<< Feb 28|   HISTORY “4” “2”DAY /Feb 30 >> /Mar 01 >>
Events, deaths, births, of FEB 29
[For Feb 29 Julian go to Gregorian date 1583~1699: Mar 10 — 1700s: Mar 11 — 1800s: Mar 12 — 1900~2099: Mar 13]
On a 29 February:
2004 In a corporate jet airplane that takes off at 06:45, Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide [15 Jul 1953~] flees the country abandoning his pledge to serve out his term (which expires in February 2006) as Haiti's first democratically elected president in 200 years of independence. The goons that support him have already lost half the country to the goons that started a rebellion on 05 February in Les Gonaïves, in fighting that caused at least 100 deaths. Foreign countries, far from responding to Aristide's plea for aid, have shown themselves clearly in favor of his resignation. Three hours after Aristide's departure, Chief Supreme Court Justice Boniface Alexandre, a former jurist in his 60s with a reputation for honesty, declares that he is taking over as called for by the constitution. But the Haitian constitution calls for parliament to approve him as President and the legislature has not met since early this year when lawmakers' terms expired.
      The crisis has been brewing since Aristide's party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000 and international donors froze millions of dollars in aid. Opponents also accused him of breaking promises to help the poor, allowing corruption fueled by drug-trafficking and masterminding attacks on opponents by armed gangs. It was the second time the former Salesian slum priest (ordained in 1982, secularized in 1994) fled his country. Aristide was ousted in a 1991 coup, months after he was elected president for the first time. He was restored to power three years later by U.S. troops. President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 troops to restore Aristide but insisted he respect a constitutional term limit and step down in 1995. Aristide chose his successor, René Preval, but was considered the power behind the scenes until he won a second term in 2000, in presidential elections marred by a low turnout and an opposition boycott.
1992 Start of a two-day referendum on independence in Bosnia. Nearly two-thirds of the electorate casts a vote, almost all for independence, which is proclaimed on 03 March 1992 by President Izetbegovic.
^ 1988 AT&T's UNIX continues open to all
      AT&T announces that it will continue to make UNIX available to all computer makers. Several major computer companies had expressed concern over the agreement between AT&T and Sun Microsystems that gave Sun early information about future versions of UNIX, but AT&T affirmed that the company would not play favorites with the widely used operating system. To help ensure that UNIX stayed open, AT&T struck an agreement with Motorola to develop special extensions making it easier to port UNIX programs from one company's machine to another.
^ 1988 Lotus Notes precursor announced.
      Lotus challenged Microsoft's SQL server with a new database system of its own. The new product, designed to make it easy for groups of personal computers to share data among themselves, evolved into Lotus Notes, a highly successful business system allowing workgroups to collaborate on documents.
1988 Nazi document implicates Waldheim in WWII deportations
1988 NYC Mayor Koch calls Reagan a "WIMP" in the war on drugs
1984 Pierre Elliott Trudeau [18 Oct 1919 – 28 Sep 2000], prime minister of Canada (Apr 1968 – May 1979; 03 Mar 1980 – Jun 1984), resigns from the leadership of the Liberal Party, but he remains in office until John Turner is chosen to succeed him at the party leadership convention in June 1984.
1968 first pulsar discovered (CP 1919 by Jocelyn Burnell at Cambridge)
1968 Report blames racism for riots.     ^top^
     The Kerner Commission (President's National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorders) releases its report, condemning racism as the primary cause of the recent surge of riots. The report calls for expanded aid to African-American communities in order to prevent further racial violence and polarization. The report identifies more than 150 riots or major disorders between 1965 and 1968. Its statistics for 1967 alone include eighty-three people killed and 1800 injured — the majority of them African Americans — and property valued at more than $100 million damaged or destroyed.
1964 LBJ reveals US secretly developed the A-11 jet fighter.
1956 Islamic Republic established in Pakistan.
1956 President Eisenhower announces he would seek a 2nd term.
1944 5 leaders of Indonesia Communist Party sentenced to death.
1944 World War II: US troops invade Los Negros in the Admiralty Islands.
1940 45 U boats sunk this month (170'000 tons)
1936 FDR signs 2nd neutrality act.
1936 In Tokyo is put down the revolt started on 26 February 1936 by a regiment about to leave for Manchuria. The ringleaders were quickly arrested and executed. On 26 February 1936, several outstanding statesmen (including retired Admiral Saito Makoto) were murdered; Prime Minister Okada Keisuke escaped when the assassins mistakenly shot his brother-in-law. For more than three days the rebel units held much of downtown Tokyo.
1932 Failed coup attempt by fascist Lapua Movement in Finland
^ 1916 Minimum working age raised in SC.
      In South Carolina, the minimum age allowed by law for workers in mills, factories, and mines was raised from twelve to fourteen years old. Before the industrial revolution, children would have been apprenticed or worked as part of a family business. With the advent of the industrial revolution, children were instead forced into in slave-like working conditions in factories and mills. Child labor became a recognized social problem in the US, initially in the eastern and midwestern states following the Civil War, and in the South, which lagged in industrialization, in the early twentieth century. Though child labor was largely curtailed in the US and European countries by the mid-twentieth century, it is estimated that today child labor makes up between 2 percent and 10 percent of the workforce in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. 1944 Black Market Makes Good Over one billion dollars in estimated profit was made by American black marketeers during 1943, announced national Office of Price Administration director Chester Bowles. Black market goods are bought or sold at prices or in amounts above the legal limits set by the government in times of shortage or conservation. Rationing and fixed prices during World War II led to a rise in black market sales in the US, especially with meat, sugar, tires, and gasoline. While rationing ended with the war, scarcities in automobiles and building supplies kept the black market going strong for years to follow. 1960 Publishing Ménage à Trois The publishing firm of Holt, Rinehart, & Winston came to be when stockholders from Henry Holt & Co., Inc. agreed to merge with two other firms, Rinehart & Co., Inc., and the John C. Winston Company. A division now of Harcourt Brace & Co., Holt, Rinehart, & Winston are publishers of instructional materials, including school textbooks.
