Today is Tuesday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2006. There are 320 days left in the year. This is

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 14, the 45th day of 2006. There are 320 days left in the year. This is Valentine's Day. On this date in 1929, the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" takes place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone's gang are gunned down.
In 1778, the American ship Ranger carries the recently adopted Star and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrives in France. In 1859, Oregon is admitted to the Union as the 33rd state. In 1894, comedian Jack Benny is born Benjamin Kubelsky in Waukegan, Ill. In 1895, Oscar Wilde's final play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," opens at the St. James's Theatre in London. In 1903, the Department of Commerce and Labor is established. (It is divided into separate departments of Commerce and Labor in 1913.) In 1912, Arizona becomes the 48th state of the Union. In 1920, the League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago; its first president is Maude Wood Park. In 1945, Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador join the United Nations. In 1979, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, is kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police. In 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," a novel condemned as blasphemous. In 1996, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm bows out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination following his poor showings in the Louisiana and Iowa caucuses.
February 14, 1981: Youngstown State University is facing a tight budget with the possibility that it will receive even less from the state than was originally planned for the year, says YSU President John J. Coffelt.
Gary Lee and six other former U.S. hostages in Iran arrive in Mercer County for a celebration ceremony at Hillcrest Cemetery, where 444 flags fly, one for each day the hostages were held.
Sales of domestic cars fall 7.8 percent in early February, compared to sales for the same period a year earlier.
February 14, 1966: An inch of rain in the Youngstown area over the weekend closes some roads and floods some basements, including 150 in Boardman.
Black rain, a periodic Youngstown area weather event that turns white houses black, damages eight homes in Struthers and several on Youngstown's South Side.
Mahoning County commissioners will advertise for the new $1.2 million school for retarded children following announcement in Washington that a $222,000 federal grant has been received for the project.
February 14, 1956: The Youngstown Board of Education appropriates $8.4 million for 1956, an increase of $120,984 over 1955 expenditures.
About 100 employees of Republic Steel Corp.'s chemical and metallurgical laboratories remain on strike and operations of both units are at a standstill.
The approaching completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which will bring about a realignment of the nation's shipping, makes the proposed Lake Erie-Ohio River Waterway a must project, Congressman Michael J. Kirwan tells the Chamber of Commerce.
February 14, 1931: Charges that Harry Engle, Youngstown's traction commissioner, demanded $150,000 from Ohio Edison Co. on a threat to make trouble for the company are called a "closed incident" by Engle and city council seems disposed to agree with him.
John Parkhill Hazlett, 80, retired manufacturer and a 33rd degree Mason dies of infirmities at the South Side unit of the Youngstown Hospital.
Irene Shrader is said to be resigned to her fate, a Feb. 23 date with Pennsylvania's electric chair. She will be the 206th person to die in the electric chair since it was inaugurated as the state's form of capital punishment in 1915.