Today in History - February 28







For Asian History





1066 Feb 28, Westminster Abbey opened.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1533 Feb 28, Michel de Montaigne (d.1592), was born near Bordeaux, France. He was the French moralist who created the personal essay. Montaigne was brought up by his father under peasant guidance and a German tutor for Latin. He spent a lifetime of political service under Henry IV, and then composed his "Essays." This was the first book to reveal with utter honesty and frankness the author's mind and heart. Montaigne sought to reach beyond his own illusions, to see himself as he really was, which was not just the way others saw him. "Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."

(WUD, 1994, p.928)(V.D.-H.K.p.144)(HN, 2/28/99)



1569 Feb 28, The Lithuanian delegation pulled out of union talks with Poland and departed Liublin.

(LHC, 2/28/03)



1573 Feb 28, Elias Hill, German architect, city builder (Augsburg), was born.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1574 Feb 28, On the orders of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, two Englishmen and an Irishman were burnt for heresy.

(HN, 2/28/99)



1609 Feb 28, Paul Sartorius (39), composer, died.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1610 Feb 28, Thomas West, Baron de La Mar, was appointed governor of Virginia.

(HN, 2/28/98)(MC, 2/28/02)



1626 Feb 28, Cyril Tourneur (c51), English poet, dramatist, died.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1632 Feb 28, Jean-Baptiste Lully, composer, was born in Florence, Italy. [see Nov 28]

(MC, 2/28/02)



1638 Feb 28, Scottish Presbyterians signed the National Covenant at Greyfriars, Edinburgh.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1638 Feb 28, Henri duc de Rohan, French soldier, Huguenot leader, died.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1646 Feb 28, Roger Scott was tried in Massachusetts for sleeping in church.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1663 Feb 28, Thomas Newcomen, English co-inventor of the steam engine, was born.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1692 Feb 28, The Salem witch hunts began.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1704 Feb 28, Indians attacked Deerfield, Mass., killing 40 and kidnapping 100.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1708 Feb 28, A slave revolt in Newton, Long Island, NY, left 11 dead.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1728 Feb 28, Georg F. Handel’s opera "Siroe, re di Persia," premiered in London.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1749 Feb 28, The 1st edition of "The History of Tom Jones: A foundling" was published. Henry Fielding (1707-1754) wrote the book and a film based on the novel was made in 1963. A TV production premiered in 1998.

(SFEM, 11/24/96, p.59)(SFC, 4/2/98, p.E1)(MC, 2/28/02)(ON, 9/03, p.9)



1759 Feb 28, Pope Clement XIII allowed the Bible to be translated into various languages.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1778 Feb 28, Rhode Island General Assembly authorized the enlistment of slaves.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1784 Feb 28, John Wesley (1703-1791) chartered the Methodist Church. His teaching emphasized field preaching along with piety, probity and respectability. In 2003 Roy Hattersley authored "A Brand from the Burning: The Life of John Wesley."

(MC, 2/28/02)(WSJ, 6/13/03, p.W19)



1801 Feb 28, Motiejus Valancius, Lithuanian educator, historian, writer and bishop, was born in Nasrenai in the Kretinga region. He died May 29, 1875, in Kaunas. His portrait is on the 2-litas note.

(LC, 1998, p.4,10)(LHC,2/28/03)



1810 Feb 28, The 1st US fire insurance joint-stock company was organized in Philadelphia.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1813 Feb 28, Russia and Prussia formed the Kalisz union against Napoleon.

(LHC,2/28/03)



1820 Feb 28, John Tenniel, illustrator of "Alice in Wonderland," was born.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1823 Feb 28, Ernst Renan, French philosopher, historian, scholar of religion, was born.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1824 Feb 28, Charles Blondin, tightrope walker, was born.

(HN, 2/28/01)



1825 Feb 28, Quincy Adams Gillmore (d.1888), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1827 Feb 28, The first U.S. railroad chartered to carry passengers and freight, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co., was incorporated.

(AP, 2/28/98)



1844 Feb 28, A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others.

(AP, 2/28/98)



1847 Feb 28, Colonel Alexander Doniphan and his ragtag Missouri Mounted Volunteers rode to victory at the Battle of Sacramento during the Mexican War.

(HN, 2/28/99)



1849 Feb 28, The steamer California, sounding the first steamship whistle on the SF Bay, arrived in SF with San Francisco postmaster John W. Geary on board carrying mail for the Pacific coast. Steamboat service began from Panama City to SF. Pacific Mail Steamship Co. sent the side-wheel steamship California to SF with American gold-seekers and 50 Peruvian miners. Also onboard were preacher Osgood C. Wheeler (32) and his wife Elizabeth.

(www.maritimeheritage.org/PassLists/ca022849.htm)(SSFC, 3/1/09, DB p.50)(AP, 2/28/98)(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)



1852 Feb 28, The French ship arrived in San Francisco from Le Havre with some 200 lottery emigrants. They included criminals, political prisoners, honest workers, common thugs and others considered undesirable. France had organized a national lottery for a gold bar and used the proceeds to ship people to California.

(SF, 8/29/15, p.C1)



1854 Feb 28, Some 50 slavery opponents met in Ripon, Wis., to call for creation of a new political group, which became the Republican Party. [see Mar 20, Jul 6]

(AP, 2/28/00)



1859 Feb 28, Arkansas legislature required free blacks to choose exile or slavery.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1861 Feb 28, The territory of Colorado was organized.

(AP, 2/28/98)(HN, 2/28/98)



1862 Feb 28, Karl Goldmark's opera "The Queen of Sheba," premiered in Paris.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1863 Feb 28, Four Union gunboats destroyed the CSS Nashville near Fort McAllister, Ga. Popular during the Crimean War, the floating battery was revived by hard-pressed Confederates because the popular gunboats were not capable of doing the things that the batteries could do.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1864 Feb 28-Mar 3, A skirmish took place at Albemarle County, Virginia (Burton's Ford).

(MC, 2/28/02)



1871 Feb 28, The 2nd Enforcement Act set federal control of congressional elections.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1879 Feb 28, In the "Exodus of 1879" southern blacks fled political and economic exploitation.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1882 Feb 28, Geraldine Farrar, US soprano, actress (Story of American Singer), was born.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1883 Feb 28, 1st US vaudeville theater opened in Boston.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1888 Feb 28, Vincent d'Indy's Wallenstein trilogy, premiered.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1890 Feb 28, Vaslav Nijinsky, ballet dancer (3/12 NS), was born in Kiev, Ukraine. He was the pre-eminent ballet artist of his day and at 20 became the protege and lover of Sergei Diaghilev. He spent some time in psychotherapy during which he made a number of abstract drawings. Nijinsky died in 1950 in London. [see Mar 12]

(SFC, 9/29/97, p.E5)(MC, 2/28/02)



1893 Feb 28, Edward Acheson of Pennsylvania, patented an abrasive he named "carborundum."

(MC, 2/28/02)



1894 Feb 28, Ben Hecht (d.1964), American author and screenwriter, was born. "There’s one thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die - their silence."

(AP, 11/17/00)(HN, 2/28/01)



1895 Feb 28, Guiomar Novaes, pianist (Brazilian Order of Merit), was born in Brazil.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1895 Feb 28, Marcel Pagnol, French playwright, director (Marchands de Gloire), was born.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1896 Feb 28, Philip Showalter Hench, physician (cortisone-Nobel), was born in Pittsburgh.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1900 Feb 28, After a 119-day siege by the Boers, the English defenders of Ladysmith, under General Sir George White were relieved.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1901 Feb 28, Linus Pauling, American chemist, was born in Portland, Oregon. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry (1954) and a Nobel Peace Prize (1962) for his arguments for nuclear disarmament. He also advocated major doses of vitamin C to maintain health.

(HN, 2/28/99)(http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1962/pauling-bio.html)



1904 Feb 28, Vincent d'Indy's 2nd Symphony in B premiered.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1905 Feb 28, Jane Lathrop Stanford, the wife of Leland Stanford, died of suspected arsenic poisoning at the Moana Hotel in Honolulu. A coroner’s jury confirmed the result. Her body was returned to the mainland under the care of David Starr Jordan, the president of Stanford Univ. An examination by Stanford physicians claimed no trace of strychnine and set heart attack as cause of death. A will signed 19 months earlier had left the bulk of her $30 million estate to Stanford Univ. In 2003 Robert Cutler authored "The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford." [see Jan 14]

(Ind, 5/26/01, 5A)(SFC, 11/20/03, p.A21)



1906 Feb 28, Bugsy Siegel, gangster who created casinos in Las Vegas, was born.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1907 Feb 28, Milton Caniff, cartoonist (Terry and the Pirates), was born in Hillsboro, Ohio.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1909 Feb 28, Stephen Spender (d.1995), English poet, critic, was born.

(HN, 2/28/01)(Econ, 6/19/04, p.81)

1909 Feb 28, President Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to visit the Austrian embassy.

(HN, 2/28/98)

1909 Feb 28, The earliest Women’s Day observance was held in New York. It was organized by the Socialist Party of America in remembrance of the 1908 strike of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

(www.un.org/en/events/womensday/history.shtml)



1910 Feb 28, Vincente Minnelli, director (American in Paris, Gigi), was born in Chicago, IL.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1911 Feb 28, Denis Burkitt, British medical researcher, was born.

(HN, 2/28/01)



1915 Feb 28, Peter Medawar, zoologist, immunologist (Nobel 1953), was born in England.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1915 Feb 28, Zero "Samuel" Mostel (d.1977), actor (Fiddler on the Roof), was born in Brooklyn.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Mostel)



1916 Feb 28, Haiti became the first U.S. protectorate.

(HN, 2/28/98)

1916 Feb 28, Henry James (b.1843), US-British writer (Bostonians), died in London. His books included “The American“ (1877) and “The Golden Bowl" (1904). In 2004 Colm Toibin authored “The Master," a novel that explores James’ private life. In 2007 Peter Brooks authored “Henry James Goes to Paris."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_James)(SFC, 6/19/04, p.E1)(WSJ, 3/31/07, p.P11)



1917 Feb 28, AP reported that Mexico and Japan would ally with Germany if US enters WW I.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1917 Feb 28, Russian Duma set up a Provisional Committee; workers set up Soviets.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1919 Feb 28, In San Francisco a 2nd burst of the Spanish flu raised the number of dead in the city to 3,213 with deaths still being counted.

(SFC, 4/13/20, p.B2)



1920 Feb 28, Maurice Ravel's "Le Tombeau de Couperin," premiered.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1922 Feb 28, Britain declared Egypt a sovereign state, but British troops remained.

(HN, 2/28/98)(MC, 2/28/02)



1923 Feb 28, Charles Durning, actor (Fury, Sting, Tootsie), was born in Highland Falls, NY.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1924 Feb 28, U.S. troops were sent to Honduras to protect American interests during an election conflict.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1925 Feb 28, "Tea For Two" by Marion Harris hit #1.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1926 Feb 28, Svetlana Alliluyeva, daughter of Josef Stalin, author (My Life), was born.

(HN, 2/28/98)(MC, 2/28/02)



1928 Feb 28, Smokey the Bear was created.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1931 Feb 28, Oswald Mosley founded his New Party.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1933 Feb 28, Francis Perkins was appointed Secretary of Labor, the 1st female in cabinet.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1933 Feb 28, German Pres. Von Hindenburg abolished the free expression of opinion.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1933 Feb 28, Hitler disallowed the German communist party (KPD).