1908 Dutch scientists produce solid helium
1904 Theodore Roosevelt, appoints 7 man committee to study Panama Canal
1864 George Custer's cavalry fights skirmishes at Stanardsville and Charlottesville, Virginia during a raid on Albemarle
1868 first British government of Disraeli forms
1856 Hostilities in umteenth (actually 11th) and next to last Russo-Turkish War, or Crimean War, cease (?). Actually Russia accepted preliminary peace terms on 18560201, the Congress of Paris worked out the final settlement from 18560225 to 18560330, when.the resulting Treaty of Paris was signed, which guaranteed the integrity of Ottoman Turkey and obliged Russia to surrender southern Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Danube.
1848 Neufchatel declares independence of Switzerland.
^ 1832 Darwin is delighted by a Brazilian forest
     He makes this entry in The Voyage of the Beagle:
BAHIA, OR SAN SALVADOR. BRAZIL, Feb. 29th. — The day has passed delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest. The elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers, the glossy green of the foliage, but above all the general luxuriance of the vegetation, filled me with admiration. A most paradoxical mixture of sound and silence pervades the shady parts of the wood. The noise from the insects is so loud, that it may be heard even in a vessel anchored several hundred yards from the shore; yet within the recesses of the forest a universal silence appears to reign. To a person fond of natural history, such a day as this brings with it a deeper pleasure than he can ever hope to experience again. After wandering about for some hours, I returned to the landing-place; but, before reaching it, I was overtaken by a tropical storm. I tried to find shelter under a tree, which was so thick that it would never have been penetrated by common English rain; but here, in a couple of minutes, a little torrent flowed down the trunk. It is to this violence of the rain that we must attribute the verdure at the bottom of the thickest woods: if the showers were like those of a colder climate, the greater part would be absorbed or evaporated before it reached the ground. I will not at present attempt to describe the gaudy scenery of this noble bay, because, in our homeward voyage, we called here a second time, and I shall then have occasion to remark on it.
      On 27 December 1831, British naturalist Charles Robert Darwin had set out from Plymouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle, on a five-year surveying expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Visiting such diverse places as Fernando Noronha island (20 February 1832), Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, wildlife, and geology of many lands. This information proves invaluable in the development of his theory of evolution, first put forth in his groundbreaking scientific work of 1859, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Darwin's theory of natural selection argues that species are the result of a gradual biological evolution of living organisms in which nature encourages, through natural selection, those species best suited to their environments to propagate future descendants. The Origin of Species is the first significant work on the theory of evolution, and is greeted with great interest in the scientific world, although it is also violently attacked because it contradicts the account of creation given in the Bible. Nevertheless, the work, unquestionably one of the most important in the history of science, eventually succeeds in gaining acceptance from almost all biologists.
     The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life would be published in England on 24 November 1859. Darwin's theory of natural selection argues that species are the result of a gradual biological evolution of living organisms in which nature encourages, through natural selection, those species best suited to their environments to propagate future descendants.
     The first printing of 1250 copies sells out in a single day. By 1872, it would have run through six editions, and become one of the most influential books of modern times. Darwin, the privileged and well-connected son of a successful English doctor, had been interested in botany and natural sciences since his boyhood, despite the discouragement of his early teachers. At Cambridge, he found professors and scientists with similar interests and with their help began participating in scientific voyages. He traveled around South America for five years as an unpaid botanist on the HMS Beagle. By the time Darwin returned, he had developed an outstanding reputation as a field researcher and scientific writer, based on his many papers and letters dispatched from South America and the Galapagos Islands, which were read at meetings of prominent scientific societies in London. Darwin began publishing studies of zoology and geology as soon as he returned from his voyage. Fearing the fate of other scientists, like Copernicus and Galileo, who had published radical scientific theories, Darwin held off publishing his theory of natural selection for years. He secretly developed his theory during two decades of surreptitious research following his trip on the Beagle. Meanwhile, he married and had seven children. He finally published Origin of Species after another scientist began publishing papers with similar ideas. His book laid the groundwork for modern botany, cellular biology, and genetics. He died in 1882.
      Darwin, who was influenced by the work of French naturalist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, and later by English scientist Alfred Russel Wallace, acquired most of the evidence for his theory during a five-year surveying expedition aboard the HMS Beagle during the 1830s. Visiting such diverse places as Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, wildlife, and geology of many lands. This information, along with his experiments with variation and interbreeding after returning to England, proved invaluable in the development of his theory of natural selection. His On the Origin of Species is the first significant work on the theory of evolution, and is greeted with great interest in the scientific world, although it is also violently attacked because it contradicts the account of creation given in the Bible. Nevertheless, the work, unquestionably one of the most important in the history of science, eventually succeeds in gaining acceptance from almost all biologists.
      Darwin, born 12 February 1809 the privileged and well-connected son of successful English doctor Robert Waring Darwin, had been interested in botany and natural sciences since his boyhood, despite the discouragement of his early teachers. At Cambridge, he found professors and scientists with similar interests and with their help began participating in scientific voyages, including the HMS Beagle's trip.
