Today is Tuesday, February 14, the 45th day of 2012. There are 321 days left in the year.
1076 ― Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV
1711 ― Handel’s opera Rinaldo, premieres
1876 ― A. G. Bell and Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents; Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor
1914 ― High Council of Labor forms in Hague Netherlands
1924 ― IBM Corporation founded by Thomas Watson
1944 ― Anti-Japanese revolt on Java
1946 ― Bank of England nationalized
1980 ― ``West Side Story" opens at Minskoff Theater, NYC, for 341 performances
1989 ― Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million damages for Bhopal disaster
1989 ― Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offers $1 million-$3 million bounty on Salman Rushdie's death due to his novel, ``Satanic Verses"