28 February

202 BC Coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty’s rule over China.

1155       Henry the Young King (born), English son of Henry II of England (died 1183)

1261       Margaret of Scotland (born), Queen of Norway (died 1283)

1453      Isabella (died), Duchess of Lorraine (born 1400)

1485      Niclas, Graf von Abensberg (died), German knight (born 1441)

1510      Juan de la Cosa (died), Spanish cartographer and explorer (born 1450)

1525      Cuauhtémoc (died), Aztec ruler (born 1495)

1525      The Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed by Hernán Cortés’s forces.

1533      Michel de Montaigne (born), French philosopher (died 1592)

1552      Jost Bürgi (born), Swiss mathematician and clockmaker (died 1632)

1572      Aegidius Tschudi (died), Swiss historian (born 1505)

1573      Elias Holl (born), German architect (died 1646)

1612       John Pearson (born), English bishop, theologian, and scholar (died 1686)

1638      The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.

1670      Benjamin Wadsworth (born), American clergyman and academic (died 1737)

1675      Guillaume Delisle (born), French cartographer (died 1726)

1683      René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (born), French scientist (died 1757)

1700      Today is followed by March 1 in Sweden, thus creating the Swedish calendar.

1704      Louis Godin (born), French astronomer (died 1760)

1712       Louis-Joseph de Montcalm (born), French military commander (died 1759)

1714       Gioacchino Conti (born), Italian soprano (died 1761)

1746      Hermann von der Hardt (died), German historian (born 1660)

1784      John Wesley charters the Methodist Church.

1786      John Gwynn (died), English architect and engineer (born 1713)

1788      Thomas Cushing (died), American layer and politician, 1st Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (born 1725)

1792      Karl Ernst von Baer (born), German biologist, meteorologist, and geographer (died 1876)

1812      Berthold Auerbach (born), German poet and author (died 1882)

1824      Charles Blondin (born), French acrobat (died 1897)

1827      The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1836      Friedrich August Grotefend (died), German philologist (born 1798)

1838      Maurice Lévy (born), French engineer (died 1910)

1840      Henri Duveyrier (born), French explorer (died 1892)

1844      A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing eight people, including two United States Cabinet members.

1848      Arthur Giry (born), French historian (died 1899)

1849      Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.

1857      André Dumont (died), Belgian geologist (born 1809)

1866      Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (born), Russian poet and playwright (died 1949)

1873      William McMaster Murdoch (born), Scottish sailor (died 1912)

1876      John Alden Carpenter (born), American composer (died 1951)

1878      Pierre Fatou (born), French mathematician and astronomer (died 1929)

1883      The first vaudeville theater opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

1885      The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York State as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone. (American Bell would later merge with its subsidiary.)

1891      George Hearst (died), American businessman and politician (born 1820)

1893      The USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time, is launched.

1894      Ben Hecht (born), American screenwriter, director, and producer (died 1964)

1895      Marcel Pagnol (born), French author, playwright and director (died 1974)

1901      Linus Pauling (born), American chemist and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1994)

1906      Bugsy Siegel (born), American gangster (died 1947)

1908      Billie Bird (born), American actress (died 2002)

1913       George Finnegan (died), American boxer (born 1881)

1915       Peter Medawar (born), Brazilian-English biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1987)

1915       Zero Mostel (born), American actor (died 1977)

1916       Henry James (died), American-English author (born 1843)

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

1923      Charles Durning (born), American actor (died 2012)

1929      Frank Gehry (born), Canadian-American architect, designed 8 Spruce Street and Walt Disney Concert Hall

1931       Dean Smith (born), American basketball player and coach

1931       Gavin MacLeod (born), American actor

1935      DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invents nylon.

1936      Charles Nicolle (died), French biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1866)

1936      Kamala Nehru (died), Indian wife of Jawaharlal Nehru (born 1899)

1938      Foge Fazio (born), American football player and coach (died 2009)

1939      The erroneous word “dord” is discovered in the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigation.

1940      Basketball is televised for the first time (Fordham University vs. the University of Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden).

1940      Joe South (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2012)

1940      Mario Andretti (born), Italian-American race car driver

1941       Suzanne Mubarak (born), Egyptian wife of Hosni Mubarak, 5th First Lady of Egypt

1942      Brian Jones (born), English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (The Rolling Stones) (died 1969)

1942      The heavy cruiser USS Houston is sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed, along with HMAS Perth which lost 375 men.

1947      228 massacre: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of an estimated 30,000 civilians.

1948      Bernadette Peters (born), American actress, singer, and author

1948      Mercedes Ruehl (born), American actress

1948      Steven Chu (born), American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

1953      James D. 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).

1953      Paul Krugman (born), American economist, Nobel Prize laureate

1954      The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.

1955      Gilbert Gottfried (born), American comedian and actor

1957      John Turturro (born), American actor, director, and screenwriter

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.

1958      Jack Abramoff (born), American businessman and felon

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

1959      Megan McDonald (born), American author

1961       Eric Bachelart (born), Belgian race car driver

1967      Henry Luce (died), Chinese-American publisher, co-founded Time Magazine (born 1898)

1969      Butch Leitzinger (born), American race car driver

1969      Robert Sean Leonard (born), American actor

1974      Bobby Bloom (died), American singer-songwriter (born 1946)

1979      Sébastien Bourdais (born), French race car driver

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.

1991       Reinhard Bendix (died), German sociologist (born 1916)

1991       The first Gulf War ends.

1993      Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group’s leaderDavid Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1993      Ruby Keeler (died), Canadian actress and dancer (born 1910)

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      The North Hollywood shootout takes place, resulting in the injury of 19 people and the deaths of both perpetrators.

1998      First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.

1998      Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.

2004     Over 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947

2007     Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (died), American historian and critic (born 1917)

2007     Billy Thorpe (died), English-Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs) (born 1946)

2008     Mike Smith (died), English singer-songwriter, keyboard player, and producer (The Dave Clark Five) (born 1943)

2009     Paul Harvey (died), American radio host (born 1918)

2011      Jane Russell (died), American actress (born 1921)

2013      Donald A. Glaser (died), American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1926)

2013      Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church becoming the first pope to do so since 1415.

2013      Robert Weimar (died), German psychologist (born 1932)

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EO Smith

Interests include biological anthropology, evolution, social behavior, and human behavior. Conducted field research in the Tana River National Primate Reserve, Kenya and on Angaur, Palau, Micronesia, as well as research with captive nonhuman primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Institute for Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya.
EO Smith
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