Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2008 day arrangement |
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February 1: Imbolc (Northern Hemisphere); Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare (Western Christianity)
- 1796 – The capital of Upper Canada was moved from Newark to York, which was judged to be less vulnerable to attack by the United States.
- 1884 – The first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary, a 352-page volume that covered words from A to Ant, was published.
- 1946 – As a result of a compromise between the major powers within the United Nations, Norwegian politician Trygve Lie was elected as the first UN Secretary-General.
- 1957 – Invented by German mechanical engineer Felix Wankel, the first working prototype of the Wankel rotary engine (pictured) ran for the first time at the research and development department of German manufacturer NSU Motorenwerke AG.
- 2003 – The NASA Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere on its 28th and final mission, killing all seven crew members.
More events: January 31 – February 1 – February 2
February 2: Candlemas in Western Christianity; Groundhog Day in Canada and the United States
- 1536 – An expedition to the New World led by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Mendoza founded what is now Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 1709 – Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was rescued after spending four years as a castaway on an uninhabited island in the Juan Fernández archipelago, providing the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe.
- 1848 – The Mexican–American War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, granting the United States the Mexican Cession.
- 1925 – Medical supplies to combat an outbreak of diphtheria reached Nome, Alaska Territory on dog sleds after a five and a half-day journey, inspiring the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (pictured in 2003) across Alaska.
- 1943 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army captured 91,000 tired and starving German soldiers, ending the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles in human history.
More events: February 1 – February 2 – February 3
February 3: Setsubun in Japan; Four Chaplains' Day in the United States
- 1488 – Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias landed in Mossel Bay, having sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and the southern tip of Africa.
- 1509 – Turkish-Portuguese War: Portugal defeated a joint fleet of Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, Ottoman Empire, the Zamorin of Calicut and the Sultan of Gujarat at the Battle of Diu off the coast of Diu, India.
- 1867 – Crown Prince Mutsuhito (pictured) succeeded his father Kōmei as Emperor of Japan, taking the title Meiji.
- 1959 – The Day the Music Died: A small plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, USA, killing American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.
- 1966 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 became the first space probe to land on the Moon and transmit pictures from the lunar surface to Earth.
More events: February 2 – February 3 – February 4
February 4: Independence Day in Sri Lanka (1948); Lichun begins in East Asia (11:00 UTC, 2008)
- 1703 – Forty-six of the Forty-Seven Ronin committed seppuku (ritual suicide) in Edo, present-day Tokyo, as recompense for avenging the death of their master, Daimyo of Akō Asano Naganori.
- 1859 – German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf rediscovered the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century uncial manuscript of the Greek Bible, in Saint Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt.
- 1899 – An American soldier shot a Filipino soldier in Manila after a misunderstanding occurred between the two, igniting the Philippine-American War.
- 1945 – World War II: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at the Yalta Conference (pictured) in Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula.
- 1957 – USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, logged her 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
More events: February 3 – February 4 – February 5
February 5: Constitution Day in Mexico; Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan begins (2008); Shrove Tuesday in Western Christianity and Mardi Gras (2008)
- 1862 – Domnitor Alexander John Cuza (pictured) merged his two principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia, to form the United Principalities (now Romania).
- 1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State as his personal possession in Africa through his organization Association Internationale Africaine and his private army, the Force Publique.
- 1924 – Hourly Greenwich Time Signals from the Royal Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast by the BBC.
- 1958 – A hydrogen bomb now known as the Tybee Bomb disappeared off the shores of Tybee Island, Georgia after it was jettisoned during a practice exercise when the bomber carrying it collided in midair with a fighter plane.
- 2004 – The Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front captured Gonaïves, Haiti, starting the 2004 Haitian rebellion against the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
More events: February 4 – February 5 – February 6
February 6: Waitangi Day in New Zealand; Ash Wednesday in Western Christianity (2008)
- 1819 – British official Stamford Raffles (pictured) signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, establishing Singapore as a new trading post for the British East India Company.
- 1840 – The British and the Māori signed the Treaty of Waitangi, considered as the founding document of New Zealand.
- 1934 – In an attempted coup d'état against the French Third Republic, far right leagues demonstrated on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
- 1952 – Elizabeth II, today one of the longest-reigning British monarchs, ascended to the thrones of seven countries upon the death of her father, George VI.