(MC, 2/28/02)

1933 Feb 28, In Germany Carl von Ossietzky, an anti-fascist writer, was arrested after the Reichstag fire and held in so-called protective custody in Spandau prison.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Ossietzky)



1935 Feb 28, Nylon was discovered by Dr. Wallace H. Carothers.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1936 Feb 28, Samuel Maverick Jr. (99), San Antonio banker, died. During the Civil War he served in Terry's Texas Rangers, a Confederate regiment, He was the last surviving member of that organization. His father was the Texas pioneer Samuel A. Maverick

(http://tinyurl.com/5jgmr2)

1936 Feb 28, The Japanese Army restored order in Tokyo and arrested officers involved in a coup.

(HN, 2/28/99)



1939 Feb 28, Tommy Tune, dancer, choreographer (Boyfriend), was born in Wichita Falls, Tx.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1939 Feb 28, Great Britain recognized the Franco regime in Spain. [see Feb 27, 1938]

(MC, 2/28/02)



1940 Feb 28, Mario Andretti, race-car driver (1969 Indianapolis 500), was born.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1940 Feb 28, The first televised college basketball games were broadcast, by New York City station W2XBS, as Pittsburgh defeated Fordham, 57-37, and New York University beat Georgetown, 50-27, at Madison Square Garden.

(AP, 2/28/98)

1940 Feb 28, The Superliner Queen Elizabeth was launched in Britain.

(HN, 2/28/98)

1940 Feb 28, In Egypt King Farouk arrived at Tanis for the opening of the sarcophagus of the 21st Dynasty King Psusennes I, recently discovered by French archeologist Pierre Montet.

(Arch, 5/05, p.24)



1942 Feb 28, There was a riot at the new Sojourner Truth Homes in Detroit. There was a great deal of racial fighting with 40 injuries, but no deaths. Police called off the entry of blacks to their homes and, by the end of the day, arrested 220 – 217 blacks and 3 whites.

(http://detroit1701.org/Sojourner%20Truth%20Housing%20Project.html)

1942 Feb 28, The German submarine U-578 torpedoed and sank the US destroyer Jacob Jones off the New Jersey coast. Only 11 of some 102 crew members survived.

(SFC, 1/15/05, p.B8)(http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/2174.html)

1942 Feb 28, Japanese landed in Java, the last Allied bastion in Dutch East Indies.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1942 Feb 28, The Japanese sank the USS Houston during the Battle of Sunda Strait. The ship carried 1,068 crewmen, but only 291 sailors and Marines survived both the attack and being prisoners of war. In 2014 Navy divers from the US and Indonesia confirmed that a sunken vessel in the Java Sea is the wreck of the Houston.

(AP, 8/18/14)



1943 Feb 28, "Porgy & Bess" opened on Broadway with Anne Brown & Todd Duncan.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1943 Feb 28, In Operation Gunnerside Norwegian commandos flown in from Britain destroyed the Nazi heavy water plant near Rjukan. The raid was later depicted in the 1965 film "The Heroes of Telemark." The 9 commandos included Claus Helberg (d.2003) and Knut Haukelid (d.1994).

(SFC, 3/14/03, p.A27)(ON, 4/07, p.4)



1945 Feb 28, U.S. tanks broke the natural defense line west of the Rhine and crossed the Erft River.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1946 Feb 28, The U.S. Army declared that it would use the V-2 rocket to test radar as an atomic rocket defense system.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1947 Feb 28, Britain and France signed a 50-year pact to curb Germany.

(HN, 2/28/98)

1947 Feb 28, There was an anti-Kuomintang demonstration on Taiwan. As many as 20,000 civilians were massacred by the Kuomintang (KMT). A riot was sparked by the arrest of a woman selling contraband cigarettes in Taipei. Crowds attacked the Nationalist Party institutions as Nationalist troops and secret police struck back over the ensuing months. In 1996 a 69 cent postage stamp was planned in commemoration of the “228 Incident." In 2006 a team from UC Berkeley won a design competition for a 15-acre “228 National Memorial Park."

(SFC, 4/6/06, p.B3)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B1)(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A8)(SFC, 4/6/06, p.B3)



1948 Feb 28, Mercedes Ruehl, actress (Lost in Yonkers, Crazy People), was born in Queens NY.

(MC, 2/28/02)

1948 Feb 28, The last British troops left India. The First Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry passed through the Gateway of India monument in a ceremony.

(AP, 8/26/03)



1950 Feb 28, The French Assembly in Paris decided to limit the sale of Coca-Cola.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1951 Feb 28, The Senate committee headed by Estes Kefauver, D-Tenn., Issued a preliminary report saying at least two major crime syndicates were operating in the United States.

(AP, 2/28/98)



1953 Feb 28, Francis Crick (d.2004) and James Watson discovered the structure of DNA-molecule. Watson and Crick managed to describe the structure of DNA as a double helix consisting of two long strings coiled around one another. About 100,000 genes, short sections of DNA, tell the cells how to build proteins, the building blocks of life. Rosalind Franklin made the 1st x-ray image that revealed the double helix structure of DNA. In 2002 Brenda Maddox authored "Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA." In 2003 Watson co-authored "DNA: The Secret of Life." [see Sep 20, Apr 25, 1953]

(V.D.-H.K.p.330)(TL, 1988, p.114)(Wired, 1/97, p.161)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.M2)(WSJ, 3/28/03, p.W8) (AP, 2/28/04)

1953 Feb 28, Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia signed a 5-year defense pact in Ankara.

(HN, 2/28/98)

1953 Feb 28, Stalin met with Beria, Bulganin, Khrushchev and Malenkov.

(MC, 2/28/02)



1960 Feb 28, The Eighth Winter Olympic Games formally closed in Squaw Valley, Calif.

(SSFC, 1/3/10, p.A13)



1967 Feb 28, In Mississippi 19 were indicted in the slayings of three civil rights workers in 1964. Samuel H. Bowers and 6 others were convicted on federal charges in 1970. Bowers was released in 1976.

(HN, 2/28/98)(SFC, 8/18/98, p.A5)

1967 Feb 28, Art Davidson, Ray Genet and Dave Johnston completed the first winter ascent of Alaska’s Mount McKinley. On their descent they became trapped by a storm for 6 days at 18,500 feet in an ice-cave. In 1969 Art Davidson authored “Minus 148°."

(WSJ, 4/28/07, p.P8)(www.summitpost.org/parent/150199/mount-mckinley-denali.html)

1967 Feb 28, Henry Luce (68), American publisher, died in Phoenix. He and Briton Hadden (1898-1929) published the first issue of Time magazine on March 3, 1923. In 2010 Alan Brinkley authored “The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century."

(AP, 2/28/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Luce)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.82)



1969 Feb 28, A Los Angeles court refused Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan's request to be executed.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1970 Feb 28, Bicycles were permitted to cross the Golden Gate Bridge.

(www.goldengatebridge.org/research/dates.php)



1971 Feb 28, The male electorate in Lichtenstein refused to give voting rights to women.

(HN, 2/28/98)



1972 Feb 28, President Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai signed the Shanghai Communique at the Jin Jiang Hotel Assembly Hall on the last night of Nixon’s visit.

(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)(AP, 2/28/07)



1974 Feb 28, The United States and Egypt re-established diplomatic relations after a seven-year break.

(AP, 2/28/98)

1974 Feb 28, Britain’s Labor Party won the parliamentary election. No party had an overall majority resulting in a hung parliament. This lasted until elections in October.

(www.enotes.com/peoples-chronology/year-1974)(Econ, 4/24/10, p.14)



1975 Feb 28, AMC introduced the Pacer, the first wide, small car.

(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMC_Pacer)

1975 Feb 28, The EU signed another trade deal in Lome, Togo, to keep markets open to former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands (ACP).

(Econ, 5/28/05, p.78)(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1975/index_en.htm)

1975 Feb 28, A London subway train smashed into the end of a tunnel at Moorgate Underground station and 43 people were killed.

(AP, 1/23/06)



1977 Feb 28, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (b.1905), African-American comedian, died.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Anderson_(comedian))



1978 Feb 28, Louise Woodward, the nanny who allegedly killed Matthew Eappen (1997) in Cambridge, Mass., was born in Elton, England.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Woodward)

1978 Feb 28, Robert Rowe (d.1997) of Brooklyn killed his wife and 3 children with a baseball bat. He was tried and later released from a mental institution and became a father again. In 2001 Julie Salamon authored "Facing the Wind," a narrative of the Rowe case.

(WSJ, 3/30/01, p.W8)

1978 Feb 28, Consuelo Kanaga (b.1894), San Francisco photographer, died.

(SFEM, 6/30/96, p.20)(http://tinyurl.com/393wgc)



1979 Feb 28, Ernest Thompson's play "On Golden Pond," premiered in NYC.

(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3923)



1982 Feb 28, The FALN, a Puerto Rican Nationalist Group, bombed Wall Street. 4 powerful bombs detonated in front of business institutions in New York's financial district.

(http://judiciary.senate.gov/oldsite/91599drw.htm)



1983 Feb 28, The last episode of M*A*S*H was shown. A record 125 million made MASH the most watched TV show.

(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A26)(SFEC, 4/19/98, DB p.38)(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/2000-2/)



1984 Feb 28, New Hampshire held its presidential primary. Ronald Reagan won with 86.1% of the total vote. Gary Hart won the Democratic tally over Walter Mondale and John Glenn.

(www.politicallibrary.org/TallState/1984rep.html)(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A19)



1986 Feb 28, In the Philippines Pres. Corazon Aquino signed executive order No. 1 creating the Presidential Commission on Good Governance. It was created to trace and recover assets stolen under the Marcos regime, estimated at up to $10 billion. By 2007 only a quarter of that number was retrieved.

(www.lawphil.net/executive/execord/eo1986/eo_1_1986.html)(Econ, 8/11/07, p.33)

1986 Feb 28, Olof Palme, Swedish Prime Minister (1969-76, 82-86), was shot to death in central Stockholm. In 1996 South African former police officer Eugene de Kock said that Craig Williamson, a South African spy, was involved in the murder. In 1997 lawyer Pelle Svensson said that his client, Lars Tingstrom, wrote a statement on his deathbed in prison in 1993 that he had committed the killing. The family was convinced that Christer Pettersson, a drug addict and alcoholic, was the killer. In 1999 Abdullah Ocalan in Turkey suggested that a rival PKK organization killed Olof Palme.

(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)(SFC, 3/26/97, p.A12)(AP, 2/28/98)(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A26)(SFC, 6/2/99, p.C2)



1988 Feb 28, The 15th Olympic Winter Games held its closing ceremony in Calgary, Canada.

(AP, 2/28/98)

1988 Feb 28, Ethnic unrest broke out between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the city of Sumgait. There was an anti-Armenian pogrom in the town of Sumgait. A national awakening occurred in Azerbaijan when conflict erupted over the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, included by the Soviets in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh began fighting for independence.

(WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A15)(AP, 2/28/98)(SFC, 11/27/96, p.A13)(WSJ, 5/14/97, p.A22)



1989 Feb 28, In Chicago, Richard M. Daley, son of Mayor Richard J. Daley who served as mayor for 21 years, defeated acting Mayor Eugene Sawyer in a Democratic primary election.

(SFC, 2/24/99, p.A3)(AP, 2/28/99)

1989 Feb 28, Humorist-poet Richard Armour (82) died in Claremont, Calif.

(AP, 2/28/99)



1990 Feb 28, In San Francisco protesters lit the street outside the St. Francis Hotel with a flaming torch parade and bonfire as part of demonstrations against a visit by Pres. George H.W. Bush.

(SSFC, 3/1/15, DB p.42)

1990 Feb 28, Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. on a secret mission to place a spy satellite in orbit.

