February 26 - Events

Events

• 747 BC – Epoch (origin) of Ptolemy's Nabonassar Era.
• 364 – Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor.
• 1266 – Battle of Benevento: An army led by Charles, Count of Anjou, defeats a combined German andSicilian force led by King Manfred of Sicily. Manfred is killed in the battle and Pope Clement IV invests Charles as king of Sicily and Naples.
• 1658 – Treaty of Roskilde: After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars (1655–1661), the King ofDenmark-Norway is forced to give up nearly half his territory to Sweden to save the rest.
• 1794 – Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen burns down.
• 1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Elba.
• 1848 – The Second French Republic is proclaimed.
• 1863 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the National Currency Act into law.
• 1870 – In New York City, a demonstration of the first pneumatic subway opens to the public.
• 1885 – The Berlin Act, which resulted from the Berlin Conference regulating European colonization and trade in Africa, is signed
• 1897 – Sigma Pi Fraternity is founded at Vincennes University in Vincennes, IN.
• 1914 – HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
• 1917 – The Original Dixieland Jass Band records the first jazz record, for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York.
• 1919 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park (see Grand Canyon National Park).
• 1929 – The Grand Teton National Park is created.
• 1935 – The Luftwaffe is re-formed.
• 1935 – The Daventry Experiment, Robert Watson-Watt carries out a demonstration near Daventry which leads directly to the development of RADAR in the United Kingdom.
• 1936 – In the February 26 Incident, young Japanese military officers attempt to stage a coup against the government.
• 1952 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that his nation has an atomic bomb.
• 1960 – A New York bound Alitalia airliner crashed into a cemetery at Shannon, Ireland, shortly after takeoff, killing 34 of the 52 persons on board.
• 1966 – Apollo Program: Launch of AS-201, the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket
• 1970 – National Public Radio incorporates as a non-profit corporation.
• 1971 – U.N. Secretary General U Thant signs United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.
• 1972 – The Buffalo Creek Flood caused by a burst dam kills 125 in West Virginia.
• 1984 – US troops withdraw from Beirut. President Ronald Reagan had sent the troops as a peacekeeping force in August 1982.
• 1986 – People Power Revolution in the Philippines.
• 1987 – Iran-Contra affair: The Tower Commission rebukes President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff.
• 1990 – The Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections.
• 1991 – Gulf War: On Baghdad Radio Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein announces the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
• 1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: Khojaly Massacre: Armenian armed forces open fire on Azeri civilians at a military post outside the town of Khojaly leaving hundreds dead.
• 1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand.
• 1995 – The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking institute, Barings Bank, collapses after a securities broker, Nick Leeson, loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange using futures contracts.
• 2000 – Mount Hekla in Iceland erupts.
• 2001 – The Taliban destroys two giant statues of Buddha in Bamyan, Afghanistan.
• 2003 – Generally said to be the starting date of the War in Darfur.
• 2004 – The United States lifts a ban on travel to Libya, ending travel restrictions to the nation that had lasted for 23 years.
• 2004 – Republic of Macedonia President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• 2005 – Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, orders the constitution changed to allow multi-candidate presidential elections beforeSeptember 2005 by asking Egyptian parliament to amend Article 76.