http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Feb 26, 1919: Two national parks preserved, 10 years apart
On this day in history, two national parks were established in the United States 10 years apart--the Grand Canyon in 1919 and the Grand Tetons in 1929.
Located in northwestern Arizona, the Grand Canyon is the product of millions of years of excavation by the mighty Colorado River. The chasm is exceptionally deep, dropping more than a mile into the earth, and is 15 miles across at its widest point. The canyon is home to more than 1,500 plant species and over 500 animal species, many of them endangered or unique to the area, and it's steep, multi-colored walls tell the story of 2 billion years of Earth's history.
In 1540, members of an expedition sent by the Spanish explorer Coronado became the first Europeans to discover the canyon, though because of its remoteness the area was not further explored until 300 years later. American geologist John Wesley Powell, who popularized the term "Grand Canyon" in the 1870s, became the first person to journey the entire length of the gorge in 1869. The harrowing voyage was made in four rowboats.
In January 1908, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt designated more than 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon a national monument; it was designated a national park under President Woodrow Wilson on February 26, 1919.
Ten years later to the day, President Calvin Coolidge signed into law a bill passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress establishing the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Home to some of the most stunning alpine scenery in the United States, the territory in and around Grand Teton National Park also has a colorful human history. The first Anglo-American to see the saw-edged Teton peaks is believed to be John Colter. After traveling with Lewis and Clark to the Pacific, Colter left the expedition during its return trip down the Missouri in 1807 to join two fur trappers headed back into the wilderness. He spent the next three years wandering through the northern Rocky Mountains, eventually finding his way into the valley at the base of the Tetons, which would later be called Jackson Hole.
Other adventurers followed in Colter's footsteps, including the French-Canadian trappers who gave the mountain range the bawdy name of "Grand Tetons," meaning "big breasts" in French. For decades trappers, outlaws, traders and Indians passed through Jackson Hole, but it was not until 1887 that settlers established the first permanent habitation. The high northern valley with its short growing season was ill suited to farming, but the early settlers found it ideal for grazing cattle.
Tourists started coming to Jackson Hole not long after the first cattle ranches. Some of the ranchers supplemented their income by catering to "dudes," eastern tenderfoots yearning to experience a little slice of the Old West in the shadow of the stunning Tetons. The tourists began to raise the first concerns about preserving the natural beauty of the region.
In 1916, Horace M. Albright, the director of the National Park Service, was the first to seriously suggest that the region be incorporated into Yellowstone National Park. The ranchers and businesses catering to tourists, however, strongly resisted the suggestion that they be pushed off their lands to make a "museum" of the Old West for eastern tourists.
Finally, after more than a decade of political maneuvering, Grand Teton National Park was created on February 26, 1929. As a concession to the ranchers and tourist operators, the park only encompassed the mountains and a narrow strip at their base. Jackson Hole itself was excluded from the park and designated merely as a scenic preserve. Albright, though, had persuaded the wealthy John D. Rockefeller to begin buying up land in the Jackson Hole area for possible future incorporation into the park. In 1949, Rockefeller donated his land holdings in Jackson Hole to the federal government that then incorporated them into the national park. Today, Grand Teton National Park encompasses 309,993 acres. Working ranches still exist in Jackson Hole, but the local economy is increasingly dependent on services provided to tourists and the wealthy owners of vacation homes.
Feb 26, 1993: World Trade Center bombed
At 12:18 p.m., a terrorist bomb explodes in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, leaving a crater 60 feet wide and causing the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors in the vicinity of the blast. Although the terrorist bomb failed to critically damage the main structure of the skyscrapers, six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured. The World Trade Center itself suffered more than $500 million in damage. After the attack, authorities evacuated 50,000 people from the buildings, hundreds of whom were suffering from smoke inhalation. The evacuation lasted the whole afternoon.
City authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undertook a massive manhunt for suspects, and within days several radical Islamic fundamentalists were arrested. In March 1994, Mohammed Salameh, Ahmad Ajaj, Nidal Ayyad, and Mahmoud Abouhalima were convicted by a federal jury for their role in the bombing, and each was sentenced to life in prison. Salameh, a Palestinian, was arrested when he went to retrieve the $400 deposit he had left for the Ryder rental van used in the attack. Ajaj and Ayyad, who both played a role in the construction of the bomb, were arrested soon after. Abouhalima, who helped buy and mix the explosives, fled to Saudi Arabia but was caught in Egypt two weeks later.
