What happened on February 29 ?
Events
1504 - Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Native Americans to provide him with supplies.
1704 - Queen Anne's War: French forces and Native Americans attack and destroy Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing 100 men, women, and children.
1712 - February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Old style.
1720 - Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden abdicates in favour of her husband who becomes King Frederick I
1864 - American Civil War: Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid fails - Plans to free 15,000 Union soldiers being held near Richmond, Virginia are thwarted.
1892 - St. Petersburg, Florida incorporated.
1916 - Child labor: In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from twelve to fourteen years old.
1932 - TIME magazine features eccentric American politician William "Alfalfa" Murray on its cover after Murray stated his intention to run for President of the United States.
1936 - Baby Snooks, played by Fanny Brice, debuts on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
1940 - For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
1940 - Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations
1940 - In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California due to the war, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives his 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from the Sweden's Consul General in San Francisco.
1944 - World War II: The Admiralty Islands are invaded in the American General Douglas MacArthur-led Operation Brewer.
1952 - The island of Heligoland is restored to German authority.
1956 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces to the nation that he is running for a second term. (He defeats Adlai E. Stevenson that November 6, in a rematch of the 1952 election.)
1960 - An earthquake in Morocco kills over 3,000 people and nearly destroys Agadir in the southern part of the country.
1964 - In Sydney, Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser sets a new world record in the 100-meter freestyle swimming competition (58.9 seconds).
1972 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - South Korea withdraws 11,000 of its 48,000 troops from Vietnam.
1972 - Hank Aaron becomes the first player in the history of Major League Baseball to sign a $200,000 contract.
1984 - Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announces he will retire as soon as the Liberals can elect another leader.
1988 - The sitcom Day by Day premieres on NBC.
1988 - South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town
1992 - Opening night of U2's elaborate Zoo TV Tour in Lakeland, Florida.
1996 - Novelist Joan Collins awarded US $1 million from Random House for breach of contract.
1996 - A Peruvian Boeing 737 crashes in the Andes, killing 123 people.
2000 - Six year old Dedrick Owens shoots and kills Kayla Rolland, also six years old, at Theo J. Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Michigan. [1]
2004 - Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as President of Haiti following popular rebel uprising.
2004 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King wins the Best Picture Oscar, along with 10 other awards, at the 76th Annual Academy Awards.
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