February 26th - This Date in History.

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13346

Events:C/P.

747 BCE – Epoch (origin) of Ptolemy's Nabonassar Era.
364 – Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor.
1266 – Battle of Benevento: An army led by Charles, Count of Anjou, defeats a combined German and Sicilian force led by King Manfred of Sicily. Manfred is killed in the battle and Pope Clement IV invests Charles as king of Sicily and Naples.
1658 – Treaty of Roskilde: After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars (1655–1661), the King of Denmark-Norway is forced to give up nearly half his territory to Sweden to save the rest.
1794 – The first Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen burns down.
1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Elba.
1876 – Japan and Korea sign a treaty granting Japanese citizens extraterritoriality rights, opening three ports to Japanese trade, and ending Korea's status as a tributary state of Qing Dynasty China.
1909 – Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, is first shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London.
1914 – HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
1917 – The Original Dixieland Jass Band records the first jazz record, for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York.
1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs an act of the U.S. Congress establishing most of the Grand Canyon as a United States National Park (see Grand Canyon National Park).
1920 – The first German Expressionist film and early horror movie, Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, premièred in Berlin.
1929 – President Calvin Coolidge signs an Executive Order establishing the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.
1935 – Robert Watson-Watt carries out a demonstration near Daventry which leads directly to the development of RADAR in the United Kingdom.
1936 – In the February 26 Incident, young Japanese military officers attempt to stage a coup against the government.
1946 – Finnish observers report the first of many thousands of sightings of ghost rockets.
1952 – Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor-General of Canada.
1960 – A New York bound Alitalia airliner crashed into a cemetery at Shannon, Ireland, shortly after takeoff, killing 34 of the 52 persons on board.
1961 – Hassan II becomes King of Morocco.
1966 – Apollo Program: Launch of AS-201, the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket
1966 – Vietnam War: The ROK Capital Division of the South Korean Army massacres 380 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam.
1971 – U.N. Secretary General U Thant signs United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.
1972 – The Buffalo Creek Flood caused by a burst dam kills 125 in West Virginia.
1980 – Egypt and Israel establish full diplomatic relations.
1987 – Iran-Contra affair: The Tower Commission rebukes President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff.
1991 – Gulf War: United States Army forces capture the town of Al Busayyah.
1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: Khojaly Massacre: Armenian armed forces open fire on Azeri civilians at a military post outside the town of Khojaly leaving hundreds dead.
1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand.
1995 – The United Kingdom's oldest investment banking institute, Barings Bank, collapses after a securities broker, Nick Leeson, loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange using futures contracts.
2004 – Republic of Macedonia President Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash near Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
End of C/P.