The mastermind of the attack--Ramzi Ahmed Yousef--remained at large until February 1995, when he was arrested in Pakistan. He had previously been in the Philippines, and in a computer he left there were found terrorist plans that included a plot to kill Pope John Paul II and a plan to bomb 15 American airliners in 48 hours. On the flight back to the United States, Yousef reportedly admitted to a Secret Service agent that he had directed the Trade Center attack from the beginning and even claimed to have set the fuse that exploded the 1,200-pound bomb. His only regret, the agent quoted Yousef saying, was that the 110-story tower did not collapse into its twin as planned--a catastrophe that would have caused thousands of deaths.
Eyad Ismoil, who drove the Ryder van into the parking garage below the World Trade Center, was captured in Jordan that year and taken back to New York. All the men implicated had ties to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a radical Egyptian religious leader who operated out of Jersey City, New Jersey, located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. In 1995, Rahman and 10 followers were convicted of conspiring to blow up the United Nations headquarters and other New York landmarks. Prosecutors argued that the World Trade Center attack was part of that conspiracy, though little clear evidence of this charge was presented.
In November 1997, Yousef and Ismoil were convicted in a courtroom only a few blocks away from the twin towers and subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Only one other man believed to be directly involved in the attack, Iraqi Abdul Rahman Yasin, remains at large.
After the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, U.S. investigators began to suspect that Yousef had ties to Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the head of the anti-U.S. al Qaeda terrorist network. Whether bin Laden was in fact involved in the 1993 twin tower attacks has not been determined, but on September 11, 2001, two groups of al Qaeda terrorists finished the job begun by Yousef, crashing two hijacked airliners into the north and south tower of the World Trade Center. The structural steel of the skyscrapers could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel, and both collapsed within two hours of being struck. Close to 3,000 people died in the World Trade Center and its vicinity, including a staggering 343 firefighters and 23 policemen who were struggling to complete the evacuation and save the office workers trapped on higher floors. Only six people in the World Trade Center towers at the time of their collapse survived. Almost 10,000 other people were treated for injuries, many severe.
Feb 26, 1990: Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections
A year after agreeing to free elections, Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government loses at the polls. The elections brought an end to more than a decade of U.S. efforts to unseat the Sandinista government.
The Sandinistas came to power when they overthrew long-time dictator Anastacio Somoza in 1979. From the outset, U.S. officials opposed the new regime, claiming that it was Marxist in its orientation. In the face of this opposition, the Sandinistas turned to the communist bloc for economic and military assistance. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan gave his approval for covert U.S. support of the so-called Contras—anti-Sandinista rebels based mostly in Honduras and Costa Rica. This support continued for most of the Reagan administration, until disapproval from the American public and reports of Contra abuses pushed Congress to cut off funding.
In 1989, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega met with the presidents of El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala to hammer out a peace plan for his nation. In exchange for promises from the other nations to close down Contra bases within their borders, Ortega agreed to free elections within a year. These were held on February 26, 1990. Ortega and the Sandinistas suffered a stunning defeat when Violeta Barrios de Chamarro, widow of a newspaper editor assassinated during the Somoza years, polled over 55 percent of the presidential vote. The opposition also captured the National Assembly.
Chamarro's election was a repudiation of over 10 years of Sandinista rule that had been characterized by a destructive war with the Contras and a failing economic system. The United States saw Chamarro's victory as validation of its long-time support of the Contras, and many analysts likened the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas to the crumbling of communist regimes in Eastern Europe during the same period. Critics of the U.S. policy toward Nicaragua retorted that negotiations among the Central American presidents had brought free elections to Nicaragua—which nearly 10 years of American support of armed conflict had been unable to accomplish.
In the wake of the election, the administration of President George Bush immediately announced an end to the U.S. embargo against Nicaragua and pledged new economic assistance. Though rumors flew that the Sandinista-controlled army and security forces would not accept Chamarro, she was inaugurated without incident. The Sandinistas, however, continued to play a role in Nicaraguan politics and still actively campaign for, and occasionally win, political office.
Feb 26, 1935: Hitler organizes Luftwaffe
On February 26, 1935, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler signs a secret decree authorizing the founding of the Reich Luftwaffe as a third German military service to join the Reich army and navy. In the same decree, Hitler appointed Hermann Goering, a German air hero from World War I and high-ranking Nazi, as commander in chief of the new German air force.
