February 15

1113 – Pope Paschal II issues Pie Postulatio Voluntatis, recognizing Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani –The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem-the Knights Hospitaller

1493 – While aboard the Niña on his return voyage to Portugal, Christopher Columbus writes an open letter, distributed in Portugal describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World

1764 – The city of St. Louis is established in Spanish Louisiana

1870 – Stevens Institute of Technology is founded in New Jersey, USA and offers the first Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering.

1879 – President Rutherford B. Hayes signs into law a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

1898 – The battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing 274 crew members.

1933 – In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate US President Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead shoots Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak, who later dies of his wounds.

1946 – ENIAC, the first first programmable, electronic, general purpose digital computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first 7 Dead Sea Scrolls.

1954 – Canada and the United States agree to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska.

1961 – Sabena Flight 548,  a Boeing 707, en route to the World Figure Skating Championships, crashes on approach to Zaventem Airport, Brussels, Belgium, killing all 72 passengers and crew aboard, including the entire U.S. figure skating team, 1 person on the ground and injuring another.

1982 – The offshore drilling rig Ocean Ranger, owned by ODECO ( Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company, Inc. of New Orleans ) sinks during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing all 84 personnel aboard

1989 – The Soviet Union officially announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan.

1992 – Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced in Milwaukee to life in prison.
Air Transport International Flight 805, A Douglas DC-8 crashes near Toledo Express Airport in Ohio, killing all 4 crew on board.

1996 – The U.S. Embassy in Athens is attacked by members of the criminal, terrorist Revolutionary Organization 17 November firing an antitank rocket that hits the perimeter wall of the parking lot causing minor property damage.

2001 – The first draft of the complete human genome is published in Nature.

2013 – An undetected, 60 foot diameter, superbolide meteor explodes at high altitude over Chelyabinsk Russia, with a force equivalent to around 500 kilotons of TNT, injuring 1,500 people as the shock wave blows out windows and rocks buildings.