TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2018

On this day in history: 1574 - In conjunction with the Spanish Inquisition, three people are burned at the stake in Mexico, convicted of espousing “Lutheran heresies”.

1790 - John Irving becomes the first convict to be freed in the New South Wales colony.

1900 - In South Africa, British troops relieved Ladysmith, which had been under siege since November 2, 1899.

1944 - Nazi soldiers arrest Dutch Christian Corrie ten Boom and her family for harbouring Jews.

1953 - In a Cambridge University laboratory, scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

1974 - The U.S. and Egypt re-established diplomatic relations after a break of seven years.

1983 - M*A*S*H” became the most watched television program in history when the final episode aired.

1986 - Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated in Stockholm.

1998 - Serbian police began a campaign to wipe out “terrorist gangs” in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo.

2002 - In Ahmadabad, India, Hindus set fire to homes in a Muslim neighbourhood. At least 55 people were killed in the attack.

2002 - Sotheby’s auction house announced that it had identified Peter Paul Reubens as the creator of the painting The Massacre of the Innocents. The painting was previously thought to be by Jan van den Hoecke.

2002 - During the religious violence in Gujarat, the 97 people killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre and 69 in Gulbarg Society massacre.

2004 - Over one million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the February 28 Incident in 1947

2005 - A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq kills 127.

2013 - Benedict XVI resigned as pope. He was the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415 and the first to resign voluntarily since Celestine V in 1294.