(AP, 2/28/00)



1991 Feb 28, NCR Corporation acquired the Teradata Company specializing in data warehousing and analytic applications.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradata)

1991 Feb 28, Pres. Bush announced a cease-fire in Kuwait. Allied and Iraqi forces suspended their attacks as Iraq pledged to accept all United Nations resolutions concerning Kuwait. In 1998 George Bush co-wrote "A World Transformed" with Brent Scowcroft, his national security advisor. The book was a dialogue about the foreign policy problems face by the US during the Bush administration (1988-1992). In 1995 Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor published "The General's War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Gulf_War)(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(SFC, 5/4/99, p.D1)(AP, 2/28/01)



1992 Feb 28, Twenty-eight people were injured when an IRA bomb exploded at London Bridge train station.

(AP, 2/28/02)

1992 Feb 29, La Lupe (53), Cuban singer, died of a heart attack in the Bronx.

(www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/salsa/artists/lalupe.html)



1993 Feb 28, Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided the ranch of the Branch Davidian sect under David Koresh in Waco, Texas. A shootout followed when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to serve warrants on the Branch Davidians; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began. In 1997 the film "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" was released that documented the story.

(SFC, 2/28/97, p.D3)(AP, 2/28/98)

1993 Feb 28, Three U.S. planes carried out the first mission to drop relief supplies over Bosnia-Herzegovina. The US Operations Deny Flight, Provide Promise, Deliberate Force, Decisive Edge, Joint Endeavour and others began in Bosnia and Macedonia. They cost $9.7 billion to date in 1999 and left 4 US casualties with 5 wounded.

(AP, 2/28/98)(WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A8)

1993 Feb 28, Ishiro Honda (81), Japanese director, producer (Godzilla), died.

(www.imdb.com/name/nm0393094/)



1994 Feb 28, Brady Law, imposing a wait-period to buy a hand-gun, went into effect. It amended a 1968 law that prohibited felons from buying guns and imposed a 5-day waiting period for handgun purchases to allow for a criminal record check.

(SFC, 12/4/96, p.A5)(www.bradycenter.org/about/)

1994 Feb 28, Two U.S. F-16 fighter jets downed four Serb warplanes that U.N. officials said had bombed an arms plant run by Bosnia's Muslim-led government. This was the first NATO use of force in the troubled area.

(AP, 2/28/99)(HN, 2/28/99)

1994 Feb 28, Pu Chieh (87), brother of last Chinese emperor, Pu Yi (d.1967), died.

(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-pu.htm)



1995 Feb 28, U.S. Marines swept ashore in Somalia to protect retreating U.N. peacekeepers.

(AP, 2/28/00)

1995 Feb 28, Denver International Airport opened after 16 months of delays and $3.2 billion in budget overruns. A $250 million automated baggage handling system contributed to the delays. United Airlines gave up on the system in 2005.

(AP, 2/28/98)(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.D5)

1995 Feb 28, In Mexico Raul Salinas de Gortari was arrested for masterminding the murder of Jose Francisco Ruiz Sep 28, 1994. He was imprisoned in Almaloya prison, Mexico’s highest-security facility. In 1998 Raul Salinas was acquitted of money laundering but remained in jail on murder and illegal-enrichment charges.

(WSJ, 4/15/96, p.A-15)(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A6)(SFC, 5/22/98, p.D4)(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A10)

1995 Feb 28, Max Rudolf (92), conductor, died.

(www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Rudolf-Max.htm)



1996 Feb 28, Alanis Morissette’s "Jagged Little Pill" won best rock album and album of the year at the Grammy Awards; Seal’s "Kiss from a Rose" won for record and song of the year.

(AP, 2/28/01)

1996 Feb 28, President Clinton and the Congress agreed on a sanctions bill aimed at driving foreign investors from Cuba.

(AP, 2/28/01)

1996 Feb 28, The New Liberty Baptist Church in Tyler, Ala., burned down. Arson was suspected and investigations by the FBI and ATF were later begun.

(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A16)

1996 Feb 28, Britain’s Princess Diana agreed to divorce Prince Charles.

(AP, 2/28/01)

1996 Feb 28, Russia joined the Council of Europe and halted capital punishment. The Russian Federation had applied to join the Council of Europe on 7 May 1992.

(SFC, 11/10/09, p.A2)(http://www.ena.lu/)



1997 Feb 28, Brushing aside congressional calls for a tougher stance against Mexico, President Clinton recertified the country as a fully cooperating ally in the struggle against drug smuggling.

(AP, 2/28/98)

1997 Feb 28, Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky had another sexual encounter [after nearly 11 months] following the taping of his weekly radio address.

(SFC, 9/12/98, p.A13)

1997 Feb 28, US Navy medium attack aircraft were retired by order of Pres. Clinton. Any deep-strike mission would be in the hands of the Air Force.

(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A14)

1997 Feb 28, In North Hollywood, Calif., two heavily armed masked robbers bungled a B of A bank heist and came out firing, unleashing their arsenal on police, bystanders, cars and TV choppers before they were killed. Police borrowed high powered semiautomatic rifles from a local gun store to match the fire power of the robbers.

(SFC, 3/1/97, p.A1,17)(AP, 2/28/98)

1997 Feb 28, Del Monte announced that it would be sold to the Texas Pacific Group for about $800 million.

(SFC, 3/1/97, p.B1)

1997 Feb 28, Ford announced that it planned to phase out production of the Thunderbird (b.1955) until a new generation model in 2000.

(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A3)

1997 Feb 28, A 6.1 earthquake at Ardebil in northwest Iran struck at 4:27 p.m. local time. The quake damaged 110 villages and killed some 3,000 people. A second 5.1 quake followed in 2 days.

(SFC, 3/1/97, p.C1)(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 3/3/97, p.A12)

1997 Feb 28, From Malaysia it was reported that the Dayaks were killing the Madurans in the rain forest of West Kalimantan, Borneo. The indigenous Dayaks had killed as many as 300 Madurans in fierce hand combat after a peace treaty was broken. The Madurans were moved in by the government from an overpopulated area.

(SFC, 2/28/97, p.A16)

1997 Feb 28, In Pakistan at 2:10 a.m. a 7.3 earthquake struck in the province of Baluchistan. At least 8 people were killed and many injured. Reports the next day indicated that the 7.3 quake in Pakistan killed at least 80.

(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.A1)(SFC, 3/1/97, p.C1)



1998 Feb 28, In weekly radio addresses, President Clinton and Republicans sparred over education, with Clinton describing tests showing American high school students lagging behind those of other industrial nations as a "wake-up call" while the Republicans blamed the disappointing results on a "hungry bureaucracy in Washington" that gobbles up education funds.

(AP, 2/28/99)

1998 Feb 28, Albert Lippert, co-founder of the Weight Watchers diet program, died at age 72.

(SFC, 3/4/98, p.C4)

1998 Feb 28, The elections came to a close. The BJP built its campaign around candidate for prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (71). The Congress Party was led by Sonia Gandhi. Jayaram Jayalalitha led the All India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam party in Tamil Nadu which won 18 seats in parliament. Jayalitha hoped to have charges against her quashed and the government of Tamu Nidal dismissed. Vajpayee returned to power for 13 months after forging an alliance of 22 parties, mostly regional power brokers with disparate local appeal.

(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.A18)(SFEC, 4/18/99, p.A19)(AP, 8/16/18)

1998 Feb 28, In Likoshan two Serbian police officers were killed. Police blamed the Kosovo Liberation Army. The Serbian SAJ, an anti-terrorist unit, was immediately called to the scene and rounded up 10 males who were summarily shot. Another 15 villagers were also killed.

(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A8)



1999 Feb 28, A US air strike in Iraq was said to have damaged an oil pipeline, stopped the flow of oil and killed one Iraqi. The US denied the charges. Iraq claimed that a communications center for a major oil pipeline into Turkey was struck.

(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A12)(SFC, 3/2/99, p.A8)

1999 Feb 28, In Colombia 3 US citizens, Terence Freitas, Ingrid Washinawatok and Lahe'ena'e Gay, were kidnapped by FARC rebels. The 3 belonged to a group that worked to defend the rights of the Uwa Indians in a dispute with Occidental Petroleum. 3 FARC rebels, wanted for the kidnapping, were captured Nov 28, 2002. [see Mar 4]

(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A12)(AP, 11/29/02)

1999 Feb 28, Ethiopia claimed victory over Eritrea and said that it had killed, wounded and captured tens of thousands of Eritrean soldiers.

(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A12)

1999 Feb 28, Israel sent warplanes against guerrilla targets in Lebanon in retaliation for the death of Brig. Gen'l. Erez Gerstein and 3 others. Guerrillas had detonated two bombs beside a military convoy in southern Lebanon, killing a brigadier general and three other Israelis.

(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A1)(AP, 2/28/00)

1999 Feb 28, Japanese doctors performed their first legal organ transplant from a brain-dead patient. A 1997 law allowed the standard for death to be the cessation of brain activity. The last heart transplant was done in 1968.

(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/1/99, p.A1)

1999 Feb 28, In Nigeria retired Gen'l. Obasanjo led the presidential vote with 62%. Serious concern over vote-rigging was expressed.

(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/1/99, p.A1)

1999 Feb 28, In Zambia a bomb exploded at the Angolan Embassy and 4 other locations in Lusaka.

(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A12)



2000 Feb 28, In Massachusetts computer-industry publisher Patrick J. McGovern and his wife, Lore Harp McGovern, pledged a $350 million donation over 20 years to MIT to finance brain research.

(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A2)(WSJ, 2/29/00, p.A1)

2000 Feb 28, In Algeria an armed group massacred 20 people, shepherds and their families, near Brezina.

(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A12)

2000 Feb 28, In Austria Joerg Haider, governor of Carinthia, resigned as head of the Freedom Party in an apparent bid to end Austria’s international ostracism following his party’s rise to power. His official resignation took place May 1.

(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A10)(SFC, 5/2/00, p.A10)(AP, 2/28/01)

2000 Feb 28, In Indonesia Henry Kissinger agreed to work as a political advisor to Pres. Abdurrahman Wahid.

(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A10)

2000 Feb 28, It was reported that Iraq and Syria had established diplomatic ties that were cut in Aug 1980 when Damascus sided with Iran just before the Iran-Iraq war.

(SFC, 2/28/00, p.C2)

2000 Feb 28, In Mozambique officials feared that thousands may have died in the last 3 weeks of flooding.

(WSJ, 2/29/00, p.A1)

2000 Feb 28, In Nigeria ethnic violence between the Ibos and Hausas was reported from Aba in reaction to the fighting in Kuduna. At least 50 people were reported dead.

(WSJ, 2/29/00, p.A1)

2000 Feb 28, In Turkey 3 Kurdish mayors were released from prison pending trial on charges that they aided Kurdish rebels.

(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A12)



2001 Feb 28, A 6.8 magnitude slab earthquake shook the Northwest and rocked the cities of Seattle and Portland, Oregon. It was centered 32.6 miles below the surface along the boundary of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate and the continental North American plate. Damages were later estimated at $1.5-2 billion.

(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/2/01, p.A1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A4)(AP, 2/28/02)

2001 Feb 28, A train collision in northeast England killed 10 people and injured more than 70.

(AP, 2/28/02)

2001 Feb 28, China ratified a UN-sponsored human rights treaty but backed away from a guarantee of workers rights.

(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A8)(WSJ, 3/1/01, p.A1)

2001 Feb 28, In Congo 3,000 troops from Rwanda and 150 from Uganda withdrew. All warring parties were scheduled to make way for an 18-mile buffer zone, to be monitored by the UN, by March 15.

(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A10)

2001 Feb 28, A 5.4 earthquake hit El Salvador.

(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A10)

2001 Feb 28, In England a train crash in North Yorkshire killed 13 people and injured 70.

(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A8)

2001 Feb 28, Officials in Northern Ireland confirmed hoof-and-mouth disease in sheep imported from England. 8 more cases were confirmed in England and Wales.