- 1958 – British European Airways Flight 609, carrying the Manchester United football team, a number of supporters and journalists, crashed while attempting to take off from Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany, killing eight players and 15 others.
More events: February 5 – February 6 – February 7
February 7: Chinese New Year's Day (2008); Losar in Tibet (2008); Tết Nguyên Ðán in Vietnam (2008); Independence Day in Grenada
- 1301 – Edward of Carnarvon, the future King Edward II (pictured), became the first English heir apparent to hold the title as Prince of Wales.
- 1807 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Eylau began between the French Empire, and Russian and Prussian forces of the Fourth Coalition near Preußisch Eylau, East Prussia.
- 1863 – HMS Orpheus, a corvette of the Royal Navy, sank off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189 crew out of the ship's complement of 259.
- 1984 – During NASA Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41-B, astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart performed the first and second untethered spacewalks, respectively, using Manned Maneuvering Units.
- 1992 – The Maastricht Treaty, which led to the formation of the European Union, was signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
More events: February 6 – February 7 – February 8
February 8: Prešeren Day in Slovenia
- 1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots (pictured) was executed at Fotheringhay Castle on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England.
- 1855 – The Devil's Footprints, a series of mysteriously hoof-like marks, appeared in the snow in Devon, England, and continued throughout the countryside for over 100 miles (160 km).
- 1904 – The Russo-Japanese War began after a surprise torpedo attack by the Japanese on Russian ships near present-day Lüshunkou, China.
- 1971 – Trading began in NASDAQ, the world's first electronic stock exchange.
- 1979 – Colonel Denis Sassou Nguesso was chosen as the new President of the Republic of the Congo after Joachim Yhombi-Opango was forced from power.
More events: February 7 – February 8 – February 9
- 474 – As the seven-year old Leo II was deemed too young to rule, his father Zeno was crowned as the co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1825 – After no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the United States House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams (pictured) President of the United States.
- 1895 – William G. Morgan, a YMCA physical education director in Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA, invented a game called Mintonette, which evolved into volleyball.
- 1920 – The Svalbard Treaty was signed, recognizing Norwegian sovereignty over the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
- 1960 – Actress Joanne Woodward was honored with the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
More events: February 8 – February 9 – February 10
- 1567 – After an explosion destroyed the house in Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh where he was staying, the strangled body of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, the King consort of Scotland, was found in a nearby orchard.
- 1763 – Britain and Spain partitioned New France by the Treaty of Paris, which ended the French and Indian War and the Seven Years' War, and markedly reduced the size of the French colonial empire.
- 1840 – Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom at the Chapel Royal.
- 1996 – Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a game of chess, the first game won by a chess-playing computer against a reigning International Grandmaster and World Chess Champion under chess tournament conditions.
- 2008 – A fire (pictured) destroys South Korea's first national treasure, Namdaemun.
More events: February 9 – February 10 – February 11
February 11: National Foundation Day in Japan
- 1808 – Anthracite coal (pictured) was first experimentally burned as a residential heating fuel by Jesse Fell in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA.
- 1858 – Fourteen year-old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous reported the first of eighteen Marian apparitions in Lourdes, France, resulting in the town becoming a major site for pilgrimages by Catholics.
- 1929 – To settle the "Roman Question", Italy and the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church signed the first Lateran Treaty, establishing Vatican City as an independent sovereign enclave within Italy.
- 1979 – During the Iranian Revolution, the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran collapsed when the military declared itself "neutral" after rebel troops overwhelmed forces loyal to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in armed street fighting.
- 1990 – Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, was released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, South Africa.
More events: February 10 – February 11 – February 12
February 12: Darwin Day; Red Hand Day
- 1429 – Hundred Years' War: At the Battle of the Herrings, English forces under John Fastolf successfully defended a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orleans from attack by the French.
- 1818 – Led by General Bernardo O'Higgins, Chile formally proclaimed its independence from Spain.
- 1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States, was founded to work on behalf of the rights of African Americans.
- 1912 – Xinhai Revolution: Puyi (pictured), the last Emperor of China, abdicated under a deal brokered by military official and politician Yuan Shikai, formally replacing the Qing Dynasty with a new republic in China.
