February 22nd 1879 – In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores.

February 22nd 1882 – The Serbian kingdom is refounded.

February 22nd 1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.

February 22nd 1904 – The United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina, the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.

February 22nd 1915 – World War I: Germany institutes unrestricted submarine warfare.

February 22nd 1922 – The British unilaterally declare the independence of Egypt.

February 22nd 1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.

February 22nd 1942 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defenses collapses.

February 22nd 1943 – World War II: Members of White Rose are executed in Nazi Germany.

February 22nd 1944 – World War II: American aircraft bombard the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer by mistake, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.

February 22nd 1948 – Communist revolution in Czechoslovakia.

February 22nd 1958 – Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic.

February 22nd 1959 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500.

February 22nd 1972 – An Official Irish Republican Army car bomb is detonated at Aldershot barracks, killing seven and injuring nineteen others.

February 22nd 1973 – Cold War: Following United States President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.

February 22nd 1974 – Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit conference starts in Lahore, Pakistan. Thirty-seven countries are attending. Twenty-two heads of state and government participate. It also recognized Bangladesh.

February 22nd 1974 – Samuel Byck tries and fails to assassinate U.S. President Richard Nixon.

February 22nd 1979 – Independence of Saint Lucia from the United Kingdom.

February 22nd 1980 – Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3, in what is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history.

February 22nd 1983 – The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

February 22nd 1986 – Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines.

February 22nd 1994 – Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union.

February 22nd 1995 – The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified.

February 22nd 1997 – In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned.

February 22nd 2002 – Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.

February 22nd 2006 – At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery ever, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or 78€ million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

February 23rd 632 – The Last Sermon (Khutbah, Khutbatul Wada') of Prophet Muhammad.

February 23rd 1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed from movable type.

February 23rd 1660 – Charles XI becomes King of Sweden.

February 23rd 1739 – Richard Palmer is identified at York Castle by his former schoolteacher, as the outlaw Dick Turpin.

February 23rd 1778 – American Revolution: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army.

February 23rd 1820 – Cato Street Conspiracy: A plot to murder all the British cabinet ministers is exposed.

February 23rd 1836 – The Battle of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.

February 23rd 1847 – Mexican-American War: Battle of Buena Vista – In Mexico, American troops under General Zachary Taylor defeat Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.

February 23rd 1854 – The official independence of the Orange Free State is declared.

February 23rd 1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, D.C., after the thwarting of an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland.

February 23rd 1870 – In the United States, post-Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.

February 23rd 1883 – Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an antitrust law.

February 23rd 1887 – The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000.

February 23rd 1898 – Émile Zola is imprisoned in France after writing "J'accuse," a letter accusing the French government of anti-Semitism and wrongfully imprisoning Captain Alfred Dreyfus.

February 23rd 1900 – In South Africa, the Boers and British troops fight in the Battle of Hart's Hill.

February 23rd 1903 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".

February 23rd 1905 – Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world's first service club.

February 23rd 1909 – The AEA Silver Dart makes the first powered flight in Canada and the British Empire.

February 23rd 1917 – First demonstrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The beginning of the February Revolution.

February 23rd 1918 – First victory of Red Army over the Kaiser's German troops near Narva and Pskov. In honor of this victory, the date is celebrated from 1923 onward as "Red Army Day"; it is renamed Defender of the Fatherland Day after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and is colloquially known as "Men's Day".

February 23rd 1919 – Benito Mussolini forms the Fascist Party in Italy.

February 23rd 1927 – The Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) begins to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.

February 23rd 1934 – Leopold III becomes King of Belgium.

February 23rd 1941 – Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.

February 23rd 1943 – A fire breaks out at St. Joseph's Orphanage, Co Cavan, Ireland, killing 36 people (35 of whom are children).

February 23rd 1944 – The Soviet Union begins forced deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people from the North Caucasus to Central Asia.

February 23rd 1945 – World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo would later win a Pulitzer Prize and become the model for the national USMC War Memorial.