      By the time Darwin returned, he had developed an outstanding reputation as a field researcher and scientific writer, based on his many papers and letters dispatched from South America and the Galapagos Islands, which were read at meetings of prominent scientific societies in London. Darwin began publishing studies of zoology and geology as soon as he returned from his voyage, while also secretly working on his radical theory of evolution.
      Knowing that scientists who had published radical theories before had been ostracized or worse, Darwin held off on publishing his theory of natural selection for nearly two decades. Meanwhile, he married and had seven children. He finally published On the Origin of Species after another scientist began publishing papers with similar ideas. His book laid the groundwork for modern botany, cellular biology, and genetics. He died on 19 April 1882.
DARWIN ONLINE:
  • The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
  • The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
  • The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
  • The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, With Observations on Their Habits
  • The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants
  • On the Origin of Species
  • On the Origin of Species
  • On the Origin of Species (zipped PDF)
  • On the Origin of Species (6th edition)
  • The Voyage of the Beagle
  • The Voyage of the Beagle
  • The Descent of Man
  • The Descent of Man
  • The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication) volume 1 , volume 2
  • The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (PDF)
  • The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
  • The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin volume I , volume II
  • The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (in The Life and Letters...)
  • More Letters of Charles Darwin volume I: , volume II
    • 1796 Jay's Treaty proclaimed, settles some differences with England
    1784 Marquis de Sade transferred from Vincennes fortress to the Bastille
    1720 Queen Ulrica Eleonora of Sweden resigns
    1704 Deerfield razed in Queen Anne's War
         Deerfield, a frontier settlement in western Massachusetts, is attacked by a French and Native-American force. Some one hundred men, women, and children are massacred as the town is burned to the ground. The Deerfield raid was the bloodiest event of Queen Anne's War, a conflict known as the second of the French and Indian Wars to American historians.
          The frontier conflict, named after the English monarch at the time, was to France and England a rather unimportant aspect of the War of the Spanish Succession. To settlers in America, however, the rivalry of the two powers in the colonies was a serious concern, as the fighting meant not only raids by the French or the British but also the horrors of Indian tribal warfare.
          With the signing of the Peace of Utrecht in 1714, peace returned to the frontier. Thirty years later it would be broken by the War of Austrian Succession, the third of the French and Indian Wars.
    1692 The Salem Witch Trials began on this Leap Day when Tituba, the female Indian servant of the Rev. Samuel Parris, and one Sarah Goode were both arrested and accused of witchcraft.
    1644 Abel Janszoon Tasman [1603 – 21 Oct 1659] sails from Batavia (now Jakarta) on a second voyage of exploration towards Australia. Greatest of the Dutch navigators and explorers, he had discovered not only Tasmania (on 24 November 1642) which he named Van Diemen's Land, but also New Zealand's (13 Dec 1642, at South Island, which he named Staten Landt), Tonga (21 Jan 1643), and the Fiji Islands (06 Feb 1643).
    1504 Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to frighten hostile Jamaican Indians.
    TO THE TOP
    Deaths which occurred on a February 29:
    ^ 2000 John Charles Price, butchered by his lover Katherine Mary Knight.
         On 08 November Knight would be sentenced to life in prison for skinning her partner.
         Cruel and evil, she showed her victim no mercy. On 08 November 2001 Katherine Knight, who, on 29 February 2000 murdered her de facto - and, in a nightmarish ritual of death, skinned him, cut off his head and cooked parts of his body - received no mercy for her horrifying crime. The 46-year-old former abattoir worker now has the dubious distinction of becoming the first woman in Australia to be jailed for the term of her natural life. As he imposed the maximum penalty, Justice Barry O'Keefe's sentence was met with applause from the family of her victim, John Price.
          "Katherine Mary Knight, you have pleaded guilty and been convicted of the murder of John Charles Price at Aberdeen on or about February 29, 2000," Justice O'Keefe told the hushed Newcastle, Australia, Supreme Court. "In respect of your crime, I sentence you to imprisonment for life."
          Justice O'Keefe said that the last minutes of Mr Price's life must have been a time of abject terror. He said all the evidence before the court indicated they were a time of "utter enjoyment" for Knight. "She has not expressed any contrition or remorse and if released she poses a serious threat to the security of society." Justice O'Keefe said the frenzied stabbing of Mr Price with a butcher's knife was pre-meditated and fell into the most serious category of murders. Her deadly intentions were triggered by Mr. Price calling police on the Sunday before his death following an argument with Knight and taking out an apprehended violence order against her. The judge said Knight went to Mr Price's house where they "had pleasurable sexual intercourse" before Mr Price retired for the night.
          "Not only did she plan the murder but she also enjoyed the horrific acts which followed in its wake as part of a ritual of death and defilement," he said. "At no time did the prisoner express any regret for what she had done or any remorse for having done it," the judge said. "Her attitude in that regard is consistent with her general approach to the many acts of violence which she had engaged in against her various partners, namely 'they deserved it'.". He said these included slashing the throat of a former partner's eight-week-old puppy in front of him and smashing the false teeth of another. After he did something which had displeased her during their six-year relationship, Knight videotaped a first aid box Mr Price had taken from his employment and sent the tape to his boss. As a result Mr Price was sacked from that job. "The prisoner's history of violence together with her flawed personality cause me to conclude that she is without doubt a very dangerous person and likely, if released into the community, to commit further acts of serious violence, including even murder against those who cross her, particularly males," Justice O'Keefe said.

