Today is Thursday, Feb. 15, the 46th day of 2024 with 320 to follow.
The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Mars, Mercury, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include: Italian astronomer/physicist Galileo Galilei in 1564; French King Louis XV in 1710; jeweler Charles Tiffany in 1812; feminist pioneer Susan B. Anthony in 1820; British philosopher/mathematician Alfred North Whitehead in 1861; actor John Barrymore in 1882; illustrator Lillian Disney in 1899; songwriter Harold Arlen in 1905; actor Cesar Romero in 1907; Miep Gies, born Heroine Santruschitz, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family, in 1909; actor Harvey Korman in 1927; actor Claire Bloom in 1931 (age 93); astronaut Roger Chaffee in 1935; football Hall of Fame member John Hadl in 1940; actor Marisa Berenson in 1947 (age 77); actor Jane Seymour in 1951 (age 73); singer Melissa Manchester in 1951 (age 73); Simpsons cartoonist Matt Groening in 1954 (age 70); musician Ali Campbell in 1959 (age 65); comedian Chris Farley in 1964; astronaut Leland Devon Melvin in 1964 (age 60); Gambian President Adama Barrow in 1965 (age 59); rapper Birdman, born Bryan Christopher Williams, in 1969 (age 55); actor Renee O’Connor in 1971 (age 53); actor Alex Borstein in 1971 (age 53); filmmaker Miranda July in 1974 (age 50); musician Brandon Boyd in 1976 (age 48); musician Conor Oberst in 1980 (44); filmmaker Matt Duffer in 1984 (age 40); filmmaker Ross Duffer in 1984 (age 40); actor/singer Amber Riley in 1986 (age 38); actor Callum Turner in 1990 (age 34); singer Megan Thee Stallion, born Megan Jovon Ruth Pete, in 1995 (age 29).
On this date in history:
In 1764, the city of St. Louis was founded along the Mississippi River.
In 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor, killing 260 crewmen and leading to a U.S. declaration of war against Spain.
In 1933, U.S. President-elect Franklin Roosevelt narrowly escaped assassination in Miami when several shots were fired at him, fatally wounding Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak.
In 1942, the British bastion of Singapore surrendered to the Japanese army.
In 1953, Tenley Albright became the first American woman to win the world figure skating championship at the age of 17.
In 1961, all 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team were killed when their plane crashed in Belgium during their trip to an international meet in Prague. Among the dead were reigning U.S. champion Laurence Owen, 16, her mother, nine-time U.S. champion Maribel Vinson Owen, and her sister, pairs champion Maribel Owen, 20.
In 1965, Canada adopted a new national flag featuring a maple leaf emblem.
In 1982, the oil-drilling rig Ocean Ranger capsized and sank in a storm off Newfoundland. All 84 people aboard were lost.
In 1989, Radio Moscow announced the last Soviet soldier had left Kabul, Afghanistan.
In 1992, a jury found Jeffrey Dahmer to be sane and guilty of killing 15 young men and boys, condemning him to life in prison.
In 1996, a Liberian-registered oil tanker, the Sea Empress, ran aground off the coast of Wales, spilling 72,000 tons of crude oil into the sea.
In 2002, discovery of a human skull in a wooded area near a crematory in Georgia led investigators to remains of more than 300 bodies that were to have been cremated but instead were stacked in sheds and in the woods.
In 2005, a U.S. appeals court in Washington ruled that journalists have no First Amendment privilege to protect confidential sources.
In 2008, Steve Fossett, the 63-year-old millionaire commodities trader turned record-breaking aviator, was declared legally dead five months after he vanished while flying in Nevada.
In 2012, fire broke out in an overcrowded Honduras prison, killing a reported 359 inmates and a visiting wife, one of the worst prison fire death tolls in history. One of the convicts was suspected of starting the fast-moving conflagration by setting his mattress on fire.
In 2013, Russian officials said a hail of meteorite fragments hit the Chelyabinsk region, injuring more than 1,000 people, most of the victims hit by glass from shattered windows.
In 2019, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border to divert billions of federal dollars to wall construction.
In 2019, President Donald Trump signed legislation making Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore the Indiana Dunes National Park.
In 2021, the World Trade Organization named U.S.-trained Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as director-general, making her the first African and first woman to lead the body.
In 2023, Payton Gendron, the teen who shot and killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A thought for the day: American comedian/actor Jerry Seinfeld said, “A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.”
