TODAY IN HISTORY: FEBRUARY 28

 

February 28

 

202 BC – Liu Bang is enthroned as the Emperor of China, beginning four centuries of rule by the Han dynasty.

870 – The Fourth Council of Constantinople closes.

1525 – Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed on the order of conquistador Hernán Cortés.

1638 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.

1835 – Elias Lönnrot signed and dated the first version of the Kalevala, the so-called foreword to the Old Kalevala.

1844 – A gun explodes on board the steam warship USS Princeton during a pleasure cruise down the Potomac River, killing six, including Secretary of State Abel Upshur. President John Tyler, who was also on board, was not injured from the blast.

1922 – The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over Egypt through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

1925 – The Charlevoix-Kamouraska earthquake strikes northeastern North America.

1947 – February 28 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of an estimated 30,000 civilians.

1948 – Christiansborg Cross-Roads shooting in the Gold Coast, when a British police officer opens fire on a march of ex-servicemen, killing three of them and sparking major riots and looting in Accra.

1953 – James Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April's Nature (pub. April 2).

1958 – A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork river. The driver and 26 children die in what remains one of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history.

1959 – Discoverer 1, an American spy satellite that is the first object intended to achieve a polar orbit, is launched but fails to achieve orbit.

1966 – A NASA T-38 Talon crashes into the McDonnell Aircraft factory while attempting a poor-visibility landing at Lambert Field, St. Louis, killing astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett.

1972 – China–United States relations: The United States and China sign the Shanghai Communiqué.

1974 – The British election ended in a hung parliament after the Jeremy Thorpe-led Liberal Party achieved their biggest vote.

1975 – In London, an underground train fails to stop at Moorgate terminus station and crashes into the end of the tunnel, killing 43 people.

1980 – Andalusia approves its statute of autonomy through a referendum.

1983 – The final episode of M*A*S*H airs, with almost 106 million viewers. It still holds the record for the highest viewership of a season finale.

1985 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

1986 – Olof Palme, 26th Prime Minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm.

1991 – The first Gulf War ends.

1993 – The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh. Four ATF agents and six Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1995 – Former Australian Liberal party leader John Hewson resigns from the Australian parliament almost two years after losing the 1993 Australian federal election.

1997 – An earthquake in northern Iran is responsible for about 3,000 deaths.

1997 – GRB 970228, a highly luminous flash of gamma rays, strikes the Earth for 80 seconds, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way.

1997 – A Turkish military memorandum resulted with collapse of the government in Turkey.

2001 – The 2001 Nisqually earthquake, having a moment magnitude of 6.8, with epicenter in the southern Puget Sound, damages Seattle metropolitan area.

2002 – During the religious violence in Gujarat, 97 people are killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre and 69 in the Gulbarg Society massacre.

2004 – Over one million Taiwanese participate in the 228 Hand-in-Hand rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the February 28 Incident in 1947.

2005 – A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq kills 127.

2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pope to do so since Pope Gregory XII, in 1415.

2023 – Two trains collide south of the Vale of Tempe in Greece, leading to the deaths of at least 57 people and leaving 58 missing and 85 injured.

 

TODAY IN HISTORY: FEBRUARY 27

 

February 27

 

380 – Edict of Thessalonica: Emperor Theodosius I and his co-emperors Gratian and Valentinian II declare their wish that all Roman citizens convert to Nicene Christianity.

425 – The University of Constantinople is founded by Emperor Theodosius II at the urging of his wife Aelia Eudocia.

907 – Abaoji, chieftain of the Yila tribe, is named khagan of the Khitans.

1560 – The Treaty of Berwick is signed by England and the Lords of the Congregation of Scotland, establishing the terms under which English armed forces were to be permitted in Scotland in order to expel occupying French troops.

1594 – Henry IV is crowned King of France.

1617 – Sweden and the Tsardom of Russia sign the Treaty of Stolbovo, ending the Ingrian War and shutting Russia out of the Baltic Sea.

