What are the important events that happened on February 28? Here are historical events, facts, and some myths about this day.
February 28: Facts & Myths About This Day
February 28 is the 59th day of the year 2024 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 307 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Wednesday.
Under the Julian calendar, this day is February 15, 2024 – a Wednesday. Both day of the week are the same but did you notice the difference with the Gregorian calendar?
When this day started, 28,484,640 minutes has elapsed since midnight of January 1, 1970 – the Unix epoch.
Strange as it may, if we name this day after a polygon then it will be called ‘pentacontaenneagon’ day.
Pisces is the zodiac sign of a person born on this day. Amethyst is the modern birthstone for this month. Bloodstone is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 336 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
The ancient Maya civilization believes that the end of the world will happen on December 21, 2012. There are now 4,086 days since this fabled cataclysmic event.
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February 28 Historical Events
- 1897 –Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch of Madagascar, is deposed by a French military force.
- 1922 –The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over Egypt through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
- 1954 –The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public.
- 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.
- 1959 –Discoverer 1, an American spy satellite that is the first object to achieve a polar orbit, is launched.
- 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.
- 1991 –The first Gulf War ends.
- 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.
- 2005 –A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq kills 127.
Who were born on February 28?
- 1533 –Michel de Montaigne, French writer (d. 1592)
- 1824 –Blondin, French tightrope walker (d. 1897)
- 1840 –Henri Duveyrier, French explorer (d. 1892)
- 1851 –Samuel W. McCall, 47th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1923)
- 1909 –Stephen Spender, English poet (d. 1995)
- 1961 –Mark Latham, Australian politician
- 1971 –Tristan Louis, American writer
- 1981 –Florent Serra, French tennis player
- 1985 –Jelena Janković, Serbian tennis player
- 1988 –Markéta Irglová, Czech songwriter and actress
Who died on February 28?
- 1261 –Henry III, Duke of Brabant (b. c.1230s)
- 1648 –King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway (b. 1577)
- 1746 –Hermann von der Hardt, German historian (b. 1660)
- 1786 –John Gwynn, English architect and engineer (b. 1713)
- 1974 –Bobby Bloom, American singer/songwriter (b. 1946)
- 1978 –Eric Frank Russell, English author (b. 1905)
- 1991 –Reinhard Bendix, German sociologist (b. 1916)
- 2002 –Helmut Zacharias, German violinist (b. 1920)
- 2002 –Mary Stuart, American actress (b. 1926)
- 2004 –Carmen Laforet, Spanish writer (b. 1921)
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