Now & Then
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28 FEBRUARY
1638: The Scottish National Covenant was signed in Edinburgh. 1759:Pope Clement XIII allowed the Bible to be translated into various languages.
1784: John Wesley signed the “deed of declaration” of the Wesleyan faith.
1900: General Buller relieved Ladysmith, besieged by Boer forces for 118 days.
1912: The world’s first parachute jump from an aeroplane was made over Missouri, by Albert Berry. 1922: Egypt retained independence from the UK, though British troops remained on station within the country.
1933: One day after his victory in Germany’s general election, Adolf Hitler banned the German Communist Party.
1939: Britain recognised General Franco’s regime in Spain.
1940: Sandy’s Half Hour began on radio, with Sandy Macpherson at the organ. It was the start of the modern listeners’ request programme.
1942: The heavy cruiser USS Houston was sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed, along with HMAS Perth, which lost 375 men.
1953: James D Watson and Francis Crick announced they had determined the chemical structure of DNA; the formal announcement takes place on 25 April.
1966: Liverpool’s Cavern Club, where The Beatles made their name, went into liquidation.
1970: Bicycles were permitted to cross San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
1974: The British general election resulted in a hung parliament. A further election was held in October, won by the Labour Party. 1975: A train crashed through buffers at Moorgate Tube station, killing 42 people.
1984: Michael Jackson won eight Grammys at the 26th Grammy Awards.
1985: The Provisional IRA carried out a mortar attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.
1997: Some 3,000 people died when an earthquake struck in Iran. 2001: Ten people died and 76 were injured when a Land Rover and trailer careered off the M62 and derailed a Newcastle-london express which collided head-on with a freight train, at Selby, in north Yorkshire.
2001: The Nisqually Earthquake, measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale, hit the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the US state of Washington. 2004: More than one million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-hand Rally formed a 310-mile-long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947.
2005: A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq, killed 127 people.
2011: British actress Joanna Lumley attacked parenting in the country, claiming children were being brought up with “slack” morals.
2013: Pope Benedict XVI resigned as the Pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first Pope to do so since 1415.
2014: Pro-russian gunmen seize key buildings in Crimean capital, Simferopol, while gunmen in combat uniforms appear outside Crimea’s main airports.