28 February

Events

Pre-1600

*202 BC – Liu Bang is enthroned as the Emperor of China, beginning four centuries of rule by the Han dynasty.
* 870 – The Fourth Council of Constantinople closes.
*1525 – Aztec king Cuauhtémoc is executed on the order of conquistador Hernán Cortés.

1601–1900

*1638 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.
*1835 – Elias Lönnrot signed and dated the first version of the '' Kalevala'', the so-called foreword to the ''Old Kalevala''.

1901–present

*1922 – The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over Egypt through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
*1925 – The Charlevoix-Kamouraska earthquake strikes northeastern North America.
*1947 – February 28 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of an estimated 30,000 civilians.
*1948 – Christiansborg Cross-Roads shooting in the Gold Coast, when a British police officer opens fire on a march of ex-servicemen, killing three of them and sparking major riots and looting in Accra.
*1953 – James Watson and Francis Crick announce to friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on April 25 following publication in April's '' Nature'' (pub. April 2).
*1958 – A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunges down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork river. The driver and 26 children die in what remains one of the worst school bus accidents in U.S. history.
*1959 – '' Discoverer 1'', an American spy satellite that is the first object intended to achieve a polar orbit, is launched but fails to achieve orbit.
*1966 – A NASA T-38 Talon crashes into the McDonnell Aircraft factory while attempting a poor-visibility landing at Lambert Field, St. Louis, killing astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett.
*1972 – China–United States relations: The United States and China sign the Shanghai Communiqué.
*1974 – The British election ended in a hung parliament after the Jeremy Thorpe-led Liberal Party achieved their biggest vote.
*1975 – In London, an underground train fails to stop at Moorgate terminus station and crashes into the end of the tunnel, killing 43 people.
*1980 – Andalusia approves its statute of autonomy through a referendum.
*1983 – The final episode of '' M*A*S*H'' airs, with almost 106 million viewers. It still holds the record for the highest viewership of a season finale.
*1985 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army carries out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.
*1986 – Olof Palme, 26th Prime Minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm.
*1991 – The first Gulf War ends.
*1993 – The 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 ATF agents and six Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.
*1995 – Former Australian Liberal party leader John Hewson resigns from the Australian parliament almost two years after losing the 1993 Australian federal election.
*1997 – An earthquake in northern Iran is responsible for about 3,000 deaths.
* 1997 – GRB 970228, a highly luminous flash of gamma rays, strikes the Earth for 80 seconds, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way.
* 1997 – A Turkish military memorandum resulted with collapse of the government in Turkey.
*2001 – The 2001 Nisqually earthquake, having a moment magnitude of 6.8, with epicenter in the southern Puget Sound, damages Seattle metropolitan area.
*2002 – During the religious violence in Gujarat, 97 people are killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre and 69 in the Gulbarg Society massacre.
*2004 – Over one million Taiwanese participate in the 228 Hand-in-Hand rally form a long human chain to commemorate the February 28 Incident in 1947.
*2005 – A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq kills 127.
*2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pope to do so since Pope Gregory XII, in 1415.

Births

Pre-1600

*1261 – Margaret of Scotland, Queen of Norway (d. 1283)
*1518 – Francis III, Duke of Brittany, Duke of Brittany (d. 1536)
*1533 – Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher and author (d. 1592)
*1535 – Cornelius Gemma, Dutch astronomer and astrologer (d. 1578)
*1552 – Jost Bürgi, Swiss mathematician and clockmaker (d. 1632)

1601–1900

*1675 – Guillaume Delisle, French cartographer (d. 1726)
*1683 – René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, French entomologist and academic (d. 1757)
*1704 – Louis Godin, French astronomer and academic (d. 1760)
*1848 – Arthur Giry, French historian and academic (d. 1899)
*1858 – Tore Svennberg, Swedish actor and director (d. 1941)
*1866 – Vyacheslav Ivanov, Russian poet and playwright (d. 1949)
*1878 – Pierre Fatou, French mathematician and astronomer (d. 1929)
*1884 – Ants Piip, Estonian lawyer and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Estonia (d. 1942)
*1887 – William Zorach, Lithuanian-American sculptor and painter (d. 1966)
*1894 – Ben Hecht, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1964)
*1896 – Philip Showalter Hench, American physician and endocrinologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1965)
*1898 – Zeki Rıza Sporel, Turkish footballer (d. 1969)

1901–present

*1901 – Linus Pauling, American chemist and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
*1906 – Bugsy Siegel, American gangster (d. 1947)
*1907 – Milton Caniff, American cartoonist (d. 1988)
*1908 – Billie Bird, American actress (d. 2002)
*1909 – Stephen Spender, English author and poet (d. 1995)
*1915 – Ketti Frings, American author, playwright, and screenwriter (d. 1981)
* 1915 – Peter Medawar, Brazilian-English biologist and immunologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1987)
*1919 – Alfred Marshall, American businessman, founded Marshalls (d. 2013)
*1920 – Jadwiga Piłsudska, Polish soldier, pilot, and architect (d. 2014)
*1921 – Marah Halim Harahap, Indonesian military officer, Governor of North Sumatra (d. 2015)
*1922 – Radu Câmpeanu, Romanian politician (d. 2016)
*1924 – Robert A. Roe, American soldier and politician (d. 2014)
*1925 – Harry H. Corbett, Burmese-English actor (d. 1982)
*1928 – Stanley Baker, Welsh actor and producer (d. 1976)
* 1928 – Tom Aldredge, American actor (d. 2011)
* 1928 – Sylvia del Villard, actress, dancer, choreographer and Afro-Puerto Rican activist (d. 1990)
*1929 – Hayden Fry, American football player and coach (d. 2019)
* 1929 – John Montague, American-Irish poet and academic (d. 2016)
* 1929 – Frank Gehry, Canadian-born American architect and designer
*1930 – Leon Cooper, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
*1931 – Peter Alliss, English golfer and sportscaster (d. 2020)
*1931 – Gavin MacLeod, American actor, Christian activist, and author (d. 2021)
* 1931 – Len Newcombe, Welsh footballer and scout (d. 1996)
*1932 – Don Francks, Canadian actor, singer, and jazz musician (d. 2016)
*1933 – Rein Taagepera, Estonian political scientist and politician
*1937 – Jeff Farrell, American swimmer
*1939 – Daniel C. Tsui, Chinese-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
* 1939 – Tommy Tune, American actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer
*1942 – Frank Bonner, American actor and television director (d. 2021)
* 1942 – Brian Jones, English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (d. 1969)
* 1942 – Dino Zoff, Italian footballer
*1943 – Barbara Acklin, American singer-songwriter (d. 1998)
*1944 – Edward Greenspan, Canadian lawyer and author (d. 2014)
* 1944 – Sepp Maier, German footballer and manager
* 1944 – Storm Thorgerson, English graphic designer (d. 2013)
*1945 – Bubba Smith, American football player and actor (d. 2011)
*1946 – Robin Cook, Scottish educator and politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (d. 2005)
* 1946 – Syreeta Wright, American singer-songwriter (d. 2004)
*1948 – Steven Chu

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