The Versailles Treaty that ended World War I prohibited military aviation in Germany, but a German civilian airline--Lufthansa--was founded in 1926 and provided flight training for the men who would later become Luftwaffe pilots. After coming to power in 1933, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler began to secretly develop a state-of-the-art military air force and appointed Goering as German air minister. (During World War I, Goering commanded the celebrated air squadron in which the great German ace Manfred von Richthofen--"The Red Baron"--served.) In February 1935, Hitler formally organized the Luftwaffe as a major step in his program of German rearmament.
The Luftwaffe was to be uncamouflaged step-by-step so as not to alarm foreign governments, and the size and composition of Luftwaffe units were to remain secret as before. However, in March 1935, Britain announced it was strengthening its Royal Air Force (RAF), and Hitler, not to be outdone, revealed his Luftwaffe, which was rapidly growing into a formidable air force.
As German rearmament moved forward at an alarming rate, Britain and France protested but failed to keep up with German war production. The German air fleet grew dramatically, and the new German fighter--the Me-109--was far more sophisticated than its counterparts in Britain, France, or Russia. The Me-109 was bloodied during the Spanish Civil War; Luftwaffe pilots received combat training as they tried out new aerial attack formations on Spanish towns such as Guernica, which suffered more than 1,000 killed during a brutal bombing by the Luftwaffe in April 1937.
The Luftwaffe was configured to serve as a crucial part of the German blitzkrieg, or "lightning war"--the deadly military strategy developed by General Heinz Guderian. As German panzer divisions burst deep into enemy territory, lethal Luftwaffe dive-bombers would decimate the enemy's supply and communication lines and cause panic. By the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Luftwaffe had an operational force of 1,000 fighters and 1,050 bombers.
First Poland and then Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France fell to the blitzkrieg. After the surrender of France, Germany turned the Luftwaffe against Britain, hoping to destroy the RAF in preparation for a proposed German landing. However, in the epic air battle known as the Battle of Britain, the outnumbered RAF fliers successfully resisted the Luftwaffe, relying on radar technology, their new, highly maneuverable Spitfire aircraft, bravery, and luck. For every British plane shot down, two German warplanes were destroyed. In the face of British resistance, Hitler changed strategy in the Battle of Britain, abandoning his invasion plans and attempting to bomb London into submission. However, in this campaign, the Luftwaffe was hampered by its lack of strategic, long-range bombers, and in early 1941 the Battle of Britain ended in failure.
Britain had handed the Luftwaffe its first defeat. Later that year, Hitler ordered an invasion of the USSR, which after initial triumphs turned into an unqualified disaster. As Hitler stubbornly fought to overcome Russia's bitter resistance, the depleted Luftwaffe steadily lost air superiority over Europe in the face of increasing British and American air attacks. By the time of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Luftwaffe air fleet was a skeleton of its former self.
Feb 26, 1968: Mass graves discovered in Hue
Allied troops who had recaptured the imperial capital of Hue from the North Vietnamese during the Tet Offensive discover the first mass graves in Hue.
It was discovered that communist troops who had held the city for 25 days had massacred about 2,800 civilians whom they had identified as sympathizers with the government in Saigon. One authority estimated that communists might have killed as many as 5,700 people in Hue.
The Tet Offensive had begun at dawn on the first day of the Tet holiday truce (January 30), when Viet Cong forces, supported by large numbers of North Vietnamese troops, launched the largest and best coordinated offensive of the war. During the attack, they drove into the center of South Vietnam's seven largest cities and attacked 30 provincial capitals ranging from the Delta to the DMZ. Among the cities taken during the first four days of the offensive were Hue, Dalat, Kontum, and Quang Tri; in the north, all five provincial capitals were overrun. At the same time, enemy forces shelled numerous allied airfields and bases. By February 10, the offensive was largely crushed, but resulted in heavy casualties on both sides.
Feb 26, 1928: Fats Domino is born in New Orleans
"I'm worried about all the people in New Orleans. Tell them I love them, and I wish I was home with them. I hope we'll see them soon." That was the message that Fats Domino most wanted broadcast to the rest of the world when he the press first caught up with him in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Reported missing and feared dead, the blues, R&B and rock-and-roll legend had in fact been rescued from the rising waters around his home in Lower Ninth Ward the night after the levees broke. His reluctance to evacuate and his eagerness to return to New Orleans were typical of the man so closely identified with the city of his birth. Antoine Dominique Domino was born in New Orleans on this day in 1928.
