February 14 in history — On This Day

A photograph taken after the 1871 fire can make Chicago look as though its future had been decided by a wall of flame. A view from around 1905 tells a different story: tall offices, busy transport routes and commercial streets crowded again.

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February

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Jafar Panahi’s Taxi wins the Golden Bear

Also on February 14

NEAR Shoemaker goes into orbit around Eros

Voyager 1 photographs Earth as a pale blue dot

Việt Minh forces overrun the garrison at Đắk Đoa

Israel’s first elected assembly convenes

AI History Recreations

Politics

Israel’s first elected assembly convenes

War & Conflict

Việt Minh forces overrun the garrison at Đắk Đoa

Space

NEAR Shoemaker goes into orbit around Eros

Technology

Bell and Gray submit competing telephone paperwork

History

Tang-era cargo from the Belitung wreck goes on display

Asian youth activists gather in Calcutta

Barbie is introduced at a New York toy fair

Crime & Justice

John Tunstall is killed in New Mexico

Racist shootings kill nine people in Hanau

Robbers target a Securitas depot in Tonbridge

Science

Nature’s February 15 issue carries a draft human genome sequence

Scottish researchers announce Dolly the sheep

The Hale Telescope records its first light

Medicine & Health

The Bundaberg vaccine contamination disaster unfolds

Researchers identify the bacterium behind Legionnaires’ disease

Hong Kong Begins a Mass Poultry Cull Against Bird Flu

Nature & Disasters

The Iroquois Theatre Fire

The Endangered Species Act Is Signed

The Messina Earthquake

Exploration

La Salle is killed by members of his own expedition

Amundsen's Team Reaches the South Pole

Tasman's Expedition Sights New Zealand

Sport

The Montreal Canadiens Are Founded

FC Barcelona Is Founded

Mike Tyson Becomes the Youngest Heavyweight Titleholder

Art & Literature

Huckleberry Finn reaches American bookshops

The New Yorker publishes its first issue

Moose Murders opens and closes on Broadway

Music

Cecil Leeson premieres Paul Creston’s Saxophone Sonata

Bach presents his cantata on the Song of Simeon

Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov reaches the stage

Film & TV

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi wins the Golden Bear

A Paris cinema demonstrates digital projection

Kinemacolor is shown to a London audience

The Story Behind the Photo

Chicago After the Fire: From Burned Blocks to a New Skyline

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The Road to the Moon

Fires That Changed Cities

The Age of Invention

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