February 14
Claudius Gothicus, Roman emperor, was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army, but was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families. To get rid of the problem, Claudius bans all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, a holy priest in Rome, realizing the injustice of the decree, defies Claudius and continues to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. February 14 around the year 278 A.D., Valentine was executed. – 278.
Striking workers at Detroit’s newspapers, out since the previous July, offer to return to work. The offer is accepted five days later, but the newspapers vow to retain some 1,200 scabs. A court ruling the following year ordered as many as 1,100 former strikers reinstated. – 1996.
February 15
Toy store owner and inventor Morris Michtom places two stuffed bears in his shop window and advertises them as Teddy bears. Michtom earlier had petitioned U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt for permission to use his nickname, Teddy. The president agreed and, before long, other toy manufacturers began turning out copies of Michtom’s stuffed bears, which soon became a national childhood institution. – 1903.
The entire 18-member U.S. figure skating team is killed in a plane crash in Berg-Kampenhout, Belgium. The team was on its way to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. – 1961.
February 16
Diamond Mine disaster in Braidwood, Ill.. The coal mine was on a marsh-like tract of land with no natural drainage. Snow melted and forced a collapse on the east side of the mine and killed 74. – 1883.
In Thebes, Egypt, English archaeologist Howard Carter enters the sealed burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamen. – 1923.
Beginning of a 17-week general strike of 12,000 New York furriers, in which Jewish workers formed a coalition with Greek and African American workers and became the first union to win a five-day, 40-hour week. – 1926.
February 17
Approximately 900 persons drown when a passenger ferry, the Neptune, overturns near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The ferry was dangerously overloaded, and carried no lifeboats or emergency gear. – 1993.
February 18
A man ignites a gasoline-filled container inside a subway train in Daegu, South Korea. The blaze engulfes the six-car train, before spreading to another train that had pulled into the station a few minutes later. In all, 198 persons were killed and nearly 150 others were injured. – 2003.
February 19
The first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound emigrants stranded by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. – 1847.
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 to initiate a controversial World War II policy with lasting consequences for Japanese Americans. The document ordered the removal of resident enemy aliens from parts of the West vaguely identified as military areas. Although Order 9066 affected Italian Americans and German Americans, the largest numbers of detainees were by far Japanese Americans who were systematically rounded up and placed in detention centers. – 1942.
February 20
U.S. president George Washington signs legislation to create the U.S. Postal Service to guarantee inexpensive delivery of all newspapers, stipulating the right to privacy, and granting Congress the ability to expand postal service to new areas of the Nation. – 1792
From Cape Canaveral, Fla., John Hershel Glenn, Jr. is successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut. – 1962.
In a highly-controversial vote, the Irish government defies the powerful Catholic Church and approves the sale of contraceptives. – 1985.
Sources: History.com, Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council.
• “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
—George Santayana, Philosopher