February 23rd 1945 – World War II: The 11th Airborne Division, with Filipino guerrillas, freed the captives of the Los Baños internment camp.

February 23rd 1945 – World War II: The capital of the Philippines, Manila, is liberated by American forces.

February 23rd 1945 – World War II: Capitulation of German garrison in Poznań. The city is liberated by Soviet and Polish forces.

February 23rd 1945 – World War II: The German town of Pforzheim is completely destroyed by a raid of 379 British bombers.

February 23rd 1945 – World War II: The Verona Philharmonic Theatre is bombed by Allied forces. It would later be re-opened in 1975.

February 23rd 1947 – The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is founded.

February 23rd 1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.

February 23rd 1955 – First meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

February 23rd 1957 – The founding congress of the Senegalese Popular Bloc is opened in Dakar.

February 23rd 1958 – Cuban rebels kidnap 5-time world driving champion Juan Manuel Fangio.

February 23rd 1966 – In Syria, Baath party member Salah Jadid leads an intra-party military coup that replaces the previous government of General Amin Hafiz, also a Baathist.

February 23rd 1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.

February 23rd 1980 – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament will decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.

February 23rd 1981 – In Spain, Antonio Tejero attempts a coup d'état by capturing the Spanish Congress of Deputies.

February 23rd 1983 – The Spanish Socialist government of Felipe González and Miguel Boyer nationalizes Rumasa, a holding company founded by entrepreneur José María Ruiz Mateos.

February 23rd 1983 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency announces its intent to buy out and evacuate the dioxin-contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.

February 23rd 1987 – Supernova 1987a is seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

February 23rd 1991 – Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus starting the ground phase of the war.

February 23rd 1991 – In Thailand, General Sunthorn Kongsompong leads a bloodless coup d'état, deposing Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan.

February 23rd 1992 – The Socialist Labour Party is founded in the nation of Georgia.

February 23rd 1997 – A small fire occurs in the Russian Space station, Mir.

February 23rd 1998 – In the United States, tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42.

February 23rd 1998 – Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews and "Crusaders"; the latter term is commonly interpreted to refer to the people of Europe and the United States.

February 23rd 1999 – Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan is charged with treason in Ankara, Turkey.

February 23rd 1999 – An avalanche destroys the Austrian village of Galtür, killing 31.

February 23rd 2005 – In Slovakia, a two-day meeting dubbed "Slovakia Summit 2005" takes place between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin. This occasion marks the first visit of a sitting American President to the Slovak Republic since its establishment in 1993.

February 23rd 2005 – The controversial French law on colonialism is passed, requiring teachers to teach the "positive values of colonialism". After public outcry, it is repealed at the beginning of 2006.

February 23rd 2006 – Dubai Ports World agrees to postpone its plans to take over management of six U.S. ports after the proposal ignited harsh bipartisan criticism.

February 23rd 2007 – A train derails on an evening express service near Grayrigg, Cumbria, England, killing one person and injuring 22. This results in hundreds of points being checked over the UK after a few similar accidents.

February 23rd 2008 – A United States Air Force B-2 Spirit crashes on Guam. It is the first operational loss of a B-2.

February 23rd 1998 – Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews and "Crusaders"; the latter term is commonly interpreted to refer to the people of Europe and the United States.


That was long before his name was well-known to the world.

February 24th 303 – Galerius, Roman Emperor, publishes his edict that begins the persecution of Christians in his portion of the Empire.

February 24th 1387 – King Charles III of Naples and Hungary is assassinated at Buda.

February 24th 1538 – Treaty of Nagyvarad between Ferdinand I and John Zápolya.

February 24th 1582 – Pope Gregory XIII announces the Gregorian calendar.

February 24th 1607 – L'Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, one of the first works recognized as an opera, receives its première performance.

February 24th 1711 – The London première of Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel, the first Italian opera written for the London stage.

February 24th 1739 – Battle of Karnal: The army of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah.

