TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019

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.

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.

BIRTHDAYS

Sir John Tenniel 1820 Cartoonist, illustrator Charles Blondin (Jean Francois Gravelet) 1824 - Acrobat, aerialist

Ben Hecht 1894 - Novelist, scriptwriter, playwright Linus Pauling 1901 - Nobel prize for chemistry in 1954, Nobel peace prize winner in 1962

Vincente Minnelli (Lester Anthony Minnelli) 1903 Director

Earl Scheib 1907

Billie Bird 1908

Zero (Samuel) Mostel (Samuel Joel Mostel) 1915 - Actor Lee Castle 1915 - Musician, bandleader (Jimmy Dorsey’s band)

Alf Kjellin 1920 - Actor, director Charles Durning 1923 - Actor Svetlana Allilueva 1926 Author, daughter of Russian leader Joseph Stalin Stanley Baker 1927 - Actor Gavin MacLeod 1931 - Actor