Today is Tuesday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2017. There are 320 days left in the year. This is Valentine's Day.
Today's Highlights in History:
On Feb. 14, 1967, Aretha Franklin recorded her cover of Otis Redding's "Respect" at Atlantic Records in New York. The Turtles' single "Happy Together" was released on the White Whale label.
On this date:
In 1778, the American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Stars and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.
In 1849, President James K. Polk became the first U.S. chief executive to be photographed while in office as he posed for Matthew Brady in New York City.
In 1859, Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.
In 1903, the Department of Commerce and Labor was established. (It was divided into separate departments of Commerce and Labor in 1913.)
In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state of the Union as President William Howard Taft signed a proclamation.
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 1941, the Carson McCullers novel "Reflections in a Golden Eye," previously serialized, was published in book form by Houghton Mifflin.
In 1962, first lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted a televised tour of the White House in a videotaped special that was broadcast on CBS and NBC (and several nights later on ABC).
In 1979, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.
In 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," a novel condemned as blasphemous.
In 1990, 92 people were killed when an Indian Airlines passenger jet crashed while landing at a southern Indian airport.
In 2013, Double-amputee and Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home in South Africa; he was later convicted of murder and is serving a six-year prison term.