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Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans between 1768 and 1779. During these voyages, he sailed tens of thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas, mapping coastlines, islands, and features across the globe. He completed the first known circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand, and led the first recorded visit by Europeans to the east coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. Renowned for exceptional seamanship and courage in times of danger, he was also a pioneer in the prevention of scurvy. In his three Pacific voyages, Cook encountered numerous indigenous peoples, many with little or no previous contact with Europeans, leading to violent encounters in which indigenous peoples and Cook's crew members were killed. Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779, when a dispute with Native Hawaiians turned violent. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

A salad being frozen

... that in 1930s America, you could buy a quart of frozen salad (pictured) for a dollar?
... that Bruce Springsteen's ICE protest song, "Streets of Minneapolis", was written the day Alex Pretti was killed and performed live the same week?
... that Liu Shasha didn't own a mobile phone because it might take away from her learning billiards?
... that despite coincidental timing, Gap's ad featuring Katseye was not intended as a response to Sydney Sweeney's controversial jeans commercial?
... that at fifteen years old, Ebenezer Harcourt became the youngest footballer to play for the Nigeria national team?
... that when Titan Fleischmann's grandmother first heard her future grandson's name, she cried out of fear that he would be bullied for it?
... that Nigel Bluck's cinematography has been compared to the work of painter Edward Hopper?
... that the difficulty of finding Fluid Ounces's third studio album led some fans to believe it was an urban legend?
... that United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia did not endorse the statement, "everybody has got a right to the use of the English language"?

In the news

António José Seguro

Shootings at a residence and a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, leave nine people dead.
António José Seguro (pictured) is elected president of Portugal.
In American football, the Seattle Seahawks defeat the New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl.
In the Thai general election, the Bhumjaithai Party, led by Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, wins the most seats in the House of Representatives.

On this day

February 14: Valentine's Day

First production of The Importance of Being Earnest

1779 – American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Kettle Creek, a militia of Patriots decisively defeated and scattered a Loyalist militia that was on its way to British-controlled Augusta, Georgia.
1895 – Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (production pictured), once described as the second-most quoted English-language play after Hamlet, premiered in London.
1916 – World War I: Britain, France and Russia made the Declaration of Sainte-Adresse, stating that they would refuse to sign any peace treaty with the Central Powers that failed to ensure the political and economic independence of Belgium.
1961 – Lawrencium, the radioactive synthetic element with atomic number 103, was first synthesized at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
2011 – Arab Spring: On the Day of Rage, Bahraini youths began an uprising against the government in 55 marches across 25 locations.

Katherine Stinson (b. 1891)
Hazel McCallion (b. 1921)
Pam McConnell (b. 1946)
Doug Mountjoy (d. 2021)

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Today's featured picture

Abigail Scott Duniway (1834–1915) was an American women's rights advocate, newspaper editor and writer, whose efforts were instrumental in gaining voting rights for women in the United States. In 1871, she founded The New Northwest, a weekly newspaper devoted to women's rights, including women's suffrage. In 1912, Oregon became the seventh state in the U.S. to pass an amendment on women's suffrage. Governor Oswald West asked her to write and sign the proclamation on equal suffrage and, on February 14, 1913, she was the first woman to register to vote in Multnomah County. This photograph shows Duniway signing the precinct voter-registration book, with John B. Coffey, the Multnomah County clerk, standing next to her. The photograph was published in the February 15 issue of The Oregonian.

Photograph credit: The Oregonian; restored by Adam Cuerden

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