On this day: February 28

Events on February 28

• 202 BC Rebel leader Liu Bang declared himself Emperor Gaozu of Han after overthrowing the Qin dynasty, the first imperial dynasty of China. Wikipedia
• 1638 The National Covenant was formally adopted in opposition to proposed reforms to the Church of Scotland by King Charles I. Wikipedia
• 1835 Elias Lönnrot signs and dates the foreword to the first version of the Kalevala, the so-called Old Kalevala. Wikipedia
• 1874 In one of the longest cases ever heard in an English court, the claimant in the Tichborne case was convicted of perjury for attempting to assume the identity of the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy. Wikipedia
• 1893 USS Indiana, the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time, was launched. Wikipedia
• 1897 Ranavalona III, the last sovereign ruler of the Kingdom of Madagascar, was deposed by French military forces. Wikipedia
• 1904 The most successful football club in Portugal, S.L. Benfica, was founded in Lisbon as Sport Lisboa. Wikipedia
• 1914 In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Greeks living in southern Albania proclaimed the short-lived Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus. Wikipedia
• 1928 Indian physicist C. V. Raman and his colleagues discovered what is now known as Raman scattering, for which he later became the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. Wikipedia
• 1939 In one of the most famous errors in lexicography, the erroneous word dord was discovered in Webster's New International Dictionary by an editor. Wikipedia
• 1947 Nationalist soldiers fired on protesters in Taipei, triggering widespread uprisings and violent suppression in the White Terror. Wikipedia
• 1963 Chicago alderman Benjamin F. Lewis was murdered in his office by unknown assailants two days after having been reelected. Wikipedia
• 1966 American test pilots Charles Bassett and Elliot See die in a plane crash in St. Louis, Missouri. Wikipedia
• 1972 Japanese police stormed a mountain lodge near Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, to end a ten-day siege by members of the paramilitary group United Red Army. Wikipedia
• 1974 The British election ended in a hung parliament after the Liberal Party, under Jeremy Thorpe, achieved their highest ever number of votes. Wikipedia
• 1975 A London Underground train failed to stop at the terminal Moorgate station, crashing and causing the deaths of 43 people. Wikipedia
• 1985 The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army launched a mortar attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary station in Newry, Northern Ireland, killing nine people. Wikipedia
• 1993 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh, starting a 51-day standoff. Wikipedia
• 1997 GRB 970228, a highly luminous 80-second flash of gamma rays, was detected on Earth, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way. Wikipedia
• 1997 Two heavily armed bank robbers exchanged gunfire with officers of the Los Angeles Police Department in North Hollywood, in one of the most intense gun battles in American police history. Wikipedia
• 2001 A high-speed train crash occurred near Selby in North Yorkshire, England, killing 10 and injuring 82. Wikipedia
• 2002 During a period of religious violence in Gujarat, India, mobs of Hindus attacked Muslims in Naroda Patiya and in Chamanpura, resulting in 166 deaths. Wikipedia
• 2013 Benedict XVI became the first pope in nearly 600 years to resign from the papacy. Wikipedia
• 2021 Bus drivers in Greater Manchester began an eleven-week strike, one of the longest in British transportation history. Wikipedia
• 2023 Two trains collide south of the Vale of Tempe in Greece, leading to the deaths of at least 57 people and leaving 58 missing and 85 injured. Wikipedia
• 2026 The United States and Israel launch attacks across Iran, assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Retaliatory strikes are launched by Iran against US military bases in the Gulf, with explosions reported in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Wikipedia

Born on February 28

• 1533 Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher and author (died 1592) Wikipedia
• 1896 Philip Showalter Hench, American physician and endocrinologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1965) Wikipedia
• 1901 Linus Pauling, American chemist and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1994) Wikipedia
• 1915 Peter Medawar, Brazilian-English biologist and immunologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1987) Wikipedia
• 1929 Frank Gehry, Canadian-American architect and designer (died 2025) Wikipedia
• 1930 Leon Cooper, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2024) Wikipedia
• 1939 Daniel C. Tsui, Chinese-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1940 Mario Andretti, Italian-American racing driver Wikipedia
• 1942 Dino Zoff, Italian footballer Wikipedia
• 1942 Brian Jones, English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (died 1969) Wikipedia
• 1944 Sepp Maier, German footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1948 Steven Chu, American physicist and politician, 12th United States Secretary of Energy, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1953 Paul Krugman, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1955 Gilbert Gottfried, American comedian, actor, and singer (died 2022) Wikipedia
• 1957 John Turturro, American actor and director Wikipedia
• 1966 Paulo Futre, Portuguese footballer Wikipedia
• 1969 Robert Sean Leonard, American actor Wikipedia
• 1976 Ali Larter, American actress and model Wikipedia
• 1982 Natalia Vodianova, Russian-French model and actress Wikipedia
• 1985 Jelena Janković, Serbian tennis player Wikipedia
• 1994 Arkadiusz Milik, Polish footballer Wikipedia
• 1999 Luka Dončić, Slovenian basketball player Wikipedia

Died on February 28

• 628 Khosrow II, Shah of Iran, Sasanian Empire (born c. 570) Wikipedia
• 1621 Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (born 1590) Wikipedia
• 1648 Christian IV, King of Denmark (born 1577) Wikipedia
• 1936 Charles Nicolle, French biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1866) Wikipedia
• 2006 Owen Chamberlain, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1920) Wikipedia
• 2011 Annie Girardot, French actress (born 1931) Wikipedia
• 2013 Donald A. Glaser, American physicist and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1926) Wikipedia
• 2015 Yaşar Kemal, Turkish journalist and author (born 1923) Wikipedia
• 2016 George Kennedy, American actor (born 1925) Wikipedia
• 2019 André Previn, German-American pianist, conductor, and composer. (born 1929) Wikipedia
• 2020 Freeman Dyson, British-born American physicist and mathematician (born 1923) Wikipedia
• 2026 Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran (born 1939) Wikipedia
• 2026 Aziz Nasirzadeh, Minister of Defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran (born 1964) Wikipedia
• 2026 Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic of Iran (born 1961) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: February 28 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Kalevala Day, also known as the Finnish Culture Day (Finland) Wikipedia
• National Science Day (India) Wikipedia
• Peace Memorial Day (Taiwan) Wikipedia
• Andalusia Day (Spain) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “February 28” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/February 28” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “February 28” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for February 28 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.