(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A10)

2001 Feb 28, Flooding continued in central Mozambique as the death toll rose to 52. 81,000 were made homeless since the beginning of the year.

(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A10)(SFC, 3/2/01, p.A16)



2002 Feb 28, Dr. Ellen Feinberg (43) stabbed to death her 10-year-old son and wounded a younger son in Champaign, Ill.

(SFC, 3/2/02, p.A6)

2002 Feb 28, The body of a young girl found outside San Diego, Ca., was positively identified as that of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam, who'd disappeared from her bedroom about a month earlier; a neighbor, David Westerfield, was later convicted of her murder and sentenced to death.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2002 Feb 28, Mary Stuart (75), Soap opera actress, died in New York. She had starred in "Search for Tomorrow" for some 35 years.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2002 Feb 28, In India Hindu mobs in Gujarat state killed at least 96 people as they burned shops and attacked residences in Ahmadabad to avenge the killing a day earlier of Hindu activists. A Hindu mob descended on the Gulberg Society, a cluster of homes in Ahmadabad, leaving Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress MP, and 68 others dead. In 2007 videotaped confessions showed Hindu activists acknowledging their roles in the killings and detailing blatant state collusion. In 2011 a court sentenced 31 Hindus to life imprisonment for killing dozens of Muslims by setting a building on fire in a village in Mehsana district. 33 Muslims, including 20 women who had taken shelter there, were burned alive.

(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A1,12)(SFC, 10/25/07, p.A13)(AP, 11/9/11)(Econ, 3/3/12, p.54)(Econ, 12/14/13, p.32)

2002 Feb 28, In Hong Kong Tung Chee-hwa won a 2nd term after a nomination period expired with challengers.

(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A17)

2002 Feb 28, Israeli troops assaulted 2 West Bank refugee camps. One Israeli soldier and 12 Palestinian fighters were killed.

(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A13)(WSJ, 3/1/02, p.A10)

2002 Feb 28, Japan reportedly planned to double its whale catch to 260 whales and include the endangered sei whale.

(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A19)

2002 Feb 28, In Amman, Jordan, a bomb killed 2 passersby and destroyed the car of a top anti-terrorism official’s wife.

(WSJ, 3/1/02, p.A1)

2002 Feb 28, In Madagascar Pres. Didier Ratsiraka declared martial law following 2 months of strikes and mass protests.

(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A17)

2002 Feb 28, In Pakistan gunmen attacked a police bus in a bid to free prisoners that included a suspect in the slaying of Daniel Pearl. A policeman and a prisoner were killed.

(WSJ, 3/1/02, p.A1)



2003 Feb 28, The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stood by its ruling that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was unconstitutional because of the words "under God."

(AP, 2/28/04)

2003 Feb 28, The FDA announced that every bottle of ephedra would soon bear stern warnings that the popular herb could cause heart attacks or strokes, even kill.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2003 Feb 28, NASA released video taken aboard Columbia that had miraculously survived the fiery destruction of the space shuttle with the loss of all seven astronauts; in the footage, four of the crew members can be seen doing routine chores and admiring the view outside the cockpit.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2003 Feb 28, The International Atomic Energy Agency said it has sent an emergency mission to Nigeria to help find an undisclosed amount of missing or stolen radioactive material.

(AP, 2/28/03)

2003 Feb 28, In Austria a conservative-led coalition assumed governing power in Austria backed by Joerg Haider's anti-immigrant party.

(AP, 2/28/03)

2003 Feb 28, Carnival began in Brazil as a large crime wave swept Rio. Imprisoned Red Command leader, Luiz Fernando da Costa, was believed responsible and was moved to a maximum security prison in San Paolo state.

(SFC, 2/28/03, A16)

2003 Feb 28, Tassos Papadopoulos took office as the fifth Greek Cypriot president, pledging to strive for reunification.

(AP, 2/28/03)

2003 Feb 28, Czech lawmakers elected opposition candidate Vaclav Klaus as president, succeeding former president and long time rival Vaclav Havel.

(AP, 2/28/03)

2003 Feb 28, Fidel Sanchez Hernandez (85), former El Salvador President (1967-1972), died. He directed the so-called 100-hour war, when the Salvadoran army invaded Honduras in 1969 over a territorial dispute.

(AP, 3/1/03)

2003 Feb 28, Iraq agreed to begin destroying its Al Samoud 2 missiles within 24 hours.

(AP, 2/28/03)

2003 Feb 28, Ivory Coast-based mercenary fighters attacked and captured Toe Town on Liberia's eastern border. Liberia's government considered the assault "highly provocative" and "tantamount to a declaration of war" by Ivory Coast.

(AP, 3/1/03)



2004 Feb 28, The Bow Mariner, a tanker carrying 3.5 million gallons of ethanol, exploded and sank off Virginia's Eastern Shore. Three crewmen were known dead and six others were rescued. 18 crew members were left missing.

(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.A3)(SFC, 2/02/04, p.A3)

2004 Feb 28, It was reported that 80% of Americans claim to believe in God, compared with 62% of the French and 52% of Swedes.

(Econ, 2/28/04, p.34)

2004 Feb 28, It was reported that scientists had measured the shortest time interval ever, a mere 100 attoseconds. The “atto" referred to a billionth of a “nano."

(Econ, 2/28/04, p.77)

2004 Feb 28, Daniel Joseph Boorstin (89), author, historian and 12th librarian of Congress, died in Washington DC. His 2 dozen books included The Americans trilogy: "The Colonial Experience" (1959), "The National Experience" (1966), and "The Democratic Experience" (1973).

(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.A2)(Econ, 3/20/04, p.94)

2004 Feb 28, African leaders agreed on a common security policy that for the first time gives the fledgling African Union authority to intervene in border wars and internal conflicts. A draft declaration of the policy was expected to be announced at the conclusion of the two-day pan-African summit.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2004 Feb 28, Egyptian security forces attacked gunmen who had taken an estimated 80 people hostage in a southern Egyptian town. Some of the captives were feared dead.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2004 Feb 28, In Finland hundreds of trucks prepared to roll onto frozen roads at midnight, stocked with beer and hard cider for a population that eagerly awaits a historic government measure that will cut alcohol prices by nearly 40 percent.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2004 Feb 28, In Haiti anarchy spread across the capital as residents looted warehouses, government loyalists attacked passers-by and rebels advanced closer to the seat of power.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2004 Feb 28, Iraq's U.S.-picked leaders failed to meet a deadline for adopting an interim constitution.

(AP, 2/28/05)

2004 Feb 28, Six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program ended without any major breakthrough. The North denounced the United States, saying it wasn't willing to reach a settlement.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2004 Feb 28, In Pakistan a suicide attacker blew himself up in a Shiite Muslim mosque in a city near Islamabad.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2004 Feb 28, The mayor of Nablus, the West Bank's largest city, said he is quitting to protest Yasser Arafat's failure to rein in armed gangs.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2004 Feb 28, Qatar accused Russia of detaining two of its nationals in Moscow, after two Russians were charged with murdering a former rebel Chechen leader in Qatar.

(AP, 2/28/04)

2004 Feb 28, It was reported that 70% South Koreans had high-speed Internet connections.

(Econ, 2/28/04, p.61)

2004 Feb 28, In Taiwan an estimated 1.2 million people linked hands in a human chain the length of the island as President Chen Shui-bian urged protesters to oppose China's military threats and create the "Great Wall of Taiwan's democracy."

(AP, 2/28/04)



2005 Feb 28, The US Mint began distributing new buffalo nickels to banks. The reverse side showed a bolder profile of Thomas Jefferson.

(SFC, 2/26/05, p.A3)

2005 Feb 28, Michael Jackson faced opening statements in Santa Maria, Ca., in his trial on child molestation charges.

(SFC, 3/1/05, p.A1)

2005 Feb 28, US District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow discovered the bodies of her husband and mother inside her Chicago home. An unemployed electrician confessed to the murders in a suicide note. In 2002 she had ordered the white supremacist group World Church of the Creator under Matthew Hale to remove the World Church name from its website. A cigarette butt found in Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow's house was matched to the electrician, Bart Ross, who killed himself Mar 9 during a traffic stop in Wisconsin, and left a suicide note claiming responsibility for the killings. Lefkow last fall dismissed a rambling lawsuit in which Ross claimed that cancer treatments had disfigured his face.

(SFC, 3/2/05, p.A13)(AP, 3/11/05)(SFC, 3/11/05, p.A1)(AP, 2/28/06)

2005 Feb 28, Federated Dept. Stores announced the acquisition of may Dept. Stores for $11 billion in cash and stock.

(SFC, 3/1/05, p.A1)

2005 Feb 28, African Union (AU) chairman, Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, met Sudan's first vice president Ali Taha over the bloody crisis in Darfur region.

(AFP, 2/28/05)

2005 Feb 28, In Britain the Duchess of Northumberland opened her new Poison Garden, dedicated to the world’s most venomous and hallucinogenic plants. It was a part of Alnwick Garden opened in 2002.

(SFC, 10/29/05, p.F7)(www.alnwickgarden.com/media/in_the_press.asp)

2005 Feb 28, Burundians voted on a new constitution that enshrines Hutu control by allotting them 60% of parliamentary seats with 40% for Tutsis.

(WSJ, 3/1/05, p.A1)

2005 Feb 28, Thierry Breton arrived for work as France's 4th finance minister in less than a year, ready to pick up the unfinished business of restoring the French economy to good health.

(AP, 2/28/05)

2005 Feb 28, In Grenada Alister Hughes (86), respected journalists known for his coverage of Grenada's political woes and the US invasion in 1983, died of a stroke.

(AP, 3/2/05)

2005 Feb 28, India's communist-backed coalition government unveiled a budget aimed at boosting growth to help the rural poor but warned this would be at the expense of tackling a bloated deficit.

(AP, 2/28/05)

2005 Feb 28, Indonesia welcomed a move by the US to resume a small but high-profile US military training program that was frozen in the 1990s because of human rights abuses in East Timor. Human rights groups condemned the decision.

(Reuters, 2/28/05)

2005 Feb 28, In Iraq a suicide car bomber blasted a crowd of police and national guard recruits as they gathered for physicals outside a medical clinic in Hillah, south of Baghdad, killing 125 people and wounding 132.

(AP, 3/1/05)(AP, 2/28/06)

2005 Feb 28, Israeli troops discovered a vehicle packed with half a ton of explosives in the West Bank, the largest bomb found in four years of fighting.

(AP, 3/1/05)

2005 Feb 28, Defying a ban on protests, about 10,000 people demonstrated against Syrian interference in Lebanon, as opposition lawmakers sought to bring down the pro-Damascus government. The pro-Damascus PM Omar Karami and his Cabinet resigned.

(AP, 2/28/05)(SFC, 3/1/05, p.A1)

2005 Feb 28, Mexican prosecutors charged 27 state, federal and local police in Cancun with running a drug ring or aiding in the murder of their fellow officers, busting one of Mexico's largest police-protection rackets and solving the mystery behind the killing of three federal agents in November.

(AP, 3/1/05)

2005 Feb 28, In Nepal at least 50 Maoist rebels and 4 soldiers were killed in a gunbattle in the western Bardiya district.

(AP, 3/1/05)

2005 Feb 28, In Tajikistan opposition parties alleged systematic vote-rigging and other breaches during weekend parliamentary elections in the former Soviet republic.

(AP, 2/28/05)



2006 Feb 28, The US Supreme Court voted 8-0 to bar the use of racketeering laws against antiabortion protesters.

(WSJ, 3/1/06, p.A1)

2006 Feb 28, The first Mardi Gras since Hurricane Katrina drew a smaller-than-usual turnout.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2006 Feb 28, The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution (7-3) asking the city’s Democratic congressional delegation to seek the impeachment of Pres. Bush.

