Today in History (28 February 2008)

[istanbul]

EVENTS

• 202 BC - this day marks the coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han, initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty's rule over China
• 364 - Valentinian I is elevated as Roman Emperor.
• 870 - The Fourth Council of Constantinople closes.
• 1700 - Today is followed by March 1 in Sweden, thus creating the Swedish calendar.
• 1710 - In the Battle of Helsingborg, 14,000 Danish invaders under Jørgen Rantzau are decisively defeated by an equally sized Swedish force under Magnus Stenbock.
• 1784 - John Wesley charters the Methodist Church.
• 1787 - Charter granted establishing the institution now known as the University of Pittsburgh.
• 1827 - The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.
• 1838 - Robert Nelson, leader of the Patriotes, proclaim the independence of Lower Canada (today Québec)
• 1844 - A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing two United States Cabinet members and several others.
• 1849 - Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 21 days after leaving New York Harbor.
• 1850 - The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• 1854 - The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
• 1861 - Colorado is organized as a United States territory.
• 1870 - The Bulgarian Exarchate is established by decree of Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1883 - The first vaudeville theater opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1885 - The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York State as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone. (American Bell would later merge with its subsidiary.)
• 1897 - Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch in Madagascar, was deposed by a French military force.
• 1900 - The Second Boer War: The 118-day "Siege of Ladysmith" is lifted.
• 1922 - The United Kingdom accepts the independence of Egypt.
• 1933 - Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag Fire Decree is passed in Germany a day after the Reichstag fire.
• 1935 - Nylon is invented by Wallace Carothers.
• 1939 - The first issue of Serbian weekly magazine Politikin zabavnik was published.
• 1939 - The word "Dord" is discovered in the Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigation.
• 1940 - Basketball is televised for the first time (Fordham University vs. the University of Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden).
• 1942 - The heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) is sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed.
• 1947 - 228 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down at a loss of 30,000 civilian lives.
• 1953 - James D. Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; formal announcement April 25 following publication in April Nature (pub. April 2).
• 1958 – A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children die in what remains the worst school bus accident in U.S. history.
• 1960 - The United States defeats Czechoslovakia 9-4 in ice hockey to win the gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California.
• 1972 - Sino-American relations: The United States and People's Republic of China sign the Shanghai Communiqué.
• 1974 - After seven years, the United States and Egypt re-establish diplomatic relations.
• 1975 - A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London kills 43 people.
• 1983 - The final episode of M*A*S*H is broadcast in the USA, becoming the most watched television episode in history, with 106–125 million viewers in the U.S. (estimate varies by source).
• 1985 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.
• 1986 - Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm.
• 1991 - First Gulf War ends.
• 1993 - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.
• 1997 - The North Hollywood shootout takes place.
• 1998 - First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.
• 1998 - Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.
• 2001 - The Nisqually Earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale hits the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the U.S. state of Washington.
• 2001 - Six passengers and four railway staff are killed and a further 82 people suffer serious injuries in the Selby rail crash.
• 2002 - At least 55 are killed in Ahmadabad, India when Hindus burn Muslim homes.
• 2004 - Over 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (300-mile) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947
• 2005 - Lebanon's pro-Syrian prime minister, Omar Karami, resigns amid large anti-Syria street demonstrations in Beirut.
• 2005 - A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq kills 127.
• 2007 - Jupiter flyby of the New Horizons Pluto-observer spacecraft.

BIRTHS


1978 - Jamaal Tinsley, American basketball player
1978 - Mariano Zabaleta, Argentine tennis player
1979 - Sébastien Bourdais, French racing driver
1979 - Michael Bisping, English mixed martial artist
1979 - Ivo Karlović, Croatian tennis player
1979 - Primož Peterka, Slovenian ski jumper
1980 - Pascal Bosschaart, Dutch footballer
1980 - Lucian Bute, Romanian-born Quebec boxer
1980 - Piotr Giza, Polish footballer
1980 - Tayshaun Prince, American basketball player
1981 - Brian Bannister, American baseball player
1981 - Florent Serra, French tennis player
1982 - Natalia Vodianova, Russian supermodel
1984 - Ben Fagan, American musician and reality show contestant
1984 - Karolína Kurková, Czech supermodel
1985 - Fefe Dobson, Canadian singer
1985 - Jelena Janković, Serbian tennis player
1987 - Kerrea Gilbert, English footballer
1988 - Markéta Irglová, Czech songwriter and actress
1989 - Zhang Liyin, Chinese R&B singer
1991 - Sarah Bolger, Irish actress
2007 - Princess Lalla Khadija of Morocco


DEATHS


1993 - Ishiro Honda, Japanese film director (b. 1911)
1993 - Ruby Keeler, Canadian actress and dancer (b. 1910)
1998 - Dermot Morgan, Irish actor and comedian (b. 1952)
1998 - Arkady Shevchenko, Soviet diplomat (b. 1930)
1999 - Christine Glanville, British Puppeteer (. 1924)
2002 - Mary Stuart, American actress (b. 1926)
2002 - Helmut Zacharias, German violinist (b. 1920)
2003 - Chris Brasher, English athlete (b. 1928)
2003 - Fidel Sánchez Hernández, President of El Salvador (b. 1917)
2003 - Roger Michael Needham, British cryptographer (b. 1935)
2003 - Rudolf Kingslake, Lens designer, and Engineer (b. 1903)
2004 - Daniel J. Boorstin, American historian, writer, and Librarian of Congress (b. 1914)
2004 - Carmen Laforet, famed Spanish novelist
2004 - Andres Nuiamäe, Estonian soldier (b. 1982)
2006 - Owen Chamberlain, American physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1920)
2007 - Baron Charles Forte, Italian-born hotelier (b. 1908)
2007 - Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. American historian and political commentator (b.1917)
2007 - Billy Thorpe, Australian musician (Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs) (b. 1946)

 

[temi]

• 1986 - Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm.

I remember the day this happened, the guy was coming out from the cinema