February 14 is the 45th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 320 days remaining until the end of the year.
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman, who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He is credited with developing many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb, had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He is often credited with establishing the first industrial research laboratory.
Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized versions of German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer.
Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councillor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to 16 May 1532. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary, ideal island nation.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Bertelsmann is a German multinational corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest mass media companies and also active in the service sector and education. Bertelsmann was founded as a publishing house by Carl Bertelsmann in 1835. After World War II, Bertelsmann, under the leadership of Reinhard Mohn, went from being a medium-sized enterprise to a major conglomerate, offering not only books but also television, radio, music, magazines and business services. Bertelsmann is an unlisted and capital market-oriented company, which remains primarily controlled by the Mohn family. Since 2016, major divisions of Bertelsmann are RTL Group, Penguin Random House, Gruner + Jahr, BMG, Arvato, Bertelsmann Printing Group, Bertelsmann Education Group and Bertelsmann Investments.
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, usually shortened to ZDF, is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all federal states of Germany (Bundesländer). ZDF is financed by television licence fees and advertising revenues.
Condor Flugdienst GmbH, branded as Condor, is a German leisure airline based in Frankfurt. It operates scheduled flights to leisure destinations in the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and the Caribbean. Its main base is at Frankfurt Airport from which most of its long-haul flights depart; secondary bases for Mediterranean flights are Munich Airport which also features long-haul flights, Hamburg Airport, Hannover Airport, Düsseldorf Airport, Stuttgart Airport, and Leipzig/Halle Airport.
Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e.V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund[boˈʁʊsi̯aː ˈdɔʁtmʊnt], BVB, or simply Dortmund, is a German sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. Founded in 1909 by eighteen football players from Dortmund, the football team is part of a large membership-based sports club with more than 145,000 members, making BVB the second largest sports club by membership in Germany. Dortmund plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system.
Modern Talking was a German duo consisting of singer Thomas Anders and arranger, songwriter and producer Dieter Bohlen, with the participation of Luis Rodríguez in the production, the choir and background voices of Rolf Köhler, Michael Scholz and Detlef Wiedeke. They have been referred to as Germany's most successful pop duo, and have had a number of hit singles, reaching the top five in many countries. Some of their most popular and widely known singles are "You're My Heart, You're My Soul", "You Can Win If You Want", "Cheri, Cheri Lady", "Brother Louie", "Atlantis Is Calling " and "Geronimo's Cadillac".
The Condor Legion was a unit composed of military personnel from the air force and army of Nazi Germany, which served with the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War of July 1936 to March 1939. The Condor Legion developed methods of strategic bombing which were used widely in the Second World War shortly afterwards. The bombing of Guernica was the most infamous operation carried out by the Condor Legion. Hugo Sperrle commanded the unit's aircraft formations and Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma commanded the ground element.
Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard's body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II." He is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.
Thomas Hitzlsperger is a German director of football and former footballer who played as a midfielder. Since February 2019, he is the head of sport of VfB Stuttgart.
Die Welt is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE.
The Thomas Sabo Ice Tigers Nürnberg are a professional ice hockey club located in Nuremberg, Germany. They play in the country's premier league, the Deutsche Eishockey Liga.
Thomas Engert is a German professional pool player. Engert won the 2004 International Challenge of Champions beating fellow German Thorsten Hohmann in the finals. When he returned to the tournament one year later, Engert was close to winning it for the second consecutive time but Chao Fong-pang, who was then the two-time winner of the event, defeated him in the finals.
Thomas Cook Group plc is a British global travel company. It was formed on 19 June 2007 by the merger of Thomas Cook AG, itself the successor to Thomas Cook & Son, and MyTravel Group plc. The group owns a number of tour operators, as well as airlines based in the United Kingdom, Germany, Scandinavia and Balearics. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Thomas Müller is a German professional footballer who plays for and vice-captains Bayern Munich and the German national team. A versatile player, Müller plays as a midfielder or forward, and has been deployed in a variety of attacking roles – as an attacking midfielder, second striker, centre forward and on either wing. He has been praised for his positioning, teamwork and stamina, work-rate, and has shown consistency in both scoring and creating goals.
Thomas Tuchel is a German professional football coach and former player. He is the head coach at Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain.
German involvement in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 commenced with the outbreak of war in July 1936, with Adolf Hitler immediately sending in powerful air and armored units to assist General Francisco Franco and his Nationalist forces. The Soviet Union sent in smaller forces to assist the Republican government, while Britain and France and two dozen other countries set up an embargo on any munitions or soldiers into Spain. Germany also signed the embargo but simply ignored it. The war provided combat experience with the latest technology for the German military. However, the intervention also posed the risk of escalating into a world war for which Hitler was not ready. He therefore limited his aid, and instead encouraged Mussolini to send in large Italian units. Franco's Nationalists were victorious; he remained officially neutral in the Second World War, but helped the Axis in various ways from 1940 to 1943, even offering to join the war on 19 June 1940 in exchange for help building Spain's colonial empire. The Spanish episode lasted three years and was a smaller-scale prelude to the world war which broke out in 1939.