    On 09 November 2001 a woman began a lifelong sentence behind bars, never to be released, for murdering and skinning her boyfriend in a cannibal orgy. A court was told former abattoir worker Katherine Knight stabbed her partner John Price at least 37 times with a butcher's knife, skinned his body, cooked his head and served him up in dishes with nameplates for each of his children. Knight, 46, became the first woman in Australia whose file was marked never to be released from jail after pleading guilty to butchering 44-year-old Price in his home in Aberdeen, 200 km north-west of Sydney, on 29 February 2000.
          "She is starting her life sentence in a high security unit of Mulawa jail in western Sydney and this really does mean life under truth-in-sentencing laws introduced in 1990," a court spokesman said. New South Wales Supreme Court judge Barry O'Keefe, handing down the sentence, said that Knight, in a new black night gown, showed Price "no mercy" when she attacked him after the couple had apparently had sex, according to media reports. Price's attempt to escape the frenzied attack — planned 48 hours earlier — culminated with him getting out of the house only to be dragged back in by Knight. O'Keefe said Knight, who had worked as a meat slicer in abattoirs, skinned Price with such expertise and a steady hand that his skin, including that of his head, face, nose, ears, neck, torso, genital organs, and legs, was removed to form one pelt.
          "The excised parts of Mr. Price were then taken to the kitchen and at some stage, after she peeled and prepared various vegetables, she cooked Mr. Price's head in a large pot with a number of vegetables she had prepared so as to produce a sickening stew," he told the court. "The gruesome steaks were then arranged on plates together with the vegetables which she had baked and left as meals for the son and daughter of the deceased accompanied by vindictive notes." O'Keefe said Knight's evil actions came from resentment arising out of her rejection by Price after a six-year relationship, her impending expulsion from his home, and his refusal to share his assets with her, particularly his house which he wanted to keep for his children.

    Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd
    Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.
          The saying is from the closing line of act III of William Congreve's The Mourning Bride, first produced in 1697. The Mourning Bride is your usual king-orders-beheading-of-enemy-prince-upon-finding-he-is-secretly-married-to-king's-daughter-b ut-gets-it-himself-in-a-case-of-mistaken-identity-resulting-in-another-mistaken-identity-with-subse quent-suicide-by-poisoning-revolution-and-reunion-of-happy-lovers tragedy. The first line of the play is another oft-misquote: "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast."

    ALMERIA, the Princess of Granada.
    LEONORA, chief Attendant on the Princess.

    ACT I. SCENE I.
    A Room of State. - The Curtain rising slowly to soft Musick, discovers ALMERIA in Mourning, LEONORA waiting in Mourning. - After the Musick ALMERIA rises from her Chair, and comes forward. -

    ALM.
    Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
    To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
    I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
    And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
    By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.
    What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
    Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe!
    'Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs ...
    =========
    Vile and ingrate! too late thou shalt repent
    The base Injustice thou hast done my Love:
    Yes, thou shalt know, spite of thy past Distress,
    And all those Ills which thou so long hast mourn'd;
    Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd,
    Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.
    [Exeunt Omnes. - The End of the Third Act.]
    ^ Kayla Rolland2000 Kayla Rolland, 6.
    Kayla
      She is shot dead by 6-year-old boy (a Black) from the same first grade, in a Buell Elementary School classroom, Mount Morris Township, just north of Flint, Michigan..

         At about 10:00, the class of 22 was going to the library. The teacher was standing in the doorway. The last five children were still in the classroom, when the boy — who had the .32 semiautomatic pistol tucked in his pants — pointed it at a pupil. Then he turned toward Kayla and fired the only bullet in the gun, striking her in the neck. The children said that the boy had been showing them the gun and threatening to shoot someone. Why the teacher didn't notice anything has not been explained.

         The mother, Tamarla Owens, had left the boy and his 8-year-old brother in the care of her brother in a house where stolen guns were traded for drugs. Jamelle James, 19, who lived there too, had left the loaded gun under a blanket, where the boy found it. Charged with involuntary manslaughter, James would be sentenced on 11 September 2000 to 2 to 15 years in prison. The boy, considered too young to form criminal intent, would not be charged with anything.

         Dedric Owens, the father, is in jail since 20 February 2000, awaiting trial for breaking parole on a home invasion charge.