Antoine Domino was the youngest of eight children born into a Creole family that spoke French as its first language. Domino's father was a fiddle player, but it was his much older brother-in-law, Harrison Verrett, who taught young Antoine the piano. By age 10, Antoine was playing professionally in New Orleans honky-tonks, where he earned the nickname "Fats" from bandleader Bill Diamond. In 1949, he caught the eye and ears of trumpeter, band leader and Imperial Records talent scout Dave Bartholomew, and a legendary partnership was born.
The first record Fats Domino put out with Bartholomew as his producer/collaborator was 1949's "The Fat Man," a big, foot-stomping boogie-woogie that established Domino's signature sound. Over the next half-decade, Domino's backbeat-heavy, rolling piano played a vital role in defining the shape of rock and roll. "Ain't That A Shame" needed a boost from Pat Boone's white-bread cover version before finding its way to the pop charts in 1955, but that breakthrough paved the way for two more top-five pop hits in "Blueberry Hill" and "I'm Walkin'" in 1956 and 1957, respectively. After three decades as a major international star—a star who sold an estimated 65 million records worldwide—Domino went into semi-retirement in the 1980s, announcing that he would no longer travel outside his native New Orleans. A man of his word, Domino was not enticed to travel even to be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy, a National Medal of the Arts from President Bill Clinton or induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Domino remained a neighborhood fixture in the Ninth Ward, however, living in his colorful double-shotgun mansion and making occasional forays out to local clubs in his enormous, bright-pink Cadillac. Not surprisingly, Fats Domino returned to New Orleans as soon as he could following Hurricane Katrina.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
747 BC - Epoch (origin) of Ptolemy's Nabonassar Era.
364 - Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor.
1266 - Battle of Benevento fought in Southern Italy between
Manfred of Sicily and army of Charles of Anjou
1534 - Pope Paul II affirms George van Egmond as bishop of
Utrecht
1590 - Mauritius of Nassaus sails to Breda
1616 - Spanish Inquisition delivers injunction to Galileo
1732 - 1st mass celebrated in 1st American Catholic church,
St Joseph's, Philadelphia
1773 - Construction authorized for Walnut St jail (Phila)
(1st solitary)
1794 - Christiansborg Castle, Copenhagen burns down.
1797 - Bank of England issues 1st £1-note
1804 - Vice-admiral William Bligh ends siege of Fort
Amsterdam, Willemstad
1815 - Napoleon & 1,200 leave Elba to start 100-day
re-conquest of France
1832 - Polish constitution abolished/replaced by Tsar
Nicholas I
1834 - 1st US interstate crime compact (NY-NJ) ratified
1839 - Jem Mason on Lottery wins 1st Grand National
Steeplechase (Britain)
1848 - 2nd French Republic proclaimed
1848 - Marx & Engels publish "Communist
Manifesto"
1852 - British frigate Birkenhead sinks off South Africa-458
die
1859 - Paul Morphy's chess match vs Augustus Mongredien
begins; Morphy wins
Astronomer & Physicist Galileo GalileiAstronomer &
Physicist Galileo Galilei 1862 - Battle of Woodburn, KY
1863 - Lincoln signs National Currency Act
1866 - New York Legislature forms NYC Metropolitan Board of
Health
1869 - 15th Amendment guaranteeing right to vote sent to
states
1869 - Franz Schubert's "4th Tragic," premieres
1870 - 1st NYC subway line opens (pneumatic powered)
1881 - -27] Natal: British troops under gen-major Colley
occupy Majuba Hill
1881 - SS Ceylon begins 1st round-the-world cruise from
Liverpool
1884 - British & Portuguese treaty signed in Congo by
Leopold II
1885 - Congress of Berlin, gives Congo to Belgium &
Nigeria to England
1887 - George Lohmann took 1st 8-wkt haul in Test Crickets,
8-35 at SCG
1891 - 1st buffalo purchased for Golden Gate Park
1891 - Henrik Ibsens "Hedda Gabler," premieres in
Oslo
1893 - 2 Clydesdale horses set record by pulling 48 tons on
a sledge, Mich
1893 - Einar Halvorsen skates world record 500m (48 sec)
Composer Franz SchubertComposer Franz Schubert 1895 -
Michael Owens of Toledo, Ohio patents a glass-blowing machine
1907 - Royal Oil & Shell merge to form British Petroleum
(BP)
1907 - US Congress raised their own salaries to $7500
1912 - Coal miners strike in England (settle on 03/01)
1914 - New York Museum of Science & Industry
incorporated
1914 - HMHS Britannic, sister to the Titanic, is launched at
Harland & Wolff, Belfast.
