Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 14
This is a list of selected February 14 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
February 14: Valentine's Day; Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare in Eastern Christianity
- 1779 – English explorer James Cook was killed in a fight by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
- 1876 – Inventor Alexander Graham Bell and electrical engineer Elisha Gray each filed a patent for the telephone, starting a controversy on who invented the telecommunications device first.
- 1949 – Asbestos miners began a labour strike around Asbestos, Quebec, Canada, considered one of the causes of the Quiet Revolution.
- 1961 – Lawrencium, the metallic radioactive synthetic element with atomic number 103, was discovered at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
- 1989 – A fatwa was issued for the execution of Salman Rushdie (pictured) for authoring The Satanic Verses, a novel Islamic fundamentalists considered blasphemous.
- 2005 – Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated when explosives were detonated as his motorcade drove past the St. George Hotel in Beirut, sparking the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.