    2000 Edwin Haroldo Ochoa López, and Julio Armando Vásquez Ramirez, murdered in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. They were environmental workers with the Guatemalan National Council on Protected Areas (Conap). Ochoa had investigated allegations of land-grabbing, illegal lumber cutting and other environmental crimes in the departamentos of Petén and Izabal. Ochoa’s cases included an Izabal deforestation accusation against retired Col. Otoniel Ponciano García and two associates.
    1996 All 117 passengers and 6 crew members aboard a Peruvian Faucett Airline Boing 737 which crashes in the Andes as it prepares to land at Arequipa.

    ^ 1980 Yigal Pavlovich “Allon”, Israeli soldier and politician, born on 10 October 1918 in Palestine.
    — He was best known as the architect of the Allon Plan, a peace initiative that he formulated after Israel captured Arab territory in the Six-Day War of June 1967. Allon was one of the first commanders of the Palmach, an elite branch of the Haganah, a Zionist military organization representing the majority of the Jews in Palestine after World War I. He was involved in smuggling European Jews into Palestine in defiance of restrictions placed on immigration by Great Britain, the region's mandatory power during the period between the world wars. During World War II he fought as a volunteer alongside British soldiers against the Vichy French in Lebanon and Syria.
          After Israel proclaimed independence on 15 May 1948, the Haganah became the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and Allon's initial reluctance to place the Palmach under IDF command earned him the enmity of David Ben-Gurion [16 Oct 1886 – 01 Dec 1973], the first prime minister of Israel. As a commander of the Palmach, Allon fought major battles against the Arabs on various fronts during the first Arab-Israeli War. Pursuing Egyptian forces from the Negev into Sinai, he captured many prisoners of war, including Egypt's future president, Gamal Abdel Nasser [15 Jan 1918 – 28 Sep 1970], then a junior officer.
          Allon entered politics in 1955 when he was elected to the Israeli Knesset (parliament) as representative of Ahdut ha-'Avoda–Po'ale Tziyyon (“Unity of Labour–Workers of Zion”). He held important portfolios in the cabinets of Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol [25 Oct 1895 – 26 Feb 1969], and Golda Meir [03 May 1898 – 08 Dec 1978] and served briefly as acting prime minister in 1969. Following the 1967 war, as deputy prime minister, he developed a peace plan that proposed restoring most of the West Bank territory to Jordan while retaining military settlements along the Jordan River. The plan was never adopted but spurred the growth of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories in subsequent decades.
          His unexpected death occurs while he is being considered for the leadership of the Israel Labor Party.
     

    1960 Some 13'000 persons in magnitude 5.7 earthquake at 23:40 with shallow epicenter at Agadir, Morocco. Some 20'000 persons are made homeless.
    1956 Elpidio Quirino, 65, President of Philippines (1949-1953)
    1948 27 British soldiers, as Stern gang of Zionist terrorists bombs Cairo-Haifa train.
    1924 (11 Feb?) Jean-François Raffaëlli, French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, born on 20 April 1850.

    ^ 1868 Louis I, in Nice, France, king of Bavaria (1825-1848), born on 25 August 1786 in Strasbourg, France.
    — He was a liberal and a German nationalist who rapidly turned conservative after becoming king. He is best known as an outstanding patron of the arts who transformed Munich into the artistic center of Germany.
          Louis, the well-educated eldest son of King Maximilian I [27 May 1756 – 13 Oct 1825], was a fervent German nationalist as a youth and served only reluctantly at the headquarters of Napoléon [15 Aug 1769 – 05 May 1821] in the wars against Prussia and Russia (1806–1807) and Austria (1809). In Bavaria he came to head the anti-French party, and at the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) he unsuccessfully advocated the return of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. The liberal Bavarian constitution of 1818 bears his stamp, and he repeatedly resisted the demands of Klemens Metternich [15 May 1773 – 11 Jun 1859], the Austrian statesman, for basic changes in that document. In church questions, however, Louis was more conservative, opposing his father's secularization of monasteries. He played an active part in the downfall of Bavaria's leading minister, Maximilian Montgelas [10 Sep 1759 – 14 Jun 1838] (1817), whom he blamed for these anti-ecclesiastical policies.
          Louis's liberal reputation assured him of general acclaim upon his accession, but he was soon to disappoint his subjects. The king frequently feuded with the Diet, and after the revolutions of 1830 in Europe he came to distrust all democratic institutions. The Öttingen-Wallerstein ministry (1831–1837) was a shift to the right, and the subsequent government under Karl von Abel (from 1837) steered a strictly reactionary and clericalist course, restoring many monasteries and proceeding to erode the liberal constitution.
          Culturally, however, Louis's reign was brilliant. An enthusiastic patron of the arts, he collected the works that formed the nucleus of Munich's two best-known museums, the Glyptothek and Alte Pinakothek. His large-scale planning of Munich created the city's present layout and classic style. He commissioned many representative buildings, among them the Ludwigskirche, Neue Pinakothek, Propyläen, Siegestor, Feldherrnhalle, and Odeon.
          On the outbreak of the revolutions of 1848, Louis, whose passion for the dancer Lola Montez [1818 – 17 Jan 1861] had reduced his popularity even further, abdicated in favor of his son Maximilian II [28 Nov 1811 – 10 Mar 1864].
     

