Born on this day 14th February
1680 John Sidney
1838 Margaret Knight
1898 Bill Tilman
1904 Charles Oatley
1913 Jimmy Hoffa
1916 Sally Gray
1927 Lois Maxwell
1944 Carl Bernstein
1944 Sir Alan Parker
1946 Gregory Hines
1951 Kevin Keegan
1962 Michael Higgs
1967 Stelios Haji-Ioannou
1969 Helen Baxendale
1970 Simon Pegg
1978 Dean Gaffney
1992 Freddie Highmore

Died on this day
270 St. Valentine
1779 Capt James Cook
1975 Sir Pelham (P.G) Wodehouse
1975 Sir Julian Huxley

Music

1920 Mamie Smith recorded ‘Crazy Blues’

1964 The Rolling Stones’ single ‘Not Fade Away/Little By Little’ was released.

1970 Sly and The Family Stone hit the top spot in the US with ‘Thank You/Everybody Is A Star’.

1977 The B52s made their first live performance, at a party in their home town of Athens, Georgia.

1981 Billy Idol left Generation X to pursue a solo career.

Sport

1992 British number one tennis player Jeremy Bates led the way as four Britons reached the semi-finals of the LTA Men’s Indoor Satellite Tournament in Telford.

1994 Round the world sailor Colin Swale married Hilary at a ceremony in Cambridge. At the ceremony the couple both wore inflatable sailing suits.

1994 Swimmer Sharron Davies, who won a silver medal at the 1980 Olympics married athlete Derek Redmond at Guildhall register office.

People & Showbiz

1556 Thomas Cranmer is declared a heretic.

1743 Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister.

1779 James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.

1989 Salman Rushdie’s award winning novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ was condemned by the Iranian Leader Ayatollah Khomeini as an insult to Islam, who subsequently issued an edict calling on Muslims to execute the author.

1993 The Sun Newspaper apologized to th Queen for publishing her Christmas message two days early. The paper offered to donate £200,000 to the Save The Children Fund.

General Events

1946 The Bank of England is nationalized.

1985 It was announced that British doctors had been advised by the government not to give contraceptive advice to girls under 16 years of age.

1989 Former bank manger Leslie Pines from Worcester, who had a thirty-two year grudge against his old employer poured engine oil three cash machines, causing £9,000 damage.

1990 Mortgage rates in the UK were raised to 15.4%, an all time high.

1991 In the Gulf crisis, RAF men were busy writing Valentine messages to President Saddam Hussein on the sides of laser-guided bombs due to be delivered by Tornado jets. ‘Roses are Red, oil is black, you’d look better with a knife in your back’. Another read: ‘Roses are Red, violets are blue – up yours Saddam, this is for you.’

1994 Christchurch Methodist Council in Shepshed, Lancashire, banned a village production of ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’ because it thought it was inappropriate to rehearse the comedy about a brothel in a church hall.