February 14 in History

Richard II died in Pontefract Castle, almost certainly starved to death on the orders of Henry Bolingbroke, who had deposed him the previous year. The killing of an anointed king haunted the Lancastrian dynasty's legitimacy for generations and planted the seeds of the Wars of the Roses that would tear England apart half a century later.

The British Army launched its assault on the Tugela Heights, beginning a ten-day battle to break through Boer defensive lines and relieve the besieged garrison at Ladysmith. The campaign cost heavy casualties but ultimately succeeded, delivering a morale-boosting victory that shifted momentum in the Second Boer War after months of humiliating British defeats.

A Roman priest kept marrying couples after the emperor banned marriage. Claudius II needed soldiers, decided love made men weak, and outlawed weddings empire-wide. Valentine performed ceremonies anyway, in secret. When they caught him, the sentence was beating, then beheading. February 14, around 270 AD. The jailer's daughter visited him in prison. Before his execution, he left her a note signed "From Your Valentine." First farewell letter, first valentine. A thousand years later, medieval poets turned him into the patron saint of courtly love. Now we buy cards with his signature line. He was killed for refusing to stop weddings. We celebrate with flowers and chocolate.

Abu Muslim Khorasani took Merv with an army that wasn't Arab. Persian converts, freed slaves, non-tribal soldiers — everyone the Umayyads had spent a century taxing and dismissing. The Abbasid Revolution succeeded because it promised equality under Islam, not Arab supremacy. When Merv fell, the Umayyad governor fled west. He didn't make it. Within three years, the entire Umayyad dynasty was dead except one prince. He escaped to Spain and built a new caliphate there.

Two brothers stood in Strasbourg and swore loyalty oaths to each other's armies — but here's the thing: Charles spoke German to Louis's troops, and Louis spoke Romance French to Charles's troops. Each king addressed the other's men in their language, not his own. It worked. Their soldiers understood. This is the first time anyone wrote down both languages as distinct from Latin. Before this, Romance French and Old High German existed only in speech. The Oaths of Strasbourg are the birth certificates of French and German as written languages. They needed to betray their older brother together, so they created two languages to do it.

The Strasbourg massacre happened on Valentine's Day. The city council had protected its Jewish population for months, refusing to believe they'd caused the plague. Then the guilds overthrew the council, installed new leadership, and burned 900 Jews alive in the city's cemetery. Six days later. The new council had already built the pyre before the coup. Fifty families were allowed to stay — the ones who'd converted. Within months, Strasbourg invited Jews back. They needed the tax revenue.

Several thousand Jews were burned alive in Strasbourg on February 14, 1349. The city council tried to protect them. The guilds overthrew the council. They built a wooden structure in the Jewish cemetery and locked two thousand people inside. The accusation: Jews had poisoned the wells and caused the Black Death. No evidence. No trial. The plague was killing a third of Europe and people needed someone to blame. Fifty other cities did the same thing that year. The plague killed Jews at the same rate as Christians. It didn't matter.

Tangaxuan II gave the Spanish everything they demanded. Gold, silver, food for their armies. They tortured him anyway, claiming he was hiding treasure. February 14, 1530: they burned him alive in the central plaza. The Tarascan state had never been conquered by the Aztecs — their metallurgy was superior, their military undefeated. It took one Spanish expedition nine months to destroy what had lasted 600 years. Guzmán was later arrested by Spain for excessive cruelty.

Cranmer had already written six recantations when they dragged him to Christ Church Cathedral to be defrocked. He'd renounced everything he believed — his Protestant reforms, his theology, his life's work. The Pope accepted them all. They burned him anyway three months later. At the stake, he thrust his right hand into the flames first. The hand that signed the recantations. "This unworthy right hand," he said, and held it there until it was gone.

The Mapuches coordinated attacks across eight Spanish settlements in a single day. They'd spent months planning in secret, using runners to synchronize timing without Spanish knowledge. They destroyed forts, killed settlers, and pushed the Spanish north of the Bío-Bío River. The Spanish had controlled that territory for a century. The uprising worked because the Mapuches adapted. They'd learned Spanish cavalry tactics, bred their own horses, and forged metal weapons. They fought the Spanish using Spanish methods. The conflict lasted three more centuries. Chile didn't fully control Mapuche territory until 1883. No indigenous group in the Americas resisted European colonization longer.