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Today in History – February 15 in History
What happened on this day in history – February 15 in History
| 1798 | The first serious fist fight occurs in Congress. | |
| 1804 | New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery. | |
| 1862 | Union General Ulysses S. Grant launches a major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn. | |
| 1869 | Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped. | |
| 1898 | The U.S. battleship Maine blows up in Havana Harbor, killing 268 sailors and bringing hordes of Western cowboys and gunfighters rushing to enlist in the Spanish-American. | |
| 1900 | The British threaten to use natives in the Boer War fight. | |
| 1925 | The London Zoo announces it will install lights to cheer up fogged-in animals. | |
| 1934 | U.S. Congress passes the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, allotting new funds for Federal Emergency Relief Administration. | |
| 1940 | Hitler orders that all British merchant ships will be considered warships. | |
| 1942 | British forces in Singapore surrender to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita. | |
| 1943 | The Germans break the American Army’s lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia, North Africa. | |
| 1944 | American bombers attack the Abbey of Monte Cassino in an effort to neutralize it as a German observation post in central Italy. | |
| 1946 | Royal Canadian mounted police arrest 22 as Soviet spies. | |
| 1950 | Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung sign a mutual defense treaty in Moscow. | |
| 1957 | Andrei Gromyko replaces Dmitri T. Shepilov as the Soviet Foreign Minister. | |
| 1961 | Eighteen members of the U.S. figure skating team are lost in an airplane crash in Belgium. | |
| 1965 | Canada’s maple leaf flag is raised for the first time. | |
| 1967 | Thirteen U.S. helicopters are shot down in one day in Vietnam | |
| 1974 | U.S. gas stations threaten to close because of federal fuel policies. | |
| Born on February 15 | ||
| 1564 | Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and mathematician. | |
| 1710 | Louis XV, King of France | |
| 1726 | Abraham Clark, signer of Declaration of Independence. | |
| 1797 | Henry Steinway, piano maker | |
| 1820 | Susan B. Anthony, suffragette and political activist. | |
| 1882 | John Barrymore, actor, sibling to actors Lionel Barrymore & Ethel Barrymore, father of actors John Drew Barrymore & Diana Barrymore and grandfather of actor Drew Barrymore. | |
| 1905 | Harold Arlen, composer, arranger and pianist (“Stormy Weather,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon”). | |
| 1954 | Matt Groening, cartoonist (The Simpsons). | |