1915 - Malancourt, Argonnen (1st (German) flame-thrower
1916 - Germans sink French transport ship Provence II,
killing 930
1916 - Mutual signs Charlie Chaplin to a film contract
1916 - Russian troops conquer Kermansjah Persia
1917 - 1st Annual fair at Utrecht Harbor (Netherlands)
1918 - Stands at Hong Kong Jockey Club collapse & burn,
killing 604
1919 - Acadia National Park forms (as Lafayette N P), Maine
1919 - Congress forms Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona
1923 - Italian nationalist & fascists merge (blue-shirts
& black-shirts)
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 1924 - Trial against Hitler in Munich begins
1925 - Jihad-Saint war against Turkish government
1926 - Dark Street in the Bronx renamed Lustre Street
1929 - Pres Calvin Coolidge establishes Grand Teton National
Park
1930 - "Green Pastures" opens at Mansfield Theater
1930 - 1st red & green traffic lights installed
(Manhattan NYC)
1930 - West Indies make 1st Test Cricket win, by 289 runs
over England
1933 - Golden Gate Bridge ground-breaking ceremony held at
Crissy Field
1933 - Marinus van der Lubbe kept overnight in a police cell
1935 - Germany begin Luftwaffe operations, under
Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering
1935 - NY Yankees release Babe Ruth, he signs with Boston
Braves
1935 - RADAR-Radio Detection & Ranging 1st demonstrated
(Robert Watson-Watt)
1935 - The Luftwaffe is re-formed.
1936 - Hitler introduces Ferdinand Porsche's
"Volkswagen"
1936 - Military coup in Japan
Baseball Great Babe RuthBaseball Great Babe Ruth 1937 - C
Isherwood/WH Auden's "Ascent of F6," premieres in London
1938 - 1st passenger ship equipped with radar
1938 - Rie Van Veen swims world record 200m free style
(2:24.6)
1938 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Joan
Tozzer
1938 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Robin Lee
1940 - US Air Defense Command forms at Mitchel Field, LI, NY
1941 - 2 fighters unable to continued slugfest, referee
declares double KO
1941 - Cowboys' Amateur Association of America organized
(California)
1941 - Utrecht & Zaandam strike against raid on Jews
1941 - Vichy-France makes religious education in school
mandatory
1942 - German battle cruiser Gneisenau deactivated by bomb
1942 - Radio Orange calls for March 1 day of prayer in Dutch
Indies
1942 - WW II Navy flier Don Mason sends message
"Sighted sub sank same"
1942 - Werner Heisenberger informs nazis about uranium
project "Wunderwaffen"
1943 - German assault moves to Beja North Tunisia
1944 - 1st female US navy captain, Sue Dauser of nurse
corps, appointed
1945 - Very heavy bombing on Berlin by 8th US Air Force
1946 - 2 killed & 10 wounded in race riot in Columbia
Tenn
1949 - USAF plane began 1st nonstop around-the-world flight
1950 - Leonard Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety,"
premieres in NYC
1951 - Bread rationing in Czechoslovakia
1952 - Neth-Indonesian Unity conference
Soldier, Author and British Prime Minister Winston
ChurchillSoldier, Author and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill 1952 - PM
Winston Churchill announces Britain has its own atomic bomb
1953 - Allen W Dulles, promoted from deputy to 5th director
of CIA
1954 - 1st typesetting machine (photo engraving) used,
Quincy Mass
1954 - Michigan rep Ruth Thompson (R) introduces legislation
to ban mailing "obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy" phonograph (rock
& roll) records
1955 - "Peter Pan" closes at Winter Garden Theater
NYC after 149 performances
1955 - 1st aviator to bail out at supersonic speed-GF Smith
1956 - Betsy Rawls wins LPGA Sarasota Golf Open
1956 - Writers and poets Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes meet
at a party in Cambridge
1960 - Soviet premier Khrushchev voices support for
Indonesia
1960 - USA's David Jenkins wins Olympic Gold for men's
figure skating
1960 - Verne Gagne beats Doctor X in Omaha, to become NWA
wrestling champ
1962 - Arthur Kopit's "Oh, Dad, Poor Dad . . .,"
premieres in NYC
1962 - US Supreme court disallows race separation on public
transportation
1962 - Wilt Chamberlain of NBA Phila Warriors scores 67
points vs NY
1965 - Dutch government of Marijnen falls
1965 - West Germany ceases military aid to Tanzania
1966 - KBIM TV channel 10 in Roswell, NM (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1967 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1967 - Verne Gagne beats Mad Dog Vachon in St Paul, to
become NWA champ
1968 - Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist)
final transmission
1970 - "Georgy" opens at Winter Garden Theater NYC
for 4 performances
1970 - Beatles release "Beatles Again" aka
"Hey Jude" album
1971 - Secretary-General U Thant signs United Nations
proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.
