Today is Wednesday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2024. There are 321 days left in the year. This is Valentine’s Day.
In 2018, a gunman identified as a former student opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., killing 17 people in the nation’s deadliest school shooting since the attack in Newtown, Conn., more than five years earlier. (Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty to murder in October 2021 and was sentenced in November 2022 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)
Other events that happened on this date:
In 1876, inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied separately for patents related to the telephone. (The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell the rightful inventor.)
In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state of the Union as President William Howard Taft signed a proclamation.
In 1913, labor leader Jimmy Hoffa was born in Brazil, Ind.; college football coach Woody Hayes was born in Clifton, Ohio; sports broadcaster Mel Allen was born in Birmingham, Ala.