February 28 Historical Events

The following events took place on February 28. The list is arranged in chronological order.

Found 58 events. Showing 31 - 58.

• 1940
  Basketball is televised for the first time (Fordham University vs. the University of Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden).
• 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 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 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).
• 1954
  The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.
• 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. It failed to achieve orbit.
• 1972
  Sino-American relations: The United States and People’s Republic of China sign the Shanghai Communiqué.
• 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, prime minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm.

• 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 leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five 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 Australian federal election, 1993.
• 1997
  An earthquake in northern Iran is responsible for about 3,000 deaths.
• 1997
  The North Hollywood shootout takes place, resulting in the injury of 19 people and the deaths of both perpetrators.
• 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.
• 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.
• 2001
  The Nisqually earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale hits the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the U.S. state of Washington.
• 2001
  Six passengers and four railway staff are killed and a further 82 people suffer serious injuries in the Selby rail crash.
• 2002
  During the religious violence in Gujarat, the 97 people killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre and 69 in Gulbarg Society massacre.
• 2004
  Over one million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500 km long human chain to commemorate the 228 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 1415.