(SFC, 3/1/06, p.A1)

2006 Feb 28, In Gas City, Indiana, a museum chronicling the short life of James Dean closed after struggling financially since its opening in 2004. David Loehr said he would soon be setting up a small display in the National Automotive & Truck Museum in Auburn.

(AP, 3/30/06)

2006 Feb 28, The US FDA approved a selegeline skin patch to treat depression. Somerset Pharmaceuticals said the drug will be marketed as Emsam. Selegiline as approved in pill form in 1989 to help treat Parkinson’s disease.

(SFC, 3/1/06, p.A12)

2006 Feb 28, US coffee giant Starbucks Corp said it planned to begin selling Rwandan specialty coffee in 5,000 outlets across the US from next month.

(Reuters, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, Bob Fu, a US-based activist and a Chinese legal scholar, said leaders of an underground Chinese church, who are accused of killing of 20 members of a rival group, were tortured into confessing in a crackdown on unofficial religious organizations.

(AP, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, Owen Chamberlain (b.1920) Nobel Prize winning physicist (1959), died in Berkeley, Ca. He and Emilio Segre shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics for their 1955 discovery of the anti-proton.

(SFC, 3/2/06, p.B7)

2006 Feb 28, In Afghan police fired at inmates trying to push down a gate at Kabul's main jail as about 2,000 prisoners resumed rioting after a 24-hour pause in violence. One inmate died and three were wounded in the renewed fighting. A US soldier was killed by an IED.

(AP, 2/28/06)(WSJ, 3/1/06, p.A1)

2006 Feb 28, A Bangladesh court sentenced 21 Islamic militants, aged 21-25, to death for their part in a deadly wave of blasts that saw more than 400 bombs explode almost simultaneously across the country on Aug 17, 2005. All were members of the militant group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and were sentenced under the country's Explosive Substances Act."

(AFP, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, The UN refugee agency said fighting between soldiers and rebels in eastern Chad was sending civilians fleeing across the border to Sudan’s Darfur region and were being targeted by Sudanese militia.

(SFC, 3/1/06, p.A10)

2006 Feb 28, Sergei Abramov, the Kremlin-backed PM of war-battered Chechnya, said he was stepping down to give way to Ramzan Kadyrov (29), the widely feared head of a shadowy security service.

(AP, 3/1/06)

2006 Feb 28, Chinese President Hu Jintao denounced the Taiwanese president's decision to scrap an agency dedicated to uniting Taiwan with the communist mainland, and warned that Beijing will not permit the self-ruled island to pursue formal independence.

(AP, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, In El Salvador thousands of street vendors, university students and labor unionists marched in San Salvador against a regional free trade accord with the US, which they say will hurt small businesses and organized labor.

(AP, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, The deadly strain of bird flu was confirmed in a cat in northern Germany, the first time the virus has been identified in a mammal in the 25 nations of the European Union.

(AP, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s finance minister, unveiled the budget for the new fiscal year. It forecast growth at 8.1% and included a 7.2% increase in defense spending to $20 billion.

(WSJ, 3/1/06, p.A6)(Econ, 3/4/06, p.38)

2006 Feb 28, In central India suspected Maoist militants (Naxalites) attacked a group of trucks jammed with passengers, killing 23 people and injuring 33.

(AP, 2/28/06)(Econ, 4/15/06, p.45)

2006 Feb 28, A suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt at a crowded gas station killing 23 people with 51 injured. 9 bullet-riddled bodies, including that of a Sunni Muslim tribal sheik, were found off a road southeast of Baghdad. Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad traded bombings and mortar fire mainly at religious targets, killing at least 75 people.

(AP, 2/28/06)(AP, 3/1/06)(SFC, 3/1/06, p.A1)

2006 Feb 28, Iraqi border guards captured, Abdullah Salah al-Harbi, a Saudi who admitted he was involved in the suicide attack on the Abqaiq oil facility in Saudi Arabia.

(AP, 3/2/06)

2006 Feb 28, A car bomb targeted a British patrol in Amarah, 180 miles from Baghdad, and 2 British soldiers were killed. The deaths raised the British toll in the Iraq conflict to 103.

(AP, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, The Malaysian government sharply raised fuel prices to trim a ballooning fuel-subsidy bill. Interest rates and inflation were expected to rise as a result.

(WSJ, 3/1/06, p.A7)

2006 Feb 28, Mexico City officials moved to shut down a US-owned hotel that angered many Mexicans when it kicked out a Cuban delegation under pressure from Washington. The Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel would be closed because it was in violation of building codes. The hotel could reopen when it had corrected the violations and paid a $15,000 fine. The threat of closure was dropped the next day.

(AP, 3/1/06)(AP, 3/2/06)

2006 Feb 28, Some 4,000 Mexican miners struck copper mines owned by the operator of the coal mine where 65 men died in an explosion last week.

(AP, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, Nigerian separatist militants stormed a tanker ship working in the Niger Delta and took a large sum of cash, 12 days after they kidnapped nine foreign oil workers from another vessel. The insurgent spokesman said the tanker captain had parted with 500,000 naira as a "goodwill token" during the encounter, although a shipping industry source put the sum at two million naira (15,500 dollars / 13,000 euros).

(AFP, 3/1/06)

2006 Feb 28, In Peru 2 buses crashed head-on in the southern Andes, killing 12 people, including one American tourist. Nearly 50 people were injured.

(AP, 3/2/06)

2006 Feb 28, A top UN envoy said Sudan has begun a campaign to keep African Union troops in Darfur and prevent a UN force from taking over efforts to restore peace there. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi rejected the replacement of an AU force in the Sudanese region of Darfur by UN peacekeepers.

(AP, 2/28/06)

2006 Feb 28, Uganda's main opposition party pledged to challenge President Yoweri Museveni's re-election in court, charging that many people were barred from voting and some returns were falsified.

(AP, 2/28/06)



2007 Feb 28, The US government said the nation has 754,000 homeless people, filling emergency shelters through the year and spilling into special seasonal shelters in the coldest months.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, A federal judge in Miami ruled that suspected al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla was competent to stand trial on terrorism support charges, rejecting arguments that he was severely damaged by 3 1/2 years of interrogation and isolation in a military brig.

(AP, 2/28/08)

2007 Feb 28, Sen. John McCain made it official that he is seeking the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and said he plans a formal announcement in April.

(Reuters, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, A US military court in Florida sentenced Air Force Capt. Devery L. Taylor to 50 years in prison for raping 4 men and attempted rape of 2 others. A day earlier the court had found him guilty of drugging and kidnapping servicemen he had picked up in bars.

(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A3)

2007 Feb 28, Albert Facchiano (96), a Genovese family mobster, pleaded guilty in Florida to racketeering conspiracy. His arrest record dated back 75 years.

(SFC, 3/1/07, p.A4)

2007 Feb 28, A group of 12 North Korean refugees has arrived in the United States to seek asylum, the largest group from the communist nation to have recently defected there.

(AP, 3/1/07)

2007 Feb 28, In Michigan Thomas Katona, a former county treasurer of a Lake Huron vacation community, was ordered to stand trial on charges that he looted $186,500 in public funds for a Nigerian investment scam. Katona was treasurer of Alcona County from 1993 until his dismissal late in 2006. On June 12 Katona (56) was sentenced for up to 14 years in prison.

(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 6/12/07)

2007 Feb 28, Wall Street rebounded fitfully from the previous session's 416-point plunge in the Dow industrials as investors took comfort from comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that he still expected moderate economic growth.

(AP, 2/28/08)

2007 Feb 28, A US study said more than one-third of American women are infected with human papilloma virus (HPV) by the time they are 24 years old. Overall about one-quarter of women under age 60 are infected at any given time.

(SFC, 2/28/07, p.A5)

2007 Feb 28, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (89), the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and "court philosopher" of the Kennedy administration, died in NY. He remained a proud liberal even as others dared not use the word. In 2007 Penguin Press published his “Journals: 1952-2000."

(AP, 3/1/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.85)(Econ, 10/20/07, p.116)

2007 Feb 28, Martin Metal (88), a Berkeley sculptor, musician and poet, died.

(SFC, 3/17/07, p.B5)

2007 Feb 28, In Belgium a mother killed her five children, then tried to commit suicide at the family's home. The four girls and a boy, aged between 4 and 14, were stabbed with a knife. The woman called emergency services, then tried to kill herself.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales officially declared months of deadly flooding a national disaster, committing some $50 million to the crisis that killed 35 people and affected some 72,000 families.

(AP, 3/1/07)

2007 Feb 28, The Church of England's assembly affirmed existing teaching that homosexuality is no bar to full participation in the church but avoided the fractious debate within the Anglican Communion about accepting gay sexual relationships.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Lord Charles Forte (b.1908), Italian-born British businessman, died. He had parlayed a London soda shop in 1934 into one of the world’s largest hospitality businesses. He was knighted in 1970 and in 1982 PM Margaret Thatcher made him Baron of Ripley. He authored an autobiography in 1986.

(WSJ, 3/3/07, p.A4)

2007 Feb 28, Burundi said that it will send 1,700 peacekeepers to Somalia as part of an 8,000-strong African Union force, while the first Ugandan contingent prepared to leave for the war-torn nation.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Djidda Moussa Outman, Chad's minister of foreign affairs, said that Chad had never accepted the idea of a military force of "whatever nature" on its eastern border.

(AP, 3/1/07)

2007 Feb 28, An official report said China's population grew by almost 7 million people last year. China's National Bureau of Statistics said that the country's population was 1,314,480,000 at the end of 2006, an increase of 6.92 million people. Numbers also showed that China will overtake the US this year or in 2008 as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

(AP, 2/28/07)(SFC, 3/5/07, p.A1)

2007 Feb 28, Chinese stocks recovered following their worst plunge in a decade as regulators shifted into damage control, denying rumors of plans for a 20 percent capital gains tax on stock investments. A sandstorm with hurricane-strength wind gusts derailed a train in the far west, killing at least four people and injuring another 30.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, An Egyptian court ordered a freeze on the assets of 29 known financiers of the Muslim brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful opposition movement. An Egyptian with Canadian citizenship on trial for spying for Israel shouted from his courtroom cage that a confession had been extracted under torture.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, European airliner maker Airbus told unions that it would dispose of six factories and switch some work from France to Germany under a plan costing some 10,000 jobs.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, A boat carrying Haitian migrants caught fire off the coast of the Dominican Republic, leaving at least eight passengers dead and 44 missing.

(AP, 3/1/07)

2007 Feb 28, The fifth of six former Guatemalan police officers suspected in the killings of three Salvadoran politicians and their driver turned himself. Prosecutors said the ex-officer allegedly bought the gasoline used to burn the victims.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Honduras named its first ambassador to Cuba in 45 years, completing the restoration of diplomatic ties with communist-run island that were severed during the Cold War.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, In Kashmir Indian officials charged 7 policemen in Srinagar with murdering a man and claiming he was an Islamic militant, the first charges in an alleged plot by officers to kill innocent people and earn rewards.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, In India finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram presented his annual budget speech. As inflation approached 7% he increased funds for education by 34% and money for health and family welfare by 22%. Defense spending was set to increase 7.8%.