February 24th 1803 – The Supreme Court of the United States, in Marbury v. Madison, establishes the principle of judicial review.

February 24th 1804 – London's Drury Lane Theatre burns to the ground, leaving owner Richard Brinsley Sheridan destitute.

February 24th 1822 – The first Swaminarayan temple in the world, Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Ahmedabad, is inaugurated.

February 24th 1826 – The signing of the Treaty of Yandaboo marks the end of the First Burmese War.

February 24th 1831 – The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, is proclaimed. The Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West.

February 24th 1839 – William Otis receives a patent for the steam shovel.

February 24th 1848 – King Louis-Philippe of France abdicates the throne.

February 24th 1863 – Arizona is organized as a United States territory.

February 24th 1868 – The first parade to have floats is staged at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana.

February 24th 1868 – Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. He is later acquitted in the Senate.

February 24th 1875 – The SS Gothenburg hits the Great Barrier Reef and sinks off the Australian east coast, killing approximately 100, including a number of high profile civil servants and dignitaries.

February 24th 1881 – China and Russia sign the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty.

February 24th 1890 – Chicago is selected to host the Columbian Exposition

February 24th 1893 – The American University is chartered by an act of the Congress of the United States of America.

February 24th 1895 – Revolution breaks out in Baire, a town near Santiago de Cuba, beginning the second war for Cuban independence, which ended with the Spanish-American War in 1898.

February 24th 1899 – Western Washington University is established.

February 24th 1909 – The Hudson Motor Car Company is founded.

February 24th 1917 – World War I: The U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom is given the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States.

February 24th 1918 – Estonian Declaration of Independence.

February 24th 1920 – The Nazi Party is founded.

February 24th 1942 – Battle of Los Angeles: a UFO flying over wartime Los Angeles causes a blackout order at 2:25 a.m. and attracts a barrage of anti-aircraft fire, ultimately killing 3 civilians.

February 24th 1945 – Egyptian Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree.

February 24th 1968 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam recaptures Hué.

February 24th 1970 – National Public Radio is founded in the United States.

February 24th 1971 – The All India Forward Bloc holds an emergency central committee meeting after its chairman, Hemantha Kumar Bose, is killed 3 days earlier. P.K. Mookiah Thevar is appointed as the new chairman.

February 24th 1976 – Cuba : national Constitution proclaimed.

February 24th 1981 – Buckingham Palace announces the engagement of The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.

February 24th 1981 – An earthquake registering 6.7 on the Richter scale hits Athens, killing 16 people and destroying buildings in several towns west of the city.

February 24th 1983 – A special commission of the U.S. Congress releases a report that condemns the practice of Japanese internment during World War II.

February 24th 1989 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offers a USD $3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.

February 24th 1989 – United Airlines Flight 811, bound for New Zealand from Honolulu, Hawaii, rips open during flight, sucking 9 passengers out of the business-class section.

February 24th 1996 – The last occurrence of February 24 as a leap day in the European Union and for the Roman Catholic Church.

February 24th 1999 – The State of Arizona executes Karl LaGrand, a German national involved in an armed robbery, in spite of Germany's legal action to attempt to save him.

February 24th 1999 – A China Southern Airlines Tupolev TU-154 airliner crashes on approach to Wenzhou airport in eastern the People's Republic of China, killing 61.

February 24th 1996 – The last occurrence of February 24 as a leap day in the European Union and for the Roman Catholic Church.


I don't quite get it. ??? Isn't Feb 29th usually the Leap Day?

February 24th 2006 – Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declares Proclamation 1017 placing the country in a state of emergency in attempt to subdue a possible military coup.

February 24th 2007 – Japan launches its fourth spy satellite, stepping up its ability to monitor potential threats such as North Korea.

February 24th 2008 – Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba after nearly fifty years.

I don't quite get it. ??? Isn't Feb 29th usually the Leap Day?
By Roman custom, February 24 is the day added to a leap year in the Julian calendar. The Mensis Intercalaris began on this day or the following day in intercalary years in the pre-Julian calendar.

