February 15

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February 15 in history:

• 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes (R) signed a bill allowing female lawyers to argue cases before the Supreme Court

• 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine mysteriously blew up in Havana Harbor, killing more than 260 crew members and bringing the United States closer to war with Spain

• 1903, toy store owner and inventor Morris Michtom places two stuffed bears in his shop window, advertising them as 'Teddy' bears. Michtom had earlier petitioned President Theodore Roosevelt for permission to use his nickname, 'Teddy.' The president agreed and, before long, other toy manufacturers began turning out copies of Michtom's stuffed bears, which soon became a national childhood institution

• 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 more than four weeks later, on March 20

• 1942, in one of the greatest defeats in British military history, Britain's supposedly impregnable Singapore fortress surrenders to Japanese forces after a weeklong siege. More than 60,000 British, Australian, and Indian soldiers were taken prisoner, joining 70,000 other Allied soldiers captured during Britain's disastrous defense of the Malay Peninsula

• 1950, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the two largest communist nations in the world, announce the signing of a mutual defense and assistance treaty

• 1989, the Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention

• 2007, the U.S. Mint unveiled the newest $1 coin