Today in History

278 – The reputed date of the execution of St Valentine, a Roman priest who conducted marriages in defiance of an imperial ban.

1663 – Canada becomes a royal province of France.

1779 – Captain James Cook is murdered in Hawaii.

1895 – The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, opens in London.

1915 – New Zealand sends a ‘‘native contingent’’ of 500 soldiers to Egypt in World War I, the first use of Maori troops by the Government.

1929 – Sir Alexander Fleming introduces a mould byproduct called penicillin to cure bacterial infections; seven rivals of the Al Capone gang in Chicago are murdered in what becomes known as the St Valentine’s Day Massacre.

1967 – Aretha Franklin records Respect.

1971 – US President Richard Nixon installs a secret taping system in the White House. 1989 – Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sentences British author Salman Rushdie to death for allegedly insulting Islam, sending him into hiding for years.

1998 – New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, right, opens in Wellington.

2005 – A powerful bomb kills former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and 13 other people.

2013 – South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius is charged with the murder of Reeva Steenkamp.

2018 – Expelled student Nikolas

Cruz opens fire in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others.

Birthdays

Jack Benny, US comedian (1894-1974); Larry Adler, US musician (1914-2001); Carl Bernstein, US (Watergate) journalist (1944-); Kevin Keegan, UK footballer (1951-); Zinzan Brooke, All Black (1965-); Simon Pegg, UK actor and comedian (1970-); Cadel Evans, Australian cyclist (1977-).