MILESFORTIS

February 27

272 – Flavius Valerius Constantinus – Roman Emperor Constantine the Great –  is born in Naissus, Dacia province, now the city of Niš, Serbia.

380 – Under the Edict of Thessalonica, Emperor Theodosius I and his co-emperors, sons Gratian and Valentinian II, declare their wish that all Roman citizens convert to Christianity as defined in the Nicene creed.

1776 – During the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge near Wilmington in North Carolina a battalion of the North Carolina Provincial Congress’ Militia breaks up a loyalist militia that the British governor had recruited to join British forces.

1782 – The House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war in America.

1801 – Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely regarded as responsible for his election to the Presidency.

1902 – During the Second Boer War, Australian soldiers Harry “Breaker” Morant and Peter Handcock are executed in Pretoria after being convicted of war crimes.

1922 – In the case of Leser v. Garnett, the Supreme Court rules against a challenge to the constitutionality of the 19th amendment.

1933 – Germany’s parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire.

1939 –  In the case of NLRB v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp, the Supreme Court rules that the National Labor Relations Board has no authority to force an employer to rehire workers who engage in sit-down strikes.

1943 – The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.

1951 – The 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, limiting Presidents to two terms, is ratified.

1973 – The American Indian Movement occupies Wounded Knee in protest of the federal government.

1991 – After Saddam Hussein orders a full retreat, President Bush announces the liberation of Kuwait, however hostilities continue and retreating Iraqi forces are engaged and bombed so extensively by coalition air forces along Highway 80 from Kuwait City to Safwan Iraq, that it comes to be called the Highway of Death.

2004 – Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is sentenced to death for masterminding the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack.

2010 – An earthquake measuring 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale that strikes central parts of Chile, killing 500 people, and injuring many more, triggers a tsunami which strikes Hawaii

 

February 26

747 BC – According to Roman astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his book the Almagest, the rule of King Nabonassar of Babylon begins at noon on this date and is used by historians for dating historic events.

1616 – Galileo Galilei is formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

1815 – After being exiled there for a year, Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from the Mediterranean island of Elba aboard the brig Inconstant, to again seize control as the Emperor of France.

1869 – The 15th Amendment to the Constitution is sent to the states for ratification.

1907 – Congress raises their own salaries to $7,500 (about $213,000 in today’s dollars)

1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs into law an act of Congress establishing the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signs an executive order establishing the  Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

1933 – The groundbreaking ceremony for the Golden Gate Bridge is held at Crissy Field.

1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be reformed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

1966 – Nasa launches mission AS-201, an unmanned, block 1, Apollo Command and Service Module aboard the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket.

1971 – U.N. Secretary-General U Thant signs a United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.

1980 – As part of the Camp David Accords, Egypt and Israel establish full diplomatic relations.

1991  – Tasked with securing a vital crossroad in the Iraqi town of Al Busayyah, defended by an armored infantry Iraqi force of Battalion strength, the U.S. 2nd Iron Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, commanded by General Frederick M. Franks with the 4th Black Lions Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William C. Feyk,  guarding the flanks, engages and destroys over a dozen Iraqi armored and twice that number of tactical support vehicles, in less that 3 hours, without suffering any casualties

Near coordinate line 73 Easting in the Iraqi desert, squadrons of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Toujour Pret Regiment, find and engage elements of the Iraqi Republican Guards Tawakalna Division’s 18th Brigade and the 12th Armored Division’s 9th Armored Brigade, destroying 55 Iraqi tanks, 45 other armored vehicles with hundreds of Iraqi infantry killed in action and thousands taken prisoner.

1993 – In New York City, a truck bomb parked in the underground garage below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, fails to collapse the tower into the South Tower, but still kills 6 and injures over a 100o people. This failure and the subsequent increase in building access security cause Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda moslem terrorist group to devise the plot to later crash large commercial  aircraft into the towers.

2008 – The New York Philharmonic performs in Pyongyang, North Korea; the first event of its kind to take place in North Korea.

2012 – Trayvon Martin is shot to death in self defense by George Zimmerman while assaulting the Sanford, Florida neighborhood watch coordinator

February 25

1791 –  Congress charters the First Bank of the United States for a term of twenty years.

1799 – Congress passes the Federal Timber Purchasers Act, giving the government authority to purchase wood and land to provide resources for the navy.

1836 – Samuel Colt is granted a U.S. patent for his revolver firearm.

1837 – Thomas Davenport is granted a U.S. patent of his electric printing press.

1843 – Royal Navy Captain Lord George Paulet takes it on his own authority to occupy the Kingdom of Hawaii in the name of Great Britain.

1862 – Congress passes the Legal Tender Act, which President Lincoln signs into law the next day,  and forms the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to print newly issued U.S. paper currency, the United States Note, nicknamed the ‘Greenback’.

1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress.

1901 – The US Steel Corporation is organized under the chairmanship of J. P. Morgan, Sr.

1932 – Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship when he is appointed a Brunswick state official by Dietrich Klagges, a fellow Nazi. As a result, Hitler is able to run for Reichspräsident in the 1932 election.

1933 – CV-4 USS Ranger, the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned by the US Navy, is launched from Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co, at Newport News, Virginia, sponsored by Mrs. Lou Henry Hoover, wife of the President.

1951 – The first Pan American Games are officially opened in Buenos Aires by Argentine President Juan Perón.

1982 – Those who shall remain nameless are eternally grateful that the final episode of The Lawrence Welk Show airs.

1991 – At a meeting in Budapest, the membership decides to disband the Warsaw Pact.
In Dhahran, Saudi Arabia an Iraqi SCUD missile hits a building used as barracks for U.S. forces, killing 27 servicemembers and wounding another 98.

 

February 24

1582 – With the papal bull Inter gravissimas, Pope Gregory XIII announces the Gregorian calendar.

1803 – In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States officially establishes the principle of judicial review.

1831 – Under terms of The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, the Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West.

1863 – Arizona is organized as a Territory.

1868 – Andrew Johnson becomes the first President to be impeached by the  House of Representatives.

1917 – The U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter Hines Page, is given a copy of the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico, if Mexico declares war on the United States.

1920 – The NAZI (National Socialist German Workers’ Party –Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – NSDAP) party is founded by Adolf Hitler in the Hofbräuhaus beer hall in Munich, Germany

1942 – A false alarm, late in the day of attacking Japanese bombers leads to an anti aircraft barrage over the city of Los Angeles that lasts into the early hours of February 25.

1944 – The 5307th Composite Unit ” Merrill’s Marauders” begin their 1,000-mile journey through Japanese occupied Burma to attack an airfield at Myitkyina.

1984 – Opening fire from the 2nd floor room of a house across the street from the 49th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, Tyrone Mitchell kills 1 student and wounds 13 more, with one dying 18 days later, before killing himself after a police swat team enters the house.

1989 – United Airlines Flight 811, a Boeing 747, bound for New Zealand  from Honolulu, rips open during flight, blowing 9 passengers out of the business-class section before returning to Honolulu and landing without further incident

1991 – Having diverted a large percentage of their troops to defend against a threatened amphibious attack on their positions in Kuwait, Iraqi forces are caught off guard as Coalition ground forces cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, beginning the ground phase of Operation Desert Storm

1996 – 2 civilian airplanes operated by the Miami based group Brothers to the Rescue, are shot down in international waters by the Cuban Air Force killing all 2 crew aboard each plane.

2015 – A Metrolink train derails in Oxnard, California following a collision with a truck, leaving more than 30 injured.

2022 – Days after recognizing the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, Russian president Vladimir Putin orders a full scale invasion of Ukraine.