(Econ, 3/3/07, p.49)

2007 Feb 28, French author Dominique Lapierre opened the first of 15 schools planned in India with money raised by auctioning an iconic dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Indonesia said it is planning to ban local carriers from operating jetliners more than 10 years old as part of a safety campaign following a string of crashes and accidents.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first visit to Khartoum, for talks with his Sudanese opposite number Omar al-Beshir.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, In Iraq a car bomb killed at least 10 people packed into a Baghdad market. US forces killed 8 suspected militants in a raid north of the city, and captured 6 others in separate operations around Baghdad. Guards outside the Bab al-Sheik police station in central Baghdad fired on a suicide truck bomber as he approached them. The bomber changed course and crashed into a cement barrier, detonating his explosives. An Algerian whose suicide payload was hidden in gas and chlorine bottles, was foiled when his path into Bab al-Sheikh police station in central Baghdad was blocked by a departing policeman's car. Two civilians were killed and two policemen and another civilian were wounded in the blast and exchange of gunfire. Two brothers of a leading Sunni lawmaker were gunned down in Muqdadiyah. In Mosul a high-ranking officer and his driver were killed in a drive-by shooting. The tortured body of another senior police officer was discovered in central Baghdad, about two months after the man disappeared. A US Marine was killed in the western Anbar province. 80 al-Qaida members were killed and 50 captured in fierce clashes between al-Qaida and residents of the village of Amiriyat near Fallujah, 45 kilometers (25 miles) west of Baghdad. The US military could not confirm the report. In 2010 video was made public of Iraqi police who appeared to lynch the failed suicide bomber at the Bab al-Sheikh police station. The police were shown stamping on the bomber's head and kicking his body and faced human rights charges.

(AP, 2/28/07)(AP, 3/1/07)(AP, 3/2/07)(AFP, 5/1/10)

2007 Feb 28, Syria said it would participate in a Baghdad-organized conference of Iraq's neighbors that the US plans to attend. Iran said it was considering whether to take part.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of Jenin and raided the nearby city of Nablus for the second time this week, placing tens of thousands of people under curfew.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Italian Premier Romano Prodi kept his fractious center-left coalition together to win a confidence vote in the Senate, ensuring the immediate survival of his nine-month-old government.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Japan and Russia looked to expand trade despite rocky relations as they agreed to cooperate on nuclear energy and in preventing disasters in disputed islands.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Officials said Japan has decided to pull its whaling fleet out of the Antarctic and end this year's whale hunt early after a deadly fire crippled its mother ship.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, In Namibia hundreds of people protested a visit by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, holding signs reading, "Go home dictator." The local National Society for Human Rights called Mugabe's three-day state visit an insult to Namibia.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, In Nigeria at least 50 people were feared dead when a ferry sank on the Nun River in the southern state of Bayelsa.

(AFP, 3/2/07)

2007 Feb 28, An air force helicopter crashed in Peru's highlands, killing 3 military personnel and injuring an army general who commanded a military base in the area.

(AP, 3/1/07)

2007 Feb 28, Vladimir Nikolayev, the mayor of Vladivostok, was stripped of his authority amid a criminal investigation into suspect land deals and embezzlement in the latest bout of corruption to hit the long-troubled Pacific port.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, Sri Lanka escalated sea and land attacks against Tamil Tigers and killed at least 18 people.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, A Swiss court acquitted seven men of providing logistical support to a Saudi terror cell in the first Swiss trial of alleged al-Qaida associates.

(AP, 2/28/07)

2007 Feb 28, It was reported that international developers planned a $4 billion resort and casino complex in Vietnam. The project, dubbed Ho Tram, would be on the South China Sea, a 2-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City.

(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.B1)



2008 Feb 28, The Pew Center on the States reported that 1% of adult Americans are in jail or prison, an all-time high that cost state governments nearly $50 billion a year in addition to over $5 billion spent by the federal government. The US led the world in the percentage of residents incarcerated with China a distant second.

(SFC, 2/29/08, p.A7)

2008 Feb 28, It was reported that Aluminum Bahrain BSC had filed suit in federal court in Pittsburgh accusing Alcoa Corp. of a 15-year conspiracy involving overcharging, fraud and bribery.

(WSJ, 2/28/08, p.A1)

2008 Feb 28, California’s Second District Court of Appeal ruled that California law requires parents to send their children to full-time public or private schools, or have them taught by credentialed tutors at home. The ruling put an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants. On March 7 Gov. Schwarzenegger denounced the ruling and promised to change the law if necessary to guarantee that parents are able to educate their children at home. On August 8 a state appeals court ruled that parents have a right to educate their children at home even if they lack a teaching credential.

(SFC, 3/7/08, p.A1)(SFC, 3/8/08, p.A1)(SFC, 8/9/08, p.A1)

2008 Feb 28, It was reported that California state Senator Leland Yee has introduced a bill to let Daly City purchase the 68-acre Cow Palace property, owned by the state, and tear it down for redevelopment.

(SFC, 2/28/08, p.A1)

2008 Feb 28, Under threat of legal action SF returned $2.7 million to the US Justice Dept. and promised to pay the rest. This was half of the $5.4 million it had received from 2004-2006 to prosecute alleged border crimes. Federal officials added demands for another $300,000 that SF received in 2007. The grants had been processed by Brad Burgess of the Public Resource management Group in Roseville, Ca.

(SFC, 4/10/08, p.A1)

2008 Feb 28, In SF the new InterContinental Hotel opened at Fifth and Howard streets just in time for the 75th annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.

(SSFC, 2/24/08, p.C1)

2008 Feb 26, In SF the New College of California received official word that the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) had revoked accreditation. The school was forced to close later this year. Kaushal Niroula, an exchange student from Nepal, contributed significantly to the school’s closure following a binge of graft and murder.

(SFC, 2/28/08, p.B1)(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.A1)

2008 Feb 28, At the TED conference in Monterey, Ca., Geneticist Craig Venter, who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans, said he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

(AFP, 2/28/08)

2008 Feb 28, In Las Vegas two vials of ricin were found a manager at the Extended Stay America motel. 2 days earlier police had found firearms and an “anarchist type textbook" there. Roger Von Bergendorff (57) was the last to stay in the room, and has been in critical condition since calling an ambulance on Feb. 14 complaining of respiratory distress. In April Bergendorff was indicted on federal charges that included possession of a biological toxin. Bergendorff was convicted and sentenced in November to 3½ years in federal prison.

(AP, 3/1/08)(SFC, 3/3/08, p.A4)(SFC, 4/23/08, p.A3)(SFC, 11/18/08, p.A8)

2008 Feb 28, Joseph M. Juran (b.1904), pioneer of quality control, died. Juran’s 80-20 rule states that that 80% of a firms problems stem from 20% of causes. He called this his Pareto principle, after Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), an Italian economist who noted that 20% of the population owned 80% of the property in Italy. Juran’s “Quality and Control Handbook" (1951) made his reputation. In 2004 he authored his memoir “Architect of Quality."

(WSJ, 3/8/08, p.A7)

2008 Feb 28, In Afghan four militants died and another was wounded when the roadside bomb they were planting on a main road in Helmand exploded prematurely.

(AP, 2/28/08)

2008 Feb 28, In western Antarctica a 160-square mile chunk of ice on the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf began collapsing. It had been there for some 1,500 years. In 2010 scientists suggested that break was the result of gravity waves generated by a series of storms on the coast of Patagonia.

(SFC, 3/26/08, p.A4)(Econ, 2/20/10, p.79)

2008 Feb 28, In Bangladesh a ferry carrying more than 100 people collided with a cargo vessel and capsized in a river near Dhaka, killing at least 39 people with 20 missing.

(AP, 2/28/08)(AP, 2/29/08)

2008 Feb 28, A bitterly divided Bolivian Congress approved a national vote on President Evo Morales' proposed constitution, which would grant greater political power to Bolivia's long-oppressed indigenous groups.

(AP, 2/29/08)

2008 Feb 28, In Bulgaria a night train traveling from Sofia to the northeastern town of Kardam caught fire. Officials said at least eight people died, adding that the toll could rise.

(AP, 2/29/08)

2008 Feb 28, The presidents of resource-hungry China and oil-rich Nigeria met ahead of the planned signing of energy deals in Beijing's latest overture to an African nation.

(AFP, 2/28/08)

2008 Feb 28, In China at least 14 miners were missing after a cave-in at the Jianbao Coal Minein Jixi city. The mine owners in northeastern Heilongjiang province initially concealed the number of missing workers.

(AP, 3/12/08)

2008 Feb 28, Cuba's government signed two key international human rights treaties that Fidel Castro long opposed, but said it had reservations about some provisions and accused the United States of impeding the Cuban people's enjoyment of their rights.

(AP, 2/28/08)

2008 Feb 28, In Ecuador a landslide caused some 4,000 barrels of oil to spill from its main pipeline contaminating Coca River.

(www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/02/america/LA-FIN-Ecuador-Pipeline.php)

2008 Feb 28, The European Court of Human Rights ruled that a government may not deport an individual to a state where he may be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

(Econ, 3/1/08, p.63)

2008 Feb 28, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, following talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki in South Africa, announced a "renegotiation" of all French military accords with African nations, arguing that France no longer had a "policing" role to play on the continent. French power giant Alstom announced a 1.36 billion euro (two-billion-dollar) contract for the construction of a coal-fuelled power plant in South Africa which is suffering from a severe electricity shortage.

(AFP, 2/28/08)

2008 Feb 28, In Paris the body of former top model Katoucha Niane (47) was found in the River Seine. The former model and speaker against female circumcision went missing in January. Her 2007 book, "Katoucha, In My Flesh," described her own experience with female circumcision at age 9.

(AP, 2/29/08)(AP, 3/7/08)

2008 Feb 28, An Indonesian court rejected a civil case against the youngest son of ex-dictator Suharto for alleged corruption and awarded him 550,000 dollars in a countersuit he filed.

(AP, 2/28/08)

2008 Feb 28, In Iraq the US military captured an insurgent leader who was recruiting and training women, including his wife, to wrap themselves in explosives and blow themselves up, the latest sign that al-Qaida in Iraq plans to keep using women to carry out suicide attacks.

(AP, 3/1/08)

2008 Feb 28, Kenya's rival politicians, aided by AU chairman Jakaya Kikwete, signed a power-sharing agreement and shook hands after weeks of bitter negotiations on how to end the country's deadly postelection crisis.

(AP, 2/28/08)(Econ, 3/1/08, p.49)

2008 Feb 28, Israeli aircraft struck a series of targets throughout the Gaza Strip, killing 15 Palestinians, including 5 boys. Palestinian rocket fire continued throughout the day, lightly wounding two people. Hamza al-Haya, the son of hardline Hamas lawmaker Khalil al-Haya, was among those killed. Hamas said he had commanded a rocket-launching squad in northern Gaza.

(AP, 2/28/08)(SFC, 2/29/08, p.A10)

2008 Feb 28, Liberia's Health Minister Walter Gwanigale said health services are chronically understaffed with only 51 native doctors in the west African nation.

(AP, 2/28/08)

2008 Feb 28, The Madhesi in southern Nepal pledged to end violent protests and a paralyzing general strike after reaching an agreement with the government to establish autonomous regions in the Himalayan nation. 2 days after the Madhesi agreement the government signed another agreement with a 2nd alliance of ethnic and regional groups.

(AP, 2/28/08)(Econ, 3/8/08, p.50)

2008 Feb 28, In Pakistan a predawn explosion killed up to 12 suspected militants in South Waziristan. A US drone was suspected.

(SFC, 2/29/08, p.A10)

2008 Feb 28, Neil Bush, younger brother of US President George W. Bush, called on Paraguay's Pres. Nicanor Duarte as the guest of a business federation founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

(AP, 3/1/08)

2008 Feb 28, Swedish and Norwegian authorities cracked down on terror financing, arresting six people in what Swedish investigators said were coordinated raids in Stockholm and Oslo.

(AP, 2/28/08)

2008 Feb 28, Former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra vowed to clear his name on corruption charges and called for national unity as he flew home to a jubilant welcome from thousands of supporters.

