1778 – The U.S. flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine-gun salute to the USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
1849 – James Polk becomes the first sitting U.S. President to have his photograph taken.
1859 – Oregon is admitted as the 33rd state.
1876 – Alexander Graham Bell filed an application for a patent for the telephone. It was officially issued on March 7, 1876.
1899 – Voting machines are approved by Congress for use in federal elections.
1903 – The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor is established. It would later be split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.
1912 – Arizona is admitted as the 48th state.
1920 – The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago.
1929 – The “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” too place in Chicago. Seven people, six of them rivals of Al Capone’s gang, were murdered.
1980 – Walter Cronkite announced his retirement from the “CBS Evening News.”
2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students.
2018 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting: 17 people are killed and 15 others are injured in one of the deadliest school massacres in history.
