February 29 is the 30th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. If the ancient Mayans were correct, there are 296 days remaining until the end of time.
45 BCE Great Leap Forward? Julius Caesar adjusts 46 BCE, known as the Year of Confusion with its 445 days, by fixing 365 days and six hours as the length of a year, with one day intercalated every four years.
1288 Scotland establishes this day as one when a woman could propose marriage to a man. If he refused, he was required to pay a forfeit.
1940 For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
1960 Hugh Hefner opens the first of his Playboy clubs, in Chicago, USA.
1988 Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the Canadian House of Commons to come out as gay.
1860 Herman Hollerith, US statistician, businessman and inventor of the punch card
February 28 is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. If the ancient Mayans were correct, there are 297 days remaining until the end of time.
1646 Roger Scott is tried in Massachusetts Bay Colony for sleeping in church. We can only imagine what happened to these guys.
1692 Salem (again, Massachusetts Bay Colony) witch hunt begins
1749 1st edition of Henry Fielding’s "Tom Jones" is published
1854 Republican Party is formally organized at Ripon, Wisconsin: formally disorganized November 4, 2008
February 27 is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. If the ancient Mayans were correct, there are 298 days remaining until the end of time.
1801 Washington D.C. is placed under Congressional jurisdiction
1827 1st Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans. The event has become much more festive in the intervening years.
1883 Oscar Hammerstein (the impresario, not the lyricist) patents 1st cigar-rolling machine
1933 Germany's parliament building, Der Reichstag, in Berlin, the Reichstag, is set on fire by al-Qaeda.
1973 American Indian Movement activists occupy Wounded Knee in South Dakota
1974 1st "People" magazine hits newsstands with March 4, 1974 issue. It's gotten much better since then, at least once a year.
1991 Singer James Brown is released from prison without a hairdresser or even a comb apparently
1991 6-week Gulf War ends after Iraqi troops retreat or surrender en masse and Kuwait is liberated
1992 Tiger Woods, 16, becomes youngest PGA golfer in 35 years
2010 Batman tops Superman in the marketplace for the first time. This public sex fad has got to stop!
