February 14 in History

The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen horizontal stripes, alternating red and white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag form a constellation, representing the 50 U.S. states united, while the 13 stripes represent the thirteen colonies that won independence from Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War.

On 14 February 1779 British explorer Captain James Cook was killed as he attempted to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the ruling chief of the island of Hawaii, and hold him hostage for the return of a cutter which Hawaiians had stolen. As Cook and his men attempted to take the chief to his ship, they were confronted by a crowd of Hawaiians at Kealakekua Bay seeking to prevent Kalaniʻōpuʻu leaving. In the ensuing confrontation, Cook, four British marines and 17 Hawaiians were killed.

Đorđe Petrović, known by the sobriquet Karađorđe, was a Serbian revolutionary leader who led a struggle against the Ottoman Empire during the First Serbian Uprising. Karađorđe Petrović held the title of Grand Vožd of Serbia from 14 February 1804 to 3 October 1813.

In the Latter Day Saint movement, the Quorum of the Twelve is one of the governing bodies of the church hierarchy organized by the movement's founder Joseph Smith and patterned after the Apostles of Jesus. Members are called Apostles, with a special calling to be evangelistic ambassadors to the world.

Great Ormond Street Hospital is a children's hospital in the London Borough of Camden, and a part of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust. The hospital is situated between Great Ormond Street and Guilford Street, just inside Holborn's traditional boundary with Bloomsbury.

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western United States, with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. The 42° north parallel delineates the southern boundary with California and Nevada. The western boundary is formed by the Pacific Ocean.

The War of the Pacific, also known by multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought over Chilean claims on coastal Bolivian territory in the Atacama Desert, the war ended with victory for Chile, which gained a significant amount of resource-rich territory from Peru and Bolivia. The war demonstrated Chile's military-technological superiority over its opponents at the time.

The British Army is the land warfare force of the United Kingdom responsible for defending the UK, the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. The British Army, founded in 1707, has seen involvement in most of the world's major wars throughout history, including both world wars. As of 1 January 2026, the British Army comprises 73,790 regular full-time personnel, 4,190 Gurkhas, 25,770 volunteer reserve personnel and 4,870 "other personnel", for a total of 108,620.

Arizona is a landlocked state in the Southwestern United States, sharing the Four Corners region with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the northwest and California to the west, and shares an international border with the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix, which is the most populous state capital and fifth-most populous city in the United States. Arizona is divided into 15 counties.

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was a communist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous constituent republic of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the USSR. The Russian SFSR was composed of sixteen smaller constituent units of autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group. The capital of the Russian SFSR and the USSR as a whole was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Stalingrad, Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Gorky and Kuybyshev.

The League of Women Voters (LWV) is a non-partisan American nonprofit political organization. Founded in 1920, its ongoing major activities include registering voters, providing voter information, boosting voter turnout and advocating for voting rights. In addition, the LWV works with partners for specific campaigns including support for campaign finance reform, women's rights, health care reform and gun control.

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago, garage when between four and six men entered, two of whom were disguised as police officers. The seven men were lined up facing a wall and shot with Thompson submachine guns and a sawed-off shotgun; seventy rounds were fired from the Thompsons, and one cartridge was fired from the shotgun. Six of the victims died immediately; one lived for a short while but refused to identify the killers.

The Battle of Pasir Panjang, which took place between 13 and 15 February 1942, was part of the final stage of the Empire of Japan's invasion of Singapore during World War II. The battle was initiated upon the advancement of elite Imperial Japanese Army forces towards Pasir Panjang Ridge on 13 February.

The Tunisian campaign was a series of battles that took place in Tunisia during the North African campaign of the Second World War, between Axis and Allied forces from 17 November 1942 to 13 May 1943. The Allies consisted of British Imperial Forces, including a Greek contingent, with American and French corps. Despite initial successes by the German and Italian forces brought from the mainland and which had withdrawn into and occupied Tunisia, after their defeat in the Western Desert and the success of Operation Torch, massive supply interdiction efforts and Allied assaults from east and west led to the decisive defeat of the Axis. Over 260,000 German and Italian troops were taken as prisoners of war, including most of the Afrika Korps.

