Today's Highlight in History:
On Feb. 14, 1859, Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.
On this date:
In 1778, the American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Star and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France.
In 1895, Oscar Wilde's final play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," opened at the St. James's Theatre in London.
In 1903, the Department of Commerce and Labor was established. (It was divided into separate departments of Commerce and Labor in 1913.)
In 1912, Arizona became the 48th state of the Union.
In 1920, the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago; its first president was Maud Wood Park.
In 1929, the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone's gang were gunned down.
In 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy conducted a televised tour of the White House in a videotaped special that was broadcast on CBS and NBC (and several nights later on ABC).
In 1979, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.
In 1984, 6-year-old Stormie Jones became the world's first heart-liver transplant recipient at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. (She lived until November 1990).
In 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," a novel condemned as blasphemous.
Ten years ago: President Bill Clinton, accompanied by his wife, Hillary, began a quick visit to Mexico to encourage its struggle against narcotics and government corruption, and grow its markets for U.S. products. John D. Ehrlichman, President Nixon's domestic affairs adviser who was disgraced and imprisoned for his role in the Watergate cover-up, died in Atlanta at age 73.