By Roman custom, February 24 is the day added to a leap year in the Julian calendar. The Mensis Intercalaris began on this day or the following day in intercalary years in the pre-Julian calendar.
The Julian calendar, which was developed in 46 BC by Julius Caesar, and became effective in 45 BC, distributed an extra ten days among the months of the Roman Republican calendar. Caesar also replaced the intercalary month by a single intercalary day, located where the intercalary month used to be. To create the intercalary day, the existing ante diem sextum Kalendas Martii (February 24) was doubled, producing ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martii. Hence, the year containing the doubled day was a bissextile (bis sextum, "twice sixth") year. For legal purposes, the two days of the bis sextum were considered to be a single day, with the second half being intercalated, but common practice by 238, when Censorinus wrote, was that the intercalary day was followed by the last five days of February, a. d. VI, V, IV, III and pridie Kal. Mar. (which would be those days numbered 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28 from the beginning of February in a common year), i.e. the intercalated day was the first half of the doubled day. All later writers, including Macrobius about 430, Bede in 725, and other medieval computists (calculators of Easter), continued to state that the bissextum (bissextile day) occurred before the last five days of February.

February 25th 138 – The Emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor.

February 25th 1570 – Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England.

February 25th 1793 – George Washington holds the first Cabinet meeting as President of the United States.

February 25th 1797 – Colonel William Tate and his force of 1000-1500 soldiers surrender after the Last Invasion of Britain.

February 25th 1836 – Samuel Colt receives an American patent for the Colt revolver.

February 25th 1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.

February 25th 1901 – J.P. Morgan incorporates the United States Steel Corporation.

February 25th 1912 – Marie-Adélaïde, the eldest of six daughters of Guillaume IV, becomes the first reigning Grand Duchess of Luxembourg.

February 25th 1919 – Oregon places a 1 cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax.

February 25th 1921 – Tbilisi, capital of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, is occupied by Bolshevist Russia.

February 25th 1925 – Glacier Bay National Monument (now Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve) is established in Alaska.

February 25th 1925 – Diplomatic relations between Japan and the Soviet Union are established.

February 25th 1928 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, D.C. becomes the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.

February 25th 1932 – Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, which allows him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident.

February 25th 1933 – The USS Ranger (CV-4) is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be built solely as an aircraft carrier.

February 25th 1941 – February Strike: In occupied Amsterdam, a general strike is declared in response to increasing anti-Jewish measures instituted by the Nazis.

February 25th 1945 – World War II: Turkey declares war on Germany.

February 25th 1947 – State of Prussia ceases to exist.

February 25th 1948 – The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia takes control of government in Czechoslovakia and the period of the Third Republic ends.

February 25th 1954 – Gamal Abdul Nasser is made premier of Egypt.

February 25th 1956 – In his speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounces the cult of personality of Joseph Stalin.

February 25th 1971 – The first unit of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, first commercial nuclear power station in Canada, goes online.

February 25th 1980 – The Suriname government is overthrown by a military coup which is initiated with the bombing of the police station from an army ship of the coast of the nation's capital; Paramaribo

February 25th 1986 – People Power Revolution: President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines flees the nation after 20 years of rule; Corazon Aquino becomes the first Filipino woman president.

February 25th 1991 – Gulf War: An Iraqi Scud missile hits an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia killing 28 U.S. Army Reservists from Pennsylvania.

February 25th 1992 – Khojaly massacre: about 613 civilians are killed by Armenian armed forces during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan

February 25th 1994 – Mosque of Abraham massacre: In the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, Dr. Baruch Kappel Goldstein opens fire with an automatic rifle, killing 29 Palestinian worshippers and injuring 125 more before being subdued and beaten to death by survivors. Subsequent rioting kills 26 more Palestinians and 9 Israelis.