(AP, 2/28/08)



2009 Feb 28, In Louisiana 3 ½ years after Hurricane Katrina, the National Guard pulled the last of its troops out of New Orleans, leaving behind a city still desperate and dangerous.

(AP, 2/28/09)

2009 Feb 28, A fishing boat from Clearwater, Florida, capsized as the four friends were pulling up the anchor. Nick Schuyler was rescued on March 2. Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper, free-agent defensive lineman Corey Smith and former University of South Florida player William Bleakley remained missing.

(AP, 3/3/09)

2009 Feb 28, Paul Harvey (b.1918), news commentator and talk-radio pioneer, died in Arizona. His staccato style made him one of the nation's most familiar voices. Harvey had been heard nationally since 1951, when he began his "News and Comment" for ABC Radio Networks.

(AP, 3/1/09)(SSFC, 3/1/09, p.A12)

2009 Feb 28, Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered that presidential elections be held by April, months earlier than the August 20 date set by a voting authority, after lawmakers said they would not recognize him as president after May 22. Afghan security soldiers killed four militants in a clash in the southern province of Uruzgan.

(AP, 2/28/09)(AFP, 3/1/09)

2009 Feb 28, In Algeria an army operation in the mountains of Blida province, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Algiers killed 6 Islamist militants. One militant was killed on Feb 26 before the army took the rest of the group by surprise. Another 16 were reported killed during a search operation near Soulahane.

(AFP, 3/2/09)(AFP, 3/3/09)

2009 Feb 28, China's legislature enacted a tough new food safety law, promising tougher penalties for makers of tainted products in the wake of scandals that exposed serious flaws in monitoring of the nation's food supply.

(AP, 2/28/09)

2009 Feb 28, A US Marine died in a non-combat related incident in Iraq's western Anbar province.

(AP, 3/1/09)

2009 Feb 28, Two rockets fired from Gaza crashed into southern Israel, one into a school that was closed for the weekend in the coastal city of Ashkelon and another into an open field.

(AP, 2/28/09)

2009 Feb 28, Police in southern Mexico found the body of Rolando Landa, head of security in the township of La Union, near the Pacific beach town of Zihuatanejo. The body was accompanied by threatening messages apparently left by members of the Familia Michoacana drug gang. Two police officers in the town of Praxedis Guerrero, just south of the border town of Ciudad Juarez, were shot dead in their patrol vehicle.

(AP, 2/28/09)(AP, 3/1/09)

2009 Feb 28, Pakistani officers said troops have defeated Taliban militants in the Bajur region near the Afghan border and are close to victory in the tribal region of Mohmand after a grinding offensive.

(AP, 2/28/09)

2009 Feb 28, In Panama Tomas Altamirano Mantovani (49), a prominent ruling party lawmaker and son of a former vice president, died in a traffic accident.

(AP, 2/28/09)

2009 Feb 28, The yacht Serenity, with two crew from the Seychelles on board, left the islands en route to Madagascar and disappeared. One of the crew called his family on March 24, saying he was being held by Somali pirates and begging for help.

(AP, 3/25/09)

2009 Feb 28, Somalia's new Pres. Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said the government and an Islamic insurgent group have reached a cease-fire deal, days after dozens of civilians were killed in fighting in Mogadishu.

(AP, 2/28/09)

2009 Feb 28, In Thailand prominent activists from military-ruled Myanmar and Cambodia were barred from a meeting with Southeast Asian leaders (ASEAN), upstaging the opening of the annual summit billed as a historic step toward greater human rights in the region.

(AP, 2/28/09)

2009 Feb 28, President Hugo Chavez ordered troops to intervene in Venezuelan rice processing businesses, saying some have balked at producing under regulated prices.

(AP, 2/28/09)

2009 Feb 28, In Zimbabwe Pres. Robert Mugabe told followers at his lavish $250,000 birthday party to respect the new power-sharing government but vowed to press on with seizures of white farms. A melee broke out in a dining hall among thousands lined up for a free meal of porridge and vegetables. Soldiers used truncheons to maintain order.

(AFP, 2/28/09)(SSFC, 3/1/09, p.A5)



2010 Feb 28, The US White House called for a "simple up-or-down" vote on health care legislation as Speaker Nancy Pelosi appealed to House Democrats to get behind President Barack Obama's chief domestic priority even it if threatens their political careers.

(AP, 2/28/10)

2010 Feb 28, In Afghanistan a roadside bomb planted by the Taliban killed 11 civilians in the southern province of Helmand. A security worker was killed in main Qalat town of Zabul province when his vehicle was hit by a similar bomb. Elsewhere in Zabul five insurgents were killed during clashes between Afghan security forces and militants.

(AP, 2/28/10)

2010 Feb 28, In Brazil workers cleared some 80 tons of dead fish from Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro. Increased levels of harmful algae were suspected as the cause of the fie-off.

(SFC, 3/1/10, p.A2)

2010 Feb 28, Canada beat the USA in an extraordinary men's ice hockey final to capture a record 14th gold medal and end the Vancouver Winter Olympics on top of the world. The victory at a single Winter Games surpassed the previous mark of 13 jointly held by the Soviet Union (Innsbruck, 1976) and Norway (Salt Lake City, 2002). The USA also set a record for the most overall medals at a single Winter Olympics with 37, one more than Germany in 2002.

(Reuters, 2/28/10)

2010 Feb 28, In the Central African Republic Uganda's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) kidnapped at least 23 people from the southeastern village of Yalinga after pillaging the police station, the hospital and a safari shop.

(AFP, 3/3/10)

2010 Feb 28, In China a bus veered off a sleet-covered road and plunged into a reservoir in Zhengzhou city in central Henan province killing 19 people and injuring 7 others.

(AP, 3/3/10)

2010 Feb 28, A UN-backed military operation against Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was launched. The operation will involve 18 battalions from the Congolese FARDC army in a series of targeted attacks throughout north and south Kivu provinces in Congo's conflict-racked east.

(AP, 3/4/10)

2010 Feb 28, Dubai police said forensic tests show a Hamas operative, who was killed on Jan 19 in his hotel room by an alleged Israeli hit squad, was drugged with a fast-acting muscle relaxant and then suffocated with a pillow.

(AP, 2/28/10)

2010 Feb 28, The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities announced that archaeologists have unearthed the massive head of one Egypt's most famous pharaohs who ruled nearly 3,400 years ago. Amenhotep III, the grandfather of Tutankhamun, ruled from 1387-1348 B.C. at the height of Egypt's New Kingdom and presided over a vast empire stretching from Nubia in the south to Syria in the north.

(AP, 2/28/10)

2010 Feb 28, A violent late winter storm named Xynthia battered France, Spain, Portugal and Germany with fierce rain and hurricane-strength winds. The storm smashed sea walls and killed at least 62 people across western Europe.

(AP, 2/28/10)(AP, 3/1/10)(SFC, 3/2/10, p.A2)

2010 Feb 28, The leader of the armed Basque group ETA was arrested in France, in another setback for the separatists, who have seen five of their commanders taken into custody in the last two years. Eta chief Ibon Gogeascoechea and two other suspected separatists, Jose Ayestaran and Beinat Aginagalde, were arrested in a joint French-Spanish police operation in the village of Cahan, France.

(AP, 2/28/10)(Econ, 3/6/10, p.69)

2010 Feb 28, Guatemalan Pres. Alvaro Colom announced that he has fired Interior Minister Raul Velasquez for alleged corruption and replaced him with Carlos Menocal, a former journalist. Local media said that Velasquez authorized a $6.2 million contract with a private company to buy fuel for police but that the company embezzled the money.

(AP, 3/1/10)

2010 Feb 28, In Israel 16 people including two Israeli policemen were wounded in clashes at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound, after police entered to arrest Palestinians who had hurled rocks at visitors they believed were Jewish extremists.

(AFP, 2/28/10)

2010 Feb 28, In Mexico Red Cross volunteer Maria Rogers (20) was killed by a stray bullet when gunmen went into a Red Cross hospital in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, trying to finish off a man who had been shot minutes earlier. The man survived.

(AP, 3/1/10)

2010 Feb 28, In Myanmar Sai Thein Win, a former major in the army, defected and brought papers confirming Myanmar’s intent, if not yet capacity, to enrich uranium and eventually build a bomb.

(Econ, 6/12/10, p.48)(http://tinyurl.com/35vxtvh)

2010 Feb 28, In Saudi Arabia Indian PM Manmohan Singh pitched for investment in his economy and closer petroleum sector cooperation with Saudi Arabia, the second day of a visit to the Middle East oil giant.

(AFP, 2/28/10)

2010 Feb 28, In Switzerland operators restarted the Large Hadron Collider following a winter shutdown for improvements.

(SFC, 3/1/10, p.A2)

2010 Feb 28, Tajikistan held parliamentary elections. The Central Elections Commission said that 85% of the country's 3.5 million eligible voters had cast ballots. The main government-backed party was set to coast to the easiest of victories. President Emomali Rakhmon's two-decade grip on power remained as strong as ever. An initial tally showed the government-backed party with 71.7% and the main opposition Islamic Revival Party with just 7.7%. Int’l. monitors from the OSCE said that while the vote was peaceful, it was marred by ballot-box stuffing and proxy voting.

(AP, 2/28/10)(AP, 3/1/10)

2010 Feb 28, Thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of three provinces for a second successive day to demand the independence of the country's south.

(AFP, 2/28/10)



2011 Feb 28, A Pentagon official said the US military is repositioning naval and air forces around Libya, as international demands intensify for an end to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's decades-long rule.

(Reuters, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, US and South Korean troops launched major annual land, sea and air exercises, amid North Korean threats to turn Seoul into a "sea of flames" in the event of any provocation.

(AFP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Leaders of Boise County, Idaho, decided to file for bankruptcy.

(Econ, 12/3/11, p.89)(http://tinyurl.com/47wjr9z)

2011 Feb 28, In Texas 3 people suspected of smuggling guns to Mexico were arrested in a Dallas suburb after federal investigators traced the gun used in the killing of a US agent in Mexico to one of them.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, It was reported that California's AeroVironment has built the world's first hummingbird spy plane. The Pentagon had asked them to develop a pocket-sized aircraft for surveillance and reconnaissance that mimicked biology.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Legendary pinup star Jane Russell (89) died of respiratory failure. The screen legend shot to fame in the '40s after starring in Howard Hughes' 1941 western, 'The Outlaw.' She also starred in 1953's 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' alongside Marilyn Monroe.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, In Afghanistan 4 NATO service members, including a 37-year-old Italian lieutenant, were killed by roadside bombs and an insurgent attack. 8 Afghan policemen left their checkpoint in Helmand province and never returned. The bodies of 4 of the policemen were found the next day. A bombing in the east killed two coalition troops.

(AP, 2/28/11)(AP, 3/1/11)

2011 Feb 28, In Argentina former Argentine dictators Jorge Videla, who headed a military junta from 1976 to 1981, and the last dictator of the military regime, Reynaldo Bignone (1982-1983), appeared in court to face charges for the first time for kidnapping hundreds of babies seized from their mothers in secret maternity units minutes after birth.

(AFP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Global witness, a corruption watchdog, said Teodorin Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator of 30 years, has commissioned plans to build a super-yacht costing $380 million, nearly three times what the country spends on health and education each year. UN statistics showed that 20% of the country’s children die before reaching the age of 5.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Egypt's top prosecutor seized all the funds of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak and his family and banned them from travel abroad.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, The European Union slapped its own arms embargo, visa ban and other sanctions on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Indian police said they have arrested Sanjay Shah, the manager of a company that made intravenous fluids suspected of killing 13 pregnant women at Umaid Hospital in Jodhpur. The deaths occurred over a 13-day period from February 13.