- 2001 – NASA's robotic space probe NEAR Shoemaker touched down on Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
More events: February 11 – February 12 – February 13
- 1689 – Glorious Revolution: Instead of James Francis Edward Stuart, the Prince of Wales, acceding to the throne, his half-sister Mary (pictured) and her husband William were proclaimed co-rulers of England.
- 1815 – The Cambridge Union Society, one of the oldest debating societies in the world, was founded at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.
- 1867 – Work began on the covering of the Senne, burying Brussels' polluted main waterway to allow urban renewal in the centre of the city.
- 1880 – American inventor Thomas Edison observed the Edison Effect, which later formed the basis of vacuum tube diodes designed by English electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming.
- 1945 – World War II: The Allies began the strategic bombing of Dresden in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed tens of thousands of civilians.
More events: February 12 – February 13 – February 14
February 14: Valentine's Day; Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare in Eastern Christianity
- 1876 – Electrical engineer Elisha Gray and inventor Alexander Graham Bell each filed a patent for the telephone, starting a controversy on who invented the telecommunications device first.
- 1949 – Asbestos miners began a labour strike around Asbestos, Quebec, Canada, considered one of the causes of the Quiet Revolution.
- 1989 – A fatwa was issued for the execution of Salman Rushdie (pictured) for authoring The Satanic Verses, a novel Islamic fundamentalists considered blasphemous.
- 1989 – The first of at least twenty-four Medium Earth Orbit satellites in the satellite constellation of the Global Positioning System was launched into orbit.
- 2005 – Former Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafik Hariri was assassinated when explosives were detonated as his motorcade drove past the St. George Hotel in Beirut, sparking the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.
More events: February 13 – February 14 – February 15
February 15: Candlemas in Eastern Christianity; Flag Day in Canada; National Day in Serbia
- 1898 – The United States Navy battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana, Cuba, killing more than 260 people and precipitating the Spanish-American War.
- 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita (pictured) captured Singapore, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in British history.
- 1971 – The British pound sterling and the Irish pound were decimalised on what is called Decimal Day.
- 1989 – The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan after a nine-year conflict.
- 2003 – In one of the largest anti-war rallies in history, millions around the world in approximately 800 cities took part in protests against the impending invasion of Iraq.
More events: February 14 – February 15 – February 16
February 16: Statehood Day in Lithuania (1918)
- 1804 – Lt. Stephen Decatur led a raid to destroy the captured USS Philadelphia in Tripoli, denying her use to the Barbary States in the First Barbary War.
- 1918 – The Council of Lithuania signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania, proclaiming the restoration of an independent Lithuania governed by democratic principles, despite the presence of German troops in the country during World War I.
- 1923 – English archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun (mummy mask pictured), an Egyptian Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty.
- 1985 – "The Hizballah Program", the manifesto of Hezbollah, was released, describing the ideology of the Shia Islamic political and paramilitary organization.
- 2005 – The Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the international treaty on climate change, entered into force.
More events: February 15 – February 16 – February 17
- 1801 – The U.S. House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson (pictured) as President and Aaron Burr as Vice President of the United States, resolving an electoral tie in the 1800 presidential election.
- 1854 – Britain recognized the independence of the Orange Free State in the present-day Free State Province, South Africa.
- 1936 – The Phantom, one of the first modern comic book superheroes with the hallmark skintight costume and a mask with no visible pupils, made his first appearance in a daily newspaper comic strip.
- 1995 – In the presence of the four guarantor countries of the Rio Protocol, Ecuador and Peru signed a peace declaration confirming a ceasefire, leading to the official end of the Cenepa War eleven days later.
- 2003 – The London congestion charge, a fee that is levied on motorists travelling within designated parts of London, came into operation.
More events: February 16 – February 17 – February 18
February 18: Presidents' Day in the United States and Family Day in various regions of Canada (2008); Independence Day in The Gambia
- 1861 – With Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumed the title King of Italy.
- 1861 – Jefferson Davis (pictured) was inaugurated as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.
- 1908 – The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", opened with playwright August Strindberg's play Master Olof.
- 1932 – The Empire of Japan established Manchukuo, a puppet state in northeastern China during the Sino-Japanese War.
- 1943 – Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda Minister, delivered the Sportpalast speech to motivate the German people when the tide of World War II was turning against Germany.
