On This Day:
Friday February 14, 2014 This is the 45th day of the year, with 320 days remaining in 2014. Fact of the Day: tarot cards The true origin of tarot cards is unknown, but they are probably from China, India, or Egypt. Tarot cards resembling today's version first appeared in Italy and France in the 14th century. At first they were probably used for playing games, though gypsies may have used them for fortune-telling. From the 18th century onward, the cards began to take on esoteric associations, as certain European writers connected them to diverse traditions of mysticism, divination, alchemy, and ritual magic. The cards have retained these associations and are now widely used for fortune-telling. A modern tarot card deck consists of 78 cards divided into two groups: the Major Arcana group of 22 cards and the Minor Arcana group of 56 cards.
Holidays St. Valentine's Day.
Feast day of St John the Baptist of the Conception, St Antoninus of Sorrento, St Maro, St Abraham of Carrhae, St Adolf of Osnabrück, St Auxentius, Saints Cyril and Methodius (some accounts say July 7), and St Conran.
Bulgaria: Viticulturists' Day / Trifon Zarezan.
Events 1849 - The first photograph of a U.S. President, James Polk, was taken by Matthew Brady, in New York City.
1859 - Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.
1870 - Esther Morris became the world's first female justice of the peace.
1876 - Rival inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both applied for patents for the telephone.
1899 - President William McKinley signed legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections.
1912 - Arizona became the 48th state of the Union.
1912 - The first diesel engine submarine was commissioned, in Groton, Connecticut.
1920 - The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maude Wood Park.
1924 - Thomas Watson founded International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
1929 - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre took place in a Chicago garage when Al Capone's employees gunned down seven members of the George "Bugs" Moran North Siders gang.
1945 - Peru, Paraguay, Chile, and Ecuador joined the United Nations.
1946 - The world's first all-electronic computer was unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania, ENIAC.
1966 - Rick Mount of Lebanon, Indiana became the first high school male athlete to be pictured on the cover of "Sports Illustrated."
2003 - Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was euthanized by veterinarians after being found to be suffering from progressive lung disease.
Births 1819 - Christopher Sholes, American, typewriter inventor.
1847 - Anna Howard Shaw, American, influential leader of the women's suffrage movement.
1859 - George Ferris, American engineer, inventor of the Ferris wheel.
1894 - Jack Benny (Benjamin Kubelsky), American comedian of vaudeville, radio, and television.
1913 - Jimmy Hoffa, American labor leader.
1921 - Hugh Downs, American TV host.
1948 - Teller, (born Raymond Joseph Teller), American magician, best known as the smaller, silent half of the comedy magic duo Penn & Teller.
Deaths 1400 - Richard II, King of England.
1779 - Captain James Cook, English explorer, navigator, and cartographer who achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.
1831 - Vicente Guerrero, Mexican revolutionary hero.
1975 - Sir Julian Huxley, English biologist and writer.
1989 - James Bond, a leading American ornithologist whose name was appropriated by writer Ian Fleming for his fictional spy James Bond.
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