    1848 Louis-François baron Lejeune, French general, painter, and lithographer born on 03 February 1775. — Author of Mémoires du Général Lejeune. — MORE ON LEJEUNE AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
    |1604 John Whitgift, 74, Archbishop of Canterbury (1583-1604)

    ^ 1528 Patrick Hamilton, 24.
         He is burned at the stake, protomartyr of the Scottish Reformation, Scottish preacher educated in Paris and at Aberdeen University. His Lutheran sympathies then forced him to flee to Germany. He returned to Scotland in 1527 and began to preach at Kincavel. He was invited by James Beaton, Archbishop of Saint Andrews, to attend a conference at Aberdeen. But in 1528, he was brought to trial on a charge of heresy, found guilty, and executed. His 'Loci communes', or 'Patrick's Places', setting forth the doctrine of justification by faith, is included in John Foxe's "Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Dayes", commonly known as "Book of Martyrs.".[I found no such doctrinal tract in the online edition, but it has the following about Patrick Hamilton at the beginning of chapter 15]

    Like as there was no place, either of Germany, Italy, or France, wherein there were not some branches sprung out of that most fruitful root of Luther; so likewise was not this isle of Britain without his fruit and branches. Amongst whom was Patrick Hamilton, a Scotchman born of high and noble stock, and of the king's blood, of excellent towardness, twenty-three years of age, called abbot of Ferne. Coming out of his country with three companions to seek godly learning, he went to the University of Marburg in Germany, which university was then newly erected by Philip, Landgrave of Hesse.

    During his residence here, he became intimately acquainted with those eminent lights of the Gospel, Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon; from whose writings and doctrines he strongly attached himself to the Protestant religion.

    The archbishop of St. Andrews (who was a rigid papist) learning of Mr. Hamilton's proceedings, caused him to be seized, and being brought before him, after a short examination relative to his religious principles, he committed him a prisoner to the castle, at the same time ordering him to be confined in the most loathsome part of the prison.

    The next morning Mr. Hamilton was brought before the bishop, and several others, for examination, when the principal articles exhibited against him were, his publicly disapproving of pilgrimages, purgatory, prayers to saints, for the dead, etc.

    These articles Mr. Hamilton acknowledged to be true, in consequence of which he was immediately condemned to be burnt; and that his condemnation might have the greater authority, they caused it to be subscribed by all those of any note who were present, and to make the number as considerable as possible, even admitted the subscription of boys who were sons of the nobility.

    So anxious was this bigoted and persecuting prelate for the destruction of Mr. Hamilton, that he ordered his sentence to be put in execution on the afternoon of the very day it was pronounced. He was accordingly led to the place appointed for the horrid tragedy, and was attended by a prodigious number of spectators. The greatest part of the multitude would not believe it was intended he should be put to death, but that it was only done to frighten him, and thereby bring him over to embrace the principles of the Romish religion.