In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the German city of Dresden. The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed more than 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of the city centre. Up to 25,000 people were killed. Three more USAAF air raids followed, two occurring on 2 March aimed at the city's railway marshalling yard and one smaller raid on 17 April aimed at industrial areas.

Mostar is a city and the administrative centre of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the historical capital of Herzegovina.

The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one of the bankers for the government of the United Kingdom, it is the world's second oldest central bank, after Sweden's (1668). It is considered to be one of the world's most important central banks.

The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel.

The First Indochina War, known alternatively internationally as the French Indochina War, was fought in French Indochina between France and the Viet Minh and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 11 August 1954. Most of the engagements of this conflict occurred in Vietnam.

Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is within the jurisdiction of Kabul District and has an estimated population of 5,333,284 people. Located in the eastern half of the country, forming part of the Kabul Province, the city is administratively divided into five zones and 22 municipal districts. The native population of Kabul primarily speaks Persian, locally referred to as Persian Dari, using regional Dari dialects with a distinctive Kabuli accent. Kabul has long been Afghanistan's political, cultural and economic center. Rapid urbanization has made it the country's primate city. It is located high in a narrow valley in the Hindu Kush mountain range, and is bounded by the Kabul River. At an altitude of 1,791 m (5,876 ft) above sea level, it is one of the highest capital cities in the world. The center of the city contains its oldest neighborhoods, including the areas of Bala Hisar, Deh Afghanan and Murad Khani.

Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is an American chemical company headquartered in Seadrift, Texas. It has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company since 2001. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers before reaching consumers. Some are high-volume commodities and others are specialty products. Markets served include paints and coatings, packaging, wire and cable, household products, personal care, pharmaceuticals, automotive, textiles, agriculture, and oil and gas. The company is a former component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Indian Airlines Flight 605 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Bombay to Bangalore. On 14 February 1990, an Airbus A320-231 registered as VT-EPN, crashed onto a golf course while attempting to land at Bangalore, killing 92 of 146 people on board.

Rail freight transport is the use of railways and trains to transport cargo, as opposed to passengers.

In the Iraq disarmament crisis of the early 2000s, Iraq, led by president Saddam Hussein, was pressured by the United States and its other adversaries to destroy alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—biological, chemical, and nuclear. In the 1980s, Iraq had programs to produce all three, but in the 1990s, the programs were ended, and the WMD were destroyed. The U.S.' rationale for its 2003 invasion of Iraq was that the country still had WMD, and would use them.

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. As of 2025, Greater Beirut has a population of 2.4 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the twelfth-largest city in the Levant region and the sixteenth-largest in the Arab world. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. Beirut has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years, making it one of the oldest cities in the world.

YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Steve Chen who were all former employees at PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, it is the second-most-visited website in the world, after Google itself. In January 2024, YouTube had reached more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of video every day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of video per minute, and as of mid-2024, there were approximately 14.8 billion videos in total.

The Arab Spring was a series of pro-democracy anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to the death of Mohamed Bouazizi by self-immolation. From Tunisia, the protests initially spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. The rulers deposed include: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, all in 2011; and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012. Major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām!.

The 2019 Pulwama attack occurred on 14 February 2019, when a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber at Lethapora in the Pulwama district of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The attack killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel as well as the perpetrator — Adil Ahmad Dar— who was a local Kashmiri youth from the Pulwama district. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed. India blamed neighbouring Pakistan for the attack, while the latter condemned the attack and denied having any connections to it. The attack dealt a severe blow to India–Pakistan relations, consequently resulting in the 2019 India–Pakistan military standoff. Subsequently, Indian investigations identified 19 accused. By August 2021, the main accused along with six others had been killed, and seven had been arrested.