February 25th 2009 – BDR massacre in Pilkhana, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 74 People are being killed, including more than 50 Army officials, by Bangladeshi Border Guards inside its headquarters.

February 25th 1969  Beatles begin recording for the Abbey Road album

February 25th 1919  League of Nations set up by Paris Treaty

February 25th 1910  Dali Lama flees Tibet from Chinese troop to British-Indies

February 25th 2009 – BDR massacre in Pilkhana, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 74 People are being killed, including more than 50 Army officials, by Bangladeshi Border Guards inside its headquarters.


Also on February 25, 2009: A passenger plane from Turkish Ailrines crashes into a field nearby Schiphol Airport. Nine people are killed.

Today, one year later, a remembrance ceremony was held at the spot and a monument was revealed.

February 26th 747 BC – Epoch (origin) of Ptolemy's Nabonassar Era.

February 26th 364 – Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor.

February 26th 1266 – Battle of Benevento: An army led by Charles, Count of Anjou, defeats a combined German and Sicilian force led by King Manfred of Sicily. Manfred is killed in the battle and Pope Clement IV invests Charles as king of Sicily and Naples.

February 26th 1658 – Treaty of Roskilde: After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars (1655–1661), the King of Denmark-Norway is forced to give up nearly half his territory to Sweden to save the rest.

February 26th 1794 – Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen burns down.

February 26th 1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Elba.

February 26th 1848 – The second French Republic is proclaimed.

February 26th 1863 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the National Currency Act into law.

February 26th 1870 – In New York City, a demonstration of the first pneumatic subway opens to the public.

February 26th 1885 – The Berlin Act, which resulted from the Berlin Conference regulating European colonization and trade in Africa, is signed

February 26th 1887 – At the Sydney Cricket Ground, George Lohmann becomes the first bowler to take eight wickets in a Test innings.

February 26th 1914 – HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

February 26th 1917 – The Original Dixieland Jass Band records the first ever jazz record for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York.

February 26th 1919 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park (see Grand Canyon National Park).

February 26th 1929 – The Grand Teton National Park is created.

February 26th 1935 – The Luftwaffe is re-formed.

February 26th 1935 – The Daventry Experiment, Robert Watson-Watt carries out a demonstration near Daventry which leads directly to the development of RADAR in the United Kingdom.

February 26th 1936 – Adolf Hitler opened the 1st Volkswagen plant in East Germany.

February 26th 1936 – In the February 26 Incident, young Japanese military officers attempt to stage a coup against the government.

February 26th 1952 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that his nation has an atomic bomb.

February 26th 1966 – Apollo Program: Launch of AS-201, the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket

February 26th 1970 – National Public Radio incorporates as a non-profit corporation.

February 26th 1971 – U.N. Secretary General U Thant signs United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.

February 26th 1972 – The Buffalo Creek Flood caused by a burst dam kills 125 in West Virginia.

February 26th 1979 – A Solar Eclipse passes over the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

February 26th 1984 – US troops withdraw from Beirut. President Ronald Reagan had sent the troops as a peacekeeping force in August 1982.

February 26th 1986 – People Power Revolution in the Philippines.

February 26th 1987 – Iran-Contra affair: The Tower Commission rebukes President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff.

February 26th 1990 – The Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections.

February 26th 1991 – Gulf War: On Baghdad Radio Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein announces the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

February 26th 1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand.

February 26th 1995 – The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking institute, Barings Bank, collapses after a securities broker, Nick Leeson, loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange using futures contracts.

February 26th 2000 – Mount Hekla in Iceland erupts.

February 26th 2001 – The Taliban destroys two giant statues of Buddha in Bamyan, Afghanistan.

February 26th 2003 – Generally said to be the starting date of the War in Darfur.

February 26th 2004 – The United States lifts a ban on travel to Libya, ending travel restrictions to the nation that had lasted for 23 years.