    When he arrived at the stake, he kneeled down, and, for some time prayed with great fervency. After this he was fastened to the stake, and the fagots placed round him. A quantity of gunpowder having been placed under his arms was first set on fire which scorched his left hand and one side of his face, but did no material injury, neither did it communicate with the fagots. In consequence of this, more powder and combustible matter were brought, which being set on fire took effect, and the fagots being kindled, he called out, with an audible voice: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! How long shall darkness overwhelm this realm? And how long wilt Thou suffer the tyranny of these men?"

    The fire burning slow put him to great torment; but he bore it with Christian magnanimity. What gave him the greatest pain was, the clamor of some wicked men set on by the friars, who frequently cried, "Turn, thou heretic; call upon our Lady; say, Salve Regina, etc." To whom he replied, "Depart from me, and trouble me not, ye messengers of Satan." One Campbell, a friar, who was the ringleader, still continuing to interrupt him by opprobrious language; he said to him, "Wicked man, God forgive thee." After which, being prevented from further speech by the violence of the smoke, and the rapidity of the flames, he resigned up his soul into the hands of Him who gave it.

    This steadfast believer in Christ suffered martyrdom in the year 1527.[off by one year, possibly not the only inaccuracy of this account]
    0992 Saint Oswald, archbishop of York
    Births which occurred on a February 29:
    2004 Sydney Reed and Traci Reed, twin girls born to Marianne Thoms, 52, of Levelland, Texas, mother of their father Shawn Reed, husband of their genetic mother, Traci Reed, who could not carry a pregnancy because of scarring in her uterus. Shawn and Traci Reed underwent an in-vitro fertilization procedure in San Antonio. A physician told them that it would be best to find a family member to serve as a surrogate mother in order to avoid legal complications over custody of the children. Marianne Thoms, a pilot, skydiver, and scuba diver, who previously last gave birth in 1976, says:. "This pregnancy was much more exciting than those adventures."
    1924 David Beattie British Governor-General of New Zealand.
    1924 Andrzej Maria Descur, who would be made a cardinal on 25 May 1985.
    1920 Howard Nemerov (Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: Collected Works [1978]; 3rd poet laureate of US [1988-1990]).
    1908 Balthasar Klossowski de Rola “Balthus”, French count, a painter, illustrator, and stage designer, who died, 354 days after his 23rd birthday, on 18 February 2001. — MORE ON “BALTHUS” AT ART “4” FEBRUARY with links to images.
    1904 Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenber — — dorff Sr, near Hamburg, Germany; had a given name for every letter in the alphabet, shortened it to Mr. Wolfe Plus 585, Sr.
    1896 Ranchhodji Morarji Desai, premier of India (1977-1979).
    1892 Augusta Christine Fells (later Mrs.) Savage, US sculptor and educator who battled racism to secure a place for African American women in the art world. She died on 26 March 1962.
    1890 John Philip Holland, father of modern submarine.
    1880 Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland and Italy opens.
    ^ 1860 Herman Hollerith, inventor of the tabulating machine
          Herman Hollerith worked as a statistician for the US census of 1880, where he found a pressing need for automated ways to record and process vast amounts of data. He developed an automated data processing system that used punch cards, inspired by the cards that French inventor Joseph Jacquard had developed to program patterns in weaving looms. Several later electronic computers relied on punch cards for data entry. After Hollerith's machine won a competition for the most efficient data processing equipment to be used in the 1890 census, he established his own company, which later merged with two others to become IBM in 1924. He died on 17 November 1929.
    1840 John Philip Holland Liscannor Ireland, pioneer in submarine building.
    1828 Antonio Guzman Blanco, President of Venezuela.
    1792 Gioacchino Rossini operatic composer: (The Barber of Seville)
    1784 Leo van Klenze, German artist who would die at age 79 one month and two days before his 19th birthday in 1864.
    1736 Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers.    ^top^
         Ann Lee, the founder of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, a Christian group commonly known as the Shakers, is born in Manchester, England. In 1770, "Mother" Ann breaks from the Quakers to establish her own religious movement based on celibacy, sexual equality, energetic worship, pacifism, and a communal economy. Four years later, Lee leads her flock to the New World. By the mid nineteenth century, some 17'000 Shakers would live in the United States. Today, the Shakers are best known for their simple yet masterfully designed furniture and architecture.
    1468 Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) last Renaissance pope (1534-1549).
    Feast day of Saint John Cassian in the Eastern Christian Churches.
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