1876

Inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray applied separately for patents related to the telephone. (The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled Bell the rightful inventor.)

1929

The “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down.

2017

A former store clerk, Pedro Hernandez, was convicted in New York of murder in one of the nation’s most haunting missing-child cases, nearly 38 years after 6-year-old Etan Patz disappeared while on the way to a school bus stop.

2018

A gunman identified as a former student opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people in the nation’s deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years earlier. (Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty to murder in October 2021 and was sentenced in November 2022 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.)

Birthdays

Businessman-politician Michael Bloomberg is 83. Magician Teller is 77. Journalist-radio host Terry Gross is 74. Actor Ken Wahl is 68. Actor Meg Tilly is 65. Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly is 65. Actor Simon Pegg is 55. Rock singer Rob Thomas (Matchbox Twenty) is 53. Actor Danai Gurira is 47.