1972 - Dam break in WV kills 107
1972 - Slag heap dam collapses above Buffalo Creek WV, kills
125
1973 - Triple Crown horse Secretariat bought for a record
$5.7m
1974 - Gold hits record $188 an ounce in Paris
1975 - "Night... Made America Famous" opens at
Barrymore NYC for 75 perfs
1975 - 1st televised kidney transplant (Today Show)
1976 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1977 - 1st flight of Space Shuttle (atop a Boeing 747)
1978 - Ira Levin's "Deathtrap," premieres in NYC
1978 - Nancy Lopez wins LPGA Bent Tree Golf Classic
1979 - Last total eclipse of Sun in 20th century for
continental US
1980 - Egypt & Israel exchange ambassadors for 1st time
1980 - Milt coup under Desi Bouterse in Suriname
1980 - R Hadlee scores Test Cricket century v Roberts,
Garner, Holding, Croft
1981 - 3 Anglican missionaries detained in Iran since Aug
1980 are released
1981 - 84 penalties (406 mins) assessed for a brawl between
NHL Minn & Bost
1981 - French Train Grande Vitesse averages 380 kph on trial
run
1982 - Test Cricket debut of Martin Crowe, v Australia
Wellington, run out 9
King of Pop Michael JacksonKing of Pop Michael Jackson 1983
- Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album goes to #1 & stays #1 for 37
weeks
1983 - Shortwave pirate Radio USA (Wellsville, NY) begins
transmission
1984 - Last US marines in multinatl peacekeeping force in
Lebanon left Beirut
1984 - Rev Jesse Jackson acknowledges that he called NYC,
"Hymietown"
1984 - Robert Penn Warren, Pulitzer Prize winner, named 1st
US poet laureate
1985 - 27th Grammy Awards: Whats Love Got to Do With It,
Cyndi Lauper wins
1986 - Evert van Benthem wins 14th Frisian 11-Cities skating
race (6:55:16)
1986 - People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
1987 - 1st release of Beatles compact discs
1987 - NASA launches GEOS-H
1987 - NBA's Michael Jordan's 58 points in one game is a Chicago
Bulls record
1987 - Tower Commission probes Iran-Contra affair
1987 - USSR resumes nuclear test at Eastern
Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1987 - Wash blocks 20 Indiana shots tying NBA regulation
game record
1988 - Christa Rotherburger (GDR) skates ladies world record
1000m (1:17.65)
Basketball Superstar Michael JordanBasketball Superstar
Michael Jordan 1989 - "Jerome Robbins' Broadway" opens at Imperial
Theater NYC for 634 perfs
1989 - Betsy King wins LPGA Women's Kemper Golf Open/Helene
Curtis Pro-Am
1989 - Lowest barometric pressure in Netherlands (95.5 hPa)
1989 - NY Yankees announce that Tom Seaver is their new TV
sportscaster
1989 - California court throws out most of Margo Adams's $12
million breach-of- contract suit against Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs
1990 - USSR agrees to withdraw all 73,500 troops from Czech
by July, 1991
1990 - The Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections.