- 2003 – An arsonist started a fire aboard a Daegu Metropolitan Subway train in Daegu, South Korea, killing almost two hundred passengers.
More events: February 17 – February 18 – February 19
- 197 – Septimius Severus defeated usurper Clodius Albinus at the Battle of Lugdunum in present-day Lyon, France, securing full control over the Roman Empire.
- 1594 – King Sigismund III Vasa of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (pictured) was crowned King of Sweden, succeeding his father John III.
- 1942 – World War II: In the largest attacks mounted by a foreign power against Australia, more than 240 bombers and fighters of the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed Darwin, Northern Territory.
- 1978 – Attempting to intervene in a hijacking situation at Larnaca International Airport in Larnaca without authorisation from Cyprus authorities, Egyptian commando forces ended up exchanging gunfire with the Cypriot National Guard.
- 1986 – The space station Mir of the Soviet space program was launched, establishing the first long-term research station in space.
More events: February 18 – February 19 – February 20
- 1472 – James III of Scotland annexed Orkney and Shetland from Denmark–Norway.
- 1816 – Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa The Barber of Seville, based on the first Figaro play by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais, debuted at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
- 1913 – Australian politician King O'Malley (pictured) drove in the first survey peg to mark the commencement of work on the construction of Canberra, a planned city designed by American architect Walter Burley Griffin.
- 1959 – The Canadian government under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the Avro CF-105 Arrow interceptor aircraft programme amid much political debate.
- 2005 – Spanish voters passed a referendum on the ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, despite the lowest turnout in any election since the transition to democracy in the 1970s.
More events: February 19 – February 20 – February 21
February 21: Daeboreum in Korea (2008); Lantern Festival in the Chinese lunar calendar (2008); Language Movement Day in Bangladesh; International Mother Language Day
- 1613 – Mikhail I was elected unanimously by the Zemsky Sobor to become Tsar, beginning the Romanov dynasty in Imperial Russia.
- 1804 – Built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick, the first self-propelled steam engine or locomotive (replica pictured) first ran in Wales.
- 1848 – The Communist Manifesto by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was first published, becoming one of the world's most influential political tracts.
- 1958 – British artist Gerald Holtom designed a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that became more commonly known as the peace symbol.
- 1971 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, a United Nations treaty designed to control psychoactive drugs, was signed at a conference of plenipotentiaries in Vienna.
More events: February 20 – February 21 – February 22
February 22: Independence Day in Saint Lucia (1979); Feast of Cathedra Petri (Catholicism)
- 1819 – By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sold Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
- 1943 – Members of the White Rose Society were found guilty of treason and guillotined by the Nazi regime in Germany.
- 1980 – At the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, USA, the United States ice hockey team defeated the Soviet Union in an unlikely victory that became known as the Miracle on Ice.
- 1986 – The People Power Revolution, a series of nonviolent mass street demonstrations in the Philippines against the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos, began.
- 1997 – Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announced the birth of a cloned sheep named Dolly (pictured) seven months after the fact.
More events: February 21 – February 22 – February 23
February 23: Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia; Mashramani in Guyana (1970); National Day in Brunei (1984)
- 1820 – British authorities arrested the conspirators of the Cato Street Conspiracy, an attempt to murder Prime Minister Lord Liverpool (pictured) and all the British cabinet ministers.
- 1903 – The Cuban-American Treaty was finalized, allowing the United States to perpetually lease Guantánamo Bay from Cuba for the purposes of operating coaling and naval stations.
- 1945 – American photographer Joe Rosenthal took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, an image that was later reproduced as the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial.
- 1947 – The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was founded. It is responsible for worldwide industrial and commercial ISO standards.
- 2005 – The controversial French law on colonialism was passed, requiring lycée teachers to teach "the positive role" of French colonialism to their students.
More events: February 22 – February 23 – February 24
February 24: Independence Day in Estonia (1918); Flag Day in Mexico
- 303 – Roman Emperor Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" was published, beginning the Diocletianic Persecution, the last and most severe episode of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.
- 1582 – Pope Gregory XIII issued the papal bull Inter gravissimas to promulgate the Gregorian calendar, a modification of the Julian calendar in use since 45 BC.
- 1803 – In their ruling in Marbury v. Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court established judicial review in the United States.