February 26th 2004 – Republic of Macedonia President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

February 26th 2005 – Hosni Mubarak the president of Egypt orders the constitution changed to allow multi-candidate presidential elections before September 2005 by asking Egyptian parliament to amend Article 76.

February 27th 1560 – The Treaty of Berwick, which would expel the French from Scotland, is signed by England and the Congregation of Scotland.

February 27th 1594 – Henry IV is crowned King of France.

February 27th 1617 – Sweden and Russia sign the Treaty of Stolbovo, ending the Ingrian War and shutting Russia out of the Baltic Sea.

February 27th 1626 – Yuan Chonghuan is appointed Governor of Liaodong, after he led the Chinese into a great victory against the Manchurians under Nurhaci.

February 27th 1700 – The island of New Britain is discovered.

February 27th 1797 – The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound notes.

February 27th 1801 – Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.

February 27th 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.

February 27th 1700 – The island of New Britain is discovered.
New Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago (named after Otto von Bismarck) of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by the St. George's Channel. The main towns of New Britain are Rabaul/Kokopo and Kimbe.

February 27th 1844 – The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.

February 27th 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.

February 27th 1861 – Russian troops fire on a crowd in Warsaw protesting against Russian rule over Poland, killing five protesters.

February 27th 1864 – American Civil War: The first Northern prisoners arrive at the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia.

February 27th 1900 – Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronje at the Battle of Paardeberg.

February 27th 1900 – The British Labour Party is founded.

February 27th 1921 – The International Working Union of Socialist Parties is founded in Vienna.

February 27th 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.

February 27th 1933 – Reichstag fire: Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire.

February 27th 1939 – United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners' rights and are therefore illegal.

February 27th 1940 – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14

February 27th 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

February 27th 1943 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.

February 27th 1943 – The Rosenstrasse protest starts in Berlin

February 27th 1951 – The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.

February 27th 1961 – The first congress of the Spanish Trade Union Organisation is inaugurated.

February 27th 1963 – The Dominican Republic receives its first democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, since the end of the dictatorship led by Rafael Trujillo.

February 27th 1964 – The government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.

February 27th 1967 – Dominica gains independence from the United Kingdom.

February 27th 1971 – Doctors in the first Dutch abortion clinic (the Mildredhuis in Arnhem) start to perform aborti provocati.

February 27th 1973 – The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

February 27th 1974 – People magazine is published for the first time.

February 27th 1976 – The formerly Spanish territory of Western Sahara, under the auspices of the Polisario Front declares independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

February 27th 1986 – The United States Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis.

February 27th 1989 – Venezuela is rocked by the Caracazo riots.

February 27th 1991 – Gulf War: U.S. President George H. W. Bush announces that "Kuwait is liberated".

February 27th 1999 – Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Nigeria's first elected president since mid-1983.

February 27th 2002 – Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire at London Stansted Airport. Subsequent investigations criticize Ryanair's handling of the evacuation.

February 27th 2002 – Godhra train burning: a Muslim mob kills 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya;

February 27th 2004 – A bombing of a Superferry by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines' worst terrorist attack kills 116.

February 27th 2007 – The Chinese Correction: the Shanghai Stock Exchange falls 9%, the largest drop in 10 years.

February 27th 1992  Tiger Woods, 16, becomes youngest PGA golfer in 35 years

February 28th 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

February 28th 870 – The Fourth Council of Constantinople closes.

February 28th 1638 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.

February 28th 1700 – Today is followed by March 1 in Sweden, thus creating the Swedish calendar.

February 28th 1710 – In the Battle of Helsingborg, 14,000 Danish invaders under Jørgen Rantzau are decisively defeated by an equally sized Swedish force under Magnus Stenbock.

February 28th 1784 – John Wesley charters the Methodist Church.

February 28th 1787 – The charter establishing the institution now known as the University of Pittsburgh is granted.

February 28th 1827 – The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

February 28th 1838 – Robert Nelson, leader of the Patriotes, proclaims the independence of Lower Canada (today Québec)