestral Dub1960 - Mikey Craig
musician: bass: group: Culture Club: Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, Time [Clock of the Heart], Karma Chameleon1960 - Darrell Green
Pro Football Hall of Famer [cornerback]: Texas A&M-Kingsville; NFL: Washington Redskins1964 - Chris Farley
comedian, actor: Saturday Night Live, Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World 2, Coneheads, Billy Madison, Tommy Boy, Black Sheep, Beverly Hills Ninja, Almost Heroes; died Dec 18, 19971966 - Kim Myers
actress: Letters from a Killer, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story, White Palace, Out on the Edge1967 - Jane Child
musician: synthesizers; singer: Don’t Wanna Fall in Love, Welcome to the Real World, Almost Beautiful, Nice Day, World Lullabye1971 - Alex Borstein
Emmy Award-winning actress: Family Guy, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; Getting On, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Catwoman, Good Night, and Good Luck, Dinner for Schmucks, Ted, ParaNorman, A Million Ways to Die in the West1971 - Renée O’Connor
actress: Alien Apocalypse, Rubbernecking, The Rockford Files: A Blessing in Disguise, Darkman II: The Return of Durant, The Adventures of Huck Finn, Xena: Warrior Princess1972 - Jaromír Jágr
hockey [right winger]: NHL: Pittsburgh Penguins [1990–2001]: Stanley Cup champs 1991, 1992]; Washington Capitals [2001–2004]; New York Rangers [2004–2008]; Philadelphia Flyers [2011–2012]; Dallas Stars [2012–2013]; Boston Bruins [2013]; New Jersey Devils [2013–2015]; Florida Panthers [2014-2017]; Calgary Flames [2017-2018]1975 - Serge Aubin
hockey [left wing]: Colorado Avalanche, Columbus Blue Jackets, Colorado Avalanche, Atlanta Thrashers1977 - Alex Gonzalez
baseball [shortstop]: Florida Marlins [1998–2005]: 2003 World Series champs, Boston Red Sox [2006, 2009], Cincinnati Reds [2007–2009], Toronto Blue Jays [2010], Atlanta Braves [2010–2011], Milwaukee Brewers [2012–2013]1979 - Adam Mair
hockey [center]: Toronto Maple Leafs, Los Angeles Kings, Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils1986 - Johnny Cueto
baseball [pitcher]: Cincinnati Reds [2008–2015]; Kansas City Royals [2015]: 2015 World Series champs; San Francisco Giants [2016-2021]; Chicago White Sox [2022]
1986 - Amber Riley
singer, actress: Glee, St. Sass1995 - Megan Thee Stallion (Megan Jovon Ruth Pete)
singer: Fever, Suga, Savage [featuring Beyoncé], Hot Girl Summer [featuring Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla Sign]1998 - Zachary Gordon
actor: Diary of a Wimpy Kid film series, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day February 15
1949Powder Your Face with Sunshine (facts) - Evelyn Knight
Far Away Places (facts) - Margaret Whiting
1958
1967
1976
1985
1994
2003
2012
2021
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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