- 1848 – Amid a revolt, French King Louis-Philippe (pictured) abdicated and escaped to England, leading to the creation of the French Second Republic.
- 1946 – Colonel Juan Perón, founder of the political movement that became known as Peronism, was elected to his first term as President of Argentina.
More events: February 23 – February 24 – February 25
February 25: National Day in Kuwait (1950)
- 1570 – Pope Pius V (pictured) issued the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis to excommunicate Queen Elizabeth I and her followers in the Church of England.
- 1836 – American inventor and industrialist Samuel Colt received a patent for a "revolving gun", later known as a revolver.
- 1956 – In his speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences to the 20th Party Congress, Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the personality cult and dictatorship of his predecessor Joseph Stalin.
- 1986 – Corazon Aquino was inaugurated as the first female President of the Philippines after Ferdinand Marcos fled the nation after twenty years of rule because of the People Power Revolution.
- 1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: Armenian armed forces killed over 600 ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojali in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
More events: February 24 – February 25 – February 26
February 26: Liberation Day in Kuwait (1991); Savior's Day in the Nation of Islam
- 1266 – King Manfred of Sicily was killed at the Battle of Benevento, fighting Angevin forces led by Charles of Anjou near Benevento, Italy.
- 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 Danish territory to Sweden to save the rest.
- 1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte (pictured) escaped from Elba, an island off the coast of Italy whereto he was exiled after the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau one year earlier.
- 1935 – In Daventry, England, Scottish engineer and inventor Robert Watson-Watt first demonstrated the use of radar.
- 1991 – British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee introduced WorldWideWeb, the world's first web browser and WYSIWYG HTML editor.
- 1993 – A bomb-laden van exploded in the underground garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and injuring more than one thousand people.
More events: February 25 – February 26 – February 27
February 27: Arba'een in Shi'a Islam (2008); Independence Day in the Dominican Republic
- 1594 – The King of Navarre was crowned King Henry IV of France at the Cathedral of Chartres near Paris, beginning the Bourbon dynasty.
- 1801 – Washington, D.C., a new planned city and capital of the United States, was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
- 1933 – The Reichstag building in Berlin, the assembly location of the German Parliament, was set on fire (pictured), a pivotal event in the establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany.
- 1940 – American biochemists Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discovered the radioactive isotope carbon-14, which today is used extensively as the basis of the radiocarbon dating method to date archaeological, geological, and hydrogeological samples.
- 1976 – The rebel movement Polisario Front proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Western Sahara.
More events: February 26 – February 27 – February 28
February 28: Peace Memorial Day in Taiwan
- 1838 – Lower Canada Rebellion: Robert Nelson (pictured), leader of the Patriotes, proclaimed the independence of Lower Canada.
- 1870 – The Bulgarian Exarchate, the official name of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church before its autocephaly was recognized by the other Orthodox churches in the 1950s, was established by the firman of Sultan Abdülâziz of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1947 – Civil disorder in Taiwan was brutally suppressed by the Chinese Nationalist military in the 228 Incident.
- 1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China concluded with the two countries issuing the Shanghai Communiqué, pledging to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations.
- 1986 – Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated by a lone gunman in Stockholm while walking home from a movie theatre with his wife Lisbet Palme.
More events: February 27 – February 28 – February 29
February 29: A leap day in the Gregorian calendar
- 1704 – Joint French and Native American forces destroyed Deerfield, Massachusetts during Queen Anne's War, killing over fifty colonists.
- 1720 – Unable to establish a joint sovereignty similar to England's William and Mary, Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden (pictured) abdicated in favour of her husband, who became Frederick I.
- 1940 – At the 12th Academy Awards ceremony, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to be awarded an Oscar, winning Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind.
- 1944 – The Admiralty Islands campaign during the Pacific War of World War II began when American forces assaulted Los Negros Island, the third largest of the Admiralty Islands off the coast of the Papua New Guinea mainland.
- 1960 – Playboy Enterprises founder Hugh Hefner opened his first Playboy Club in Chicago, featuring the first service uniform registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
More events: February 28 – February 29 – March 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December
Recent changes to Selected anniversaries - Selected anniversaries editing guidelines
It is now 23:14 on Friday, June 13, 2008 (UTC) - Purge cache for this page