1626 – Yuan Chonghuan is appointed Governor of Liaodong, after leading the Chinese into a great victory against the Manchurians under Nurhaci.

1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge in North Carolina breaks up a Loyalist militia.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.

1801 – Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.

1809 – Action of 27 February 1809: Captain Bernard Dubourdieu captures HMS Proserpine.

1812 – Argentine War of Independence: Manuel Belgrano raises the Flag of Argentina in the city of Rosario for the first time.

1812 – Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire.

1844 – The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency.

1864 – American Civil War: The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.

1870 – The current flag of Japan is first adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships.

1881 – First Boer War: The Battle of Majuba Hill takes place.

1898 – King George I of Greece survives an assassination attempt.

1900 – Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronjé at the Battle of Paardeberg.

1900 – The British Labour Party is founded.

1900 – Fußball-Club Bayern München is founded.

1902 – Second Boer War: Australian soldiers Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock are executed in Pretoria after being convicted of war crimes.

1916 – Ocean liner SS Maloja strikes a mine near Dover and sinks with the loss of 155 lives.

1921 – The International Working Union of Socialist Parties is founded in Vienna.

1922 – A challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court of the United States in Leser v. Garnett.

1932 – The Mäntsälä rebellion begins when members of the far-right Lapua Movement start shooting at the social democrats' event in Mäntsälä, Finland.

1933 – Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire; Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist claims responsibility.

1939 – United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules in NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp. that the National Labor Relations Board has no authority to force an employer to rehire workers who engage in sit-down strikes.

1940 – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14.

1942 – World War II: During the Battle of the Java Sea, an Allied strike force is defeated by a Japanese task force in the Java Sea in the Dutch East Indies.

1943 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.

1943 – The Holocaust: In Berlin, the Gestapo arrest 1,800 Jewish men with German wives, leading to the Rosenstrasse protest.

1951 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.

1961 – The first congress of the Spanish Trade Union Organisation is inaugurated.

1962 – Vietnam War: Two dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots bomb the Independence Palace in Saigon in a failed attempt to assassinate South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm.

1963 – The Dominican Republic receives its first democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, since the end of the dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo.

1964 – The Government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.

1971 – Doctors in the first Dutch abortion clinic (the Mildredhuis in Arnhem) start performing artificially-induced abortions.

1973 – The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee in protest of the federal government.

1976 – The former Spanish territory of Western Sahara, under the auspices of the Polisario Front declares independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

1988 – Sumgait pogrom: The Armenian community in Sumgait, Azerbaijan is targeted in a violent pogrom.

1991 – Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated".

2001 – Loganair Flight 670A crashes while attempting to make a water landing in the Firth of Forth in Scotland.

2002 – Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire at London Stansted Airport causing minor injuries.

2002 – Godhra train burning: A Muslim mob torches a train returning from Ayodhya, killing 59 Hindu pilgrims.

2004 – A bombing of a SuperFerry by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines' worst terrorist attack kills more than 100 passengers.

2004 – Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack.

2007 – Chinese stock bubble of 2007: The Shanghai Stock Exchange falls 9%, the largest daily fall in ten years, following speculation about a crackdown on illegal share offerings and trading, and fears about accelerating inflation.

2008 – Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari escapes from a detention center in Singapore, hiding in Johor, Malaysia until he was recaptured over a year later.

2010 – An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale strikes central parts of Chile leaving over 500 victims, and thousands injured. The quake triggers a tsunami which strikes Hawaii shortly after.

2013 – A shooting takes place at a factory in Menznau, Switzerland, in which five people (including the perpetrator) are killed and five others injured.

2015 – Russian politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow while out walking with his girlfriend.

2019 – Pakistan Air Force JF-17 Thunder downs Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman's Mig-21 in an aerial dogfight and captures him after conducting airstrikes in Jammu and Kashmir.