TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Wednesday, Feb. 28, the 59th day of 2024. There are 307 days left in the year. On this date in:

1844: A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded as the ship was sailing on the Potomac River, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others.

1849: The California gold rush began in earnest as regular steamship service started bringing goldseekers to San Francisco.

1911: President William Howard Taft nominated William H. Lewis to be the first Black Assistant Attorney General of the United States.

1953: Scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick announced they had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

1972: President Richard M. Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai issued the Shanghai Communique, which called for normalizing relations between their countries, at the conclusion of Nixon's historic visit to China.

1975: Forty-two people were killed in London's Underground when a train smashed into the end of a tunnel.

1993: A gun battle erupted at a religious compound near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh on weapons charges; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began.

1996: Britain's Princess Diana agreed to divorce Prince Charles. (Their 15-year marriage officially ended in August 1996; Diana died in a car crash in Paris a year after that.)

2009: Paul Harvey, the news commentator and talk-radio pioneer whose staccato style made him one of the nation's most familiar voices, died i at age 90.