1991 - Asanka Gurusinha scores twin Test Cricket tons v NZ
(119 & 102)
1991 - Bill Veeck & Tony Lazzeri elected to Baseball
Hall of Fame
1991 - Kuwaiti resistance leaders declare they have control
of their capital
1991 - NY-NJ Knights (WLAF) players 1st come together
1992 - "Search & Destroy" opens at Circle in
Sq Theater NYC for 46 perfs
1992 - Irish Supreme Court rules 14 year old rape victim may
get an abortion
1993 - 2nd tallest building in world, NYC World Trade Center
bombed, 7 die
1993 - 9th Soap Opera Digest Awards
1993 - Allan Border beats Gavaskar's record for most Test
Cricket runs 10,123
1994 - St Louis Blues beat Ottawa Senators 11-1
1995 - London finance house of Barings collapse after losses
in Singapore by trader Nick Leeson
1997 - 39th Grammy Awards: Change the World Babyface, Beck
& LeAnn Rimes wins
Talk show host Oprah WinfreyTalk show host Oprah Winfrey
1998 - Oprah Winfrey found not guilty in beef defamation trial brought by Texas
cattlemen
1998 - Steven M Gluckstern completes sale of NY Islanders
1998 - Total solar eclipse in Venezuela-Pacific Ocean (4m09)
2001 - The Taliban destroy two giant Buddha statues in
Bamyan, Afghanistan.
2004 - Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a
plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
2004 - The United States lifts a ban on travel to Libya,
ending travel restrictions to the nation that had lasted for 23 years.
2005 - Hosni Mubarak the president of Egypt orders the
constitution changed to allow multi-candidate presidential elections before
September 2005 by asking Egyptian parliament to amend Article 76 of the
constitution.
2012 - The film The Artist wins five Academy Awards and
becomes the first silent film to win since 1927
2012 - Bus plunges off a cliff in Shanxi, China causing 15
deaths
2012 - Train derailment kills 3 and injures 45 in Burlington,
Ontario
2013 - A flexible battery capable of being charged
wirelessly and folded and stretched is developed
2013 - A hot air balloon crashes in Luxor, Egypt, killing 19
tourists
2013 - A rocket launched from the Gaza strip into Israel
ends the ceasefire since November 2012
1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from the Island of Elba. He then began his second conquest of France. 1848 - The second French Republic was proclaimed. 1863 - U.S. President Lincoln signed the National Currency Act. 1870 - In New York City, the first pneumatic-powered subway line was opened to the public. 1881 - S.S. Ceylon began his world-wide cruise, beginning in Liverpool, England. 1907 - The U.S. Congress raised their own pay to $7500. 1916 - Mutual signed Charlie Chaplin to a film contract. 1919 - In Arizona, the Grand Canyon was established as a National Park with an act of the U.S. Congress. 1929 - U.S. President Coolidge signed a bill creating the Grand Teton National Park. 1930 - New York City installed traffic lights. 1933 - A ground-breaking ceremony was held at Crissy Field for the Golden Gate Bridge. 1945 - In the U.S., a nationwide midnight curfew went into effect. 1952 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed an atomic bomb. 1957 - The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 1979 - "Flatbush" debuted on CBS-TV. 1986 - Corazon Aquino was inaugurated president of the Philippines. Long time President Ferdinand Marcos went into exile. 1987 - The Tower Commission rebuked U.S. President Reagan for failing to control his national security staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair. 1987 - The U.S.S.R. conducted its first nuclear weapons test after a 19-month moratorium period. 1991 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced on Baghdad Radio that Iraqi troops were being withdrawn from Kuwait. 1993 - Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured when a van exploded in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York City. The bomb had been built by Islamic extremists. 1995 - Barings PLC collapsed after a securities dealer lost more than $1.4 billion by gambling on Tokyo stock prices. The company was Britain's oldest investment banking firm. 1998 - A Texas jury rejected an $11 million lawsuit by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey for price drop after on-air comment about mad-cow disease. 1998 - In Oregon, a health panel rules that taxpayers must help to pay for doctor-assisted suicides. 2001 - A U.N. tribunal convicted Bosnian Croat political leader Dario Kordic and military commander Mario Cerkez of war crimes. They had ordered the systematic murder and persecution of Muslim civilians during the Bosnian war. 2002 - In Rome, Italy, a bomb exploded near the Interior Ministry. No injuries were reported. 2009 - Former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic was acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia regarding war crimes during the Kosovo War. 2009 - The Pentagon reveresed its 18-year policy of not allowing media to cover returning war dead. The reversal allowsd some media coverage with family approval.
1815 Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from exile on the island of Elba. 1870 A 312-ft long pneumatic subway was opened in New York City; funding for a larger version never materialized. 1901 Leaders of the Boxer Uprising in China, Chi-hsui and Hsu Cheng-yu, were beheaded. 1919 Grand Canyon National Park was established. 1935 RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) was first demonstrated by Robert Watson-Watt. 1993 A bomb exploded at the World Trade Center in New York. The blast killed six people and injured more than 1,000.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/feb26.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