(AFP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Iran's state prosecutor says all outside contact with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, the country's two opposition leaders, has been cut as part of a campaign to silence dissent.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Iraq's PM Nouri al-Maliki called for new provincial elections following anti-government protests that killed 14 people last week in a demonstration of the simmering anger many Iraqis feel at a government they say fails to provide basic services.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Israeli police demolished two structures at an unauthorized West Bank outpost. This was followed by new hints from PM Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel could soon be forced to curb construction in the settlements.

(AP, 3/1/11)

2011 Feb 28, Libyan rebels downed a military aircraft as they fought a government bid to take back Libya's third city, Misrata. French PM Francois Fillon said that France was sending two planes with humanitarian aid to Benghazi, the opposition stronghold in eastern Libya. Libya's oil chief said production was down 50 percent because of the exodus of foreign oil workers fleeing the country's violent uprising. Al Jazeera reported that the beleaguered Kadhafi regime has asked Bu Zaid Dorda, Libya's foreign intelligence chief, to hold a dialogue with opposition leaders in eastern Libya. Rebel forces repelled attackers at Misrata.

(Reuters, 2/28/11)(AP, 2/28/11)(AFP, 2/28/11)(AP, 3/1/11)

2011 Feb 28, Mexican officials said police have captured Victor Torres Garcia, the alleged leader of a drug gang that calls itself "The Resistance," a group that operates in western Mexico. The army reported it had detained a female Michoacan state police officer who was traveling in a convoy of vehicles with eight assault rifles, ammunition and a bag of marijuana seeds. The bodies of five men were reported found dangling from bridges over a highway in the coastal city of Mazatlan. Gunmen killed four Guerrero state police officers as they drove near the state capital of Chilpancingo. In Ciudad Juarez assailants opened fire on a car, killing two men, a woman and a 10-year-old boy.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, In Oman protesters set a supermarket ablaze and rallied at two places in the seaside town of Sohar in a third consecutive day of unrest that has included deadly clashes in the strategic Gulf nation. Police did not respond to today's protest.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Hamas moved swiftly to break up a small demonstration in Gaza City where people called for Palestinian reconciliation. Hamas police arrested a protest organizer, seizing a tape from a German TV crew showing a security official slapping the man.

(AP, 3/1/11)

2011 Feb 28, Somali pirates northeast of the Omani port of Salalah hijacked the MV Dover, a Greek-owned cargo vessel with 23 crew on board.

(AP, 2/28/11)

2011 Feb 28, Spanish nuns in Zaragoza first reported €1.5 million ($2 million) were stolen, then lowered the figure to €400,000 ($556,000). Plastic bags stuffed with cash were stolen from a convent, whose cloistered nuns include one who is a well-paid artist. Sister Isabel is well-known in Spanish art circles for realist-style portraits and still-life paintings. Police later said a judge will probe the possibility of tax evasion.

(AP, 3/9/11)

2011 Feb 28, In Venezuela union leader Ruben Gonzalez was sentenced to 7½ years in prison on charges related to a 2009 strike he led that temporarily paralyzed the state-run iron mining company, CVG Ferrominera Orinoco CA, better known as Ferrominera. On March 3 Gonzalez was granted parole but would be required to appear before authorities every 15 days.

(AP, 3/3/11)(AP, 3/4/11)

2011 Feb 28, Vietnam’s state-controlled Tuoi Tre newspaper reported that Nguyen Dan Que (69), one of the country’s most prominent pro-democracy dissidents, was being held by police in Ho Chi Minh City for allegedly acting to overthrow the government. His house was searched on Feb 26. Police allegedly found 60,000 documents on his computer calling for a revolution.

(AP, 2/28/11)



2012 Feb 28, In the US Republican primaries Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, won 41% to Rick Santorum's 38% in Michigan. Romney won Arizona with 48% to Santorum's 26%, with 76% of the vote counted.

(SFC, 2/29/12, p.A6)

2012 Feb 28, In Texas Dr. Jacques Roy of Rockwell and 6 associates were arrested and charged with recruiting homeless people, among other, as part of a $375 million home health care fraud scheme.

(SFC, 2/29/12, p.A6)

2012 Feb 28, William Hamilton (b.1924), theologian and proponent of the death of God movement, died in Portland, Oregon.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hamilton_%28theologian%29)

2012 Feb 28, A coalition of environment groups called for the world's largest marine reserve to be declared in Antarctica's Ross Sea to prevent "industrial scale" fishing ruining the pristine ecosystem.

(AFP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, Argentina's Industry Minister Debora Giorgi called on firms importing British products to buy substitute goods elsewhere, amid rising tension over the disputed Falkland islands.

(AFP, 2/29/12)

2012 Feb 28, British police and bailiffs cleared an anti-capitalist camp from outside St Paul's cathedral in London, ending a four-month protest which resonated with Britons angered by huge bonuses awarded to bankers during an economic slowdown.

(Reuters, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, In China riots in the volatile region of Xinjiang left at least 12 people dead.

(AFP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, In China an explosion at a chemical plant near Shijiazhuang city, capital of Hebei province, left 25 people dead and 46 injured.

(AFP, 3/4/12)

2012 Feb 28, A Colombian high court unseated Viviane Morales, the country's chief prosecutor, on the grounds that she was improperly elected. Her marriage to an ex-congressman tied to drug lords had cast a shadow over her tenure.

(AP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, In Colombia 7 oil workers were seized in Arauca, on the border with Venezuela. The FARC and the ELN were active in the area.

(Econ, 3/3/12, p.48)

2012 Feb 28, Cuban doctors successfully extracted a tumor from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's pelvic region and he was stable and recovering with family at his side.

(AP, 2/29/12)

2012 Feb 28, In Egypt all three judges pulled out of the trial of 43 pro-democracy workers, including 16 Americans, throwing into question the case that has ripped US-Egypt relations.

(AP, 2/29/12)

2012 Feb 28, Egyptians voted the Shura Council, a feeble upper house of parliament. Voter turnout shrank to 6.5%.

(Econ, 3/10/12, p.58)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shura_Council)

2012 Feb 28, The EU announced the withdrawal of its envoys from Belarus, hours after Belarus asked the head of the EU's delegation in Minsk and the Polish ambassador to leave and said it was withdrawing its own from Brussels and Warsaw. The tit-for-tat followed EU sanctions passed a day earlier on Belarus over repression of the political opposition.

(AP, 2/29/12)

2012 Feb 28, Paris-based Interpol said 25 suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America.

(SFC, 2/29/12, p.A4)

2012 Feb 28, The French Constitutional Assembly struck down a draft law that would have criminalized the denial of the (1915-1919) Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turks.

(SFC, 2/29/12, p.A2)

2012 Feb 28, Greece’s Parliament approved cutbacks of $4.31 billion aimed at bringing the 2012 budget in line with targets.

(SFC, 2/29/12, p.A2)

2012 Feb 28, In Guatemala a civilian helicopter crashed in bad weather, injuring three aboard in northern Peten province. A Guatemalan air force helicopter sent to help went down soon afterward, killing its 10 crew and passengers.

(AP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, Iran’s head of the central bank said Iran will accept gold for trade payments, along with agreed currencies of other nations. The remarks suggested Iran was broadening its payment system in the face of increasingly tough financial sanctions imposed by the West over Tehran's controversial nuclear program.

(AFP, 2/29/12)

2012 Feb 28, Israeli forces engaged in a firefight overnight with gunmen who infiltrated from Egypt's Sinai peninsula, killing one.

(AFP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, Lesotho PM Pakalitha Mosisili resigned from the faction-riven ruling party that he led in power since 1998 to join a new movement.

(AFP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, In Nigeria assailants attacked Gamboru Primary School just after dawn and then, just over 3 miles (5 km) away, razed a newly renovated, secular coeducational school to the ground in the northeastern city of Maiduguri.

(AP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, Armed pirates opened fire on a cargo ship in an attack off the Nigerian coast, kidnapping the captain and chief engineer and robbing the crew before escaping. The assault targeted a Dutch-owned, Curacao-flagged, refrigerated cargo ship anchored near the coast.

(AFP, 2/29/12)

2012 Feb 28, In northern Pakistan gunmen wearing military uniforms stopped a convoy of buses, ordered selected passengers to get off and then killed 16 of them in a grisly sectarian attack in the remote Kohistan region. The Jandullah faction of the Pakistani Taliban, one of the country's deadliest and best organized militant groups, claimed responsibility.

(AP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, In Pakistan a Chinese woman was shot dead with a male companion in Peshawar. They were killed by gunmen on motorbikes while walking in the Kohati bazaar.

(AFP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, In southern Russia at least 8 people were reported killed and 12 injured after a section of a nine-story apartment building collapsed following a natural gas explosion.

(AP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, In Somalia gunmen shot down Abukar Hassan Kadaf, the head of the Somaliweyn radio station in Mogadishu.

(AFP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, Activists of the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page said that Baba Amr was bombarded for the 25th straight day by regime forces. At least five civilians died in Baba Amr. Five Syrian soldiers were killed in fighting against deserters in the southern province of Daraa. Wounded British photographer Paul Conroy (47) escaped overnight from Homs to Lebanon. 13 Syrian activists were killed trying to help Le Figaro journalist Edith Bouvier and Conroy and to bring in aid to Baba Amr. Bouvier remained trapped in Baba Amr.

(AFP, 2/28/12)(AFP, 2/29/12)

2012 Feb 28, A Thailand court sentenced media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul (64), one of the kingdom's most controversial political figures, to 20 years in prison for corporate fraud. Sondhi is the founder of the royalist "Yellow Shirt" protest movement.

(AP, 2/28/12)

2012 Feb 28, In Zimbabwe Richard Mubaiwa (31), a member of the country’s Central Intelligence Organization, was accused of demanding $10,000 from the head of the scandal-plagued national football association to protect him from assassination.

(AFP, 2/29/12)



2013 Feb 28, US Army Pvt. Bradley Manning (25), accused of providing secret documents to the WikiLeaks website, pleaded guilty to misusing classified material he felt "should become public," but denied the top charge of aiding the enemy.

(Reuters, 2/28/13)

2013 Feb 28, International Rivers, a Berkeley-based nonprofit, won a MacArthur Foundation prize worth $750,000 for its work opposing dams and helping countries and corporations around the world find alternative energy sources.

(SFC, 2/2/13, p.C1)

2013 Feb 28, Donald A. Glaser (b.1926), UC Berkeley physicist and inventor of the bubble chamber, died in Berkeley. In 1960 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A1)(SFC, 2/19/13, p.C6)

2013 Feb 28, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded control of clandestine Afghan armed groups that are linked to US-led forces amid complaints of abuses by the units. A roadside bomb in Kunar province killed nine people, mostly border policemen. Two brothers, 11 and 12, were killed with their 2 donkeys when a coalition helicopter fired at what they thought were insurgent forces in the Shahid-e Hasas district of Uruzgan province.

(AP, 2/28/13)(SSFC, 2/3/13, p.A7)

2013 Feb 28, In Bangladesh a special tribunal sentenced Delwar Hossain Sayedee (73), a leader of an Islamic political party, to death for crimes during the nation's 1971 war for independence. The decision sparked violent protests that left at least 67 people dead across the nation. Jamaat-e-Islami enforced a nationwide general strike to denounce the trial and demand that Sayedee be freed from detention. On Sep 17, 2014, the sentence was commuted to life in prison.

(AP, 2/28/13)(Econ, 3/9/13, p.49)(AP, 9/17/14)

2013 Feb 28, Bruce Reynolds (81), the mastermind of the 1963 "Great Train Robbery" in Britain that brought its perpetra