Today is Saturday, Feb. 15, the 46th day of 2025. There are 319 days left in the year.
Today in history:
On Feb. 15, 2005, defrocked priest Paul Shanley was sentenced in Boston to 12 to 15 years in prison on child rape charges.
Also on this date:
In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a law allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1898, the battleship USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain.
In 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami that mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak; gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed by electric chair the following month.
In 1950, Walt Disney’s animated film “Cinderella” premiered in Boston.
In 1961, 73 people, including all 18 members of the U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Czechoslovakia, were killed in the crash of a Sabena Airlines Boeing 707 in Belgium.
In 1978, boxer Leon Spinks scored a massive upset as he defeated Muhammad Ali by split decision to become the world heavyweight champion.
In 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.
In 2013, with a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, a meteor blazed across Russia’s western Siberian sky and exploded, injuring nearly 1,500 people as it blasted out windows.
In 2022, the families of nine victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting agreed to a $73 million settlement of a lawsuit against Remington Arms, the maker of the rifle used to kill 20 first graders and six educators in 2012.
Today’s birthdays:
- Actor Claire Bloom is 94.
- Songwriter Brian Holland is 84.
- Jazz musician Henry Threadgill is 81.
- Composer John Adams is 78.
- Cartoonist Art Spiegelman is 77.
- Actor Jane Seymour is 74.
- Singer Melissa Manchester is 74.
- Actor Lynn Whitfield is 72.
- “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening is 71.
- Model Janice Dickinson is 70.
- Actor Christopher McDonald is 70.
- Football Hall of Famer Darrell Green is 65.
- Actor Alex Borstein is 54.
- Hockey great Jaromir Jagr is 53.
- Olympic swimming gold medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen is 52.
- Actor-singer Amber Riley is 39.
- Rapper Megan Thee Stallion is 30.