Historical Events on Thursday, 26th February

26/02/2021

A total of 279 female students aged between 10 and 17 are kidnapped by bandits in the Zamfara kidnapping in Zamfara State, Nigeria.

The Zamfara kidnapping was the abduction of 279 female students aged between 10 and 17 during a raid by armed bandits on 26 February 2021. The kidnapping occurred at the Government Girls Science Secondary School, a boarding school in Jangebe, in Zamfara State, Nigeria. All hostages were released by the bandits on 2 March 2021, though claims vary as to the negotiation methods used by the Nigerian government in order to facilitate their release.

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26/02/2019

Indian Air Force fighter-jets target Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist training camps in Balakot, Pakistan.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct aerial warfare during armed conflicts. It was officially established on 8 October 1932 as an auxiliary air force of the British India which honoured India's aviation service during World War II.

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26/02/2013

A hot air balloon crashes near Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 people.

A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket, which carries passengers and a source of heat, in most cases an open flame caused by burning liquid propane. The heated air inside the envelope makes it buoyant, since it has a lower density than the colder air outside the envelope. As with all aircraft, hot air balloons cannot fly beyond the atmosphere. The envelope does not have to be sealed at the bottom, since the air inside the envelope is at about the same pressure as the surrounding air. In modern sport balloons the envelope is generally made from nylon fabric, and the inlet of the balloon is made from a fire-resistant material such as Nomex. Modern balloons have been made in many shapes, such as rocket ships and the shapes of various commercial products, though the traditional shape is used for most non-commercial and many commercial applications.

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26/02/2012

A train derails in Burlington, Ontario, Canada killing at least three people and injuring 45.

The Burlington VIA train derailment was a derailment that occurred on February 26, 2012, in the Aldershot neighbourhood of Burlington, Ontario, Canada, resulting in deaths of the 3 engineers in the locomotive and 46 injuries. There were 75 passengers and four crew members on board at the time of the accident. The derailment occurred in an industrial area east of Aldershot GO Station. The official report into the accident was released on June 10, 2013, by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) indicating that the crew misinterpreted the signal causing them to believe that they were authorized to proceed at track speed, when in fact they were authorized only for slow speed—a maximum of 15 mph (24 km/h)—in order to switch tracks.

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Seventeen-year-old African-American student Trayvon Martin is shot to death by neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman in an altercation in Sanford, Florida.

Trayvon Benjamin Martin was an African American from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic-American. Martin had accompanied his father to visit his father's fiancée at her townhouse at The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford. On the evening of February 26, Martin was walking back to the fiancée's house from a nearby convenience store. Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, saw Martin and reported him to the Sanford Police as suspicious. Several minutes later, an altercation happened and Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest.

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26/02/2008

The New York Philharmonic performs in Pyongyang, North Korea; this was the first such event to take place in North Korea.

The New York Philharmonic is an American symphony orchestra based in New York City. Known officially as the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., and globally known as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, it is one of the leading American orchestras popularly called the "Big Five". The Philharmonic's home is David Geffen Hall, at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

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26/02/1995

The UK's oldest investment banking institute, Barings Bank, collapses after a rogue securities broker Nick Leeson loses $1.4 billion by speculating on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange using futures contracts.

Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London. It was one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member of the German–British Baring family of merchants and bankers.

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26/02/1993

World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing six and injuring over a thousand people.

On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef and associates carried out a van bomb terrorist attack below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336-pound (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to make the North Tower collapse onto the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it was successful in killing six people, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.

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26/02/1992

First 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.

The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994 in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan with support from Turkey. As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, entangled themselves in protracted, undeclared mountain warfare in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the Karabakh Movement.

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26/02/1987

Iran–Contra affair: The Tower Commission rebukes President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff.

The Iran–Contra affair, also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Reagan administration. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendments, a series of laws passed by Congress and signed by Ronald Reagan, further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress, but the Reagan administration continued funding them secretly using non-appropriated funds.

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26/02/1980

Egypt and Israel establish full diplomatic relations.

Foreign relations between Egypt and Israel, which dated back to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War culminated in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and was followed by the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty a year after the Camp David Accords, mediated by U.S. president Jimmy Carter. Full diplomatic relations were established on January 26, 1980, and the formal exchange of ambassadors took place one month later, on February 26, 1980, with Eliyahu Ben-Elissar serving as the first Israeli Ambassador to Egypt, and Saad Mortada as the first Egyptian Ambassador to Israel. Egypt has an embassy in Tel Aviv and a consulate in Eilat. Israel has an embassy in Cairo and a consulate in Alexandria. Their shared border has two official crossings, one at Taba and one at Nitzana. The crossing at Nitzana is for commercial and tourist traffic only. The two countries' borders also meet at the shoreline of the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea.

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26/02/1979

The Superliner railcar enters revenue service with Amtrak.

The Superliner is a type of bilevel intercity railroad passenger car used by Amtrak, the national rail passenger carrier in the United States. Amtrak commissioned the cars to replace older single-level cars on its long-distance trains in the Western United States. The design was based on the Budd Hi-Level cars used by the Santa Fe Railway on its El Capitan trains. Pullman-Standard built 284 cars, known as Superliner I, from 1975 to 1981; Bombardier Transportation built 195, known as Superliner II, from 1991 to 1996. The Superliner I cars were the last passenger cars built by Pullman.

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26/02/1971

U.N. Secretary-General U Thant signs United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day.

The secretary-general of the United Nations is the chief administrator of the United Nations who oversees the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it also represents all 193 nations on the global stage.

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26/02/1966

Apollo program: Launch of AS-201, the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket.

The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo was conceived during Project Mercury and executed after Project Gemini. It was conceived in 1960 as a three-person spacecraft during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961.

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26/02/1960

A New York-bound Alitalia airliner crashes into a cemetery in Shannon, Ireland, shortly after takeoff, killing 34 of the 52 persons on board.

Alitalia - Società Aerea Italiana S.p.A., operating as Alitalia, was an Italian airline which was once the flag carrier and largest airline of Italy. The company had its head office in Fiumicino, in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital. The airline was owned by the Government of Italy as a nationalized business from its founding in 1946 until it was privatized in 2009. However, it struggled with profitability whilst operating as a private company, including failed negotiations to sell to other private parties. The airline entered extraordinary administration in 2017 following many years of financial losses. The Italian government eventually took back ownership of the airline in March 2020.

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A Kyiv-bound Aeroflot airliner crashes on approach to Snilow Airport in Lviv, killing 32 of the 33 people on board.

Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both banks of the Dnieper River. As of January 2022, the population of Kyiv was 2,952,301, making it the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyiv is an important industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural center. It is home to high-tech industries, higher education institutions, and historical landmarks. The city has an extensive public transport system, which includes the Kyiv Metro.

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26/02/1952

Vincent Massey is sworn in as the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada.

Charles Vincent Massey was a Canadian diplomat and statesman who served as the 18th governor general of Canada from 1952 to 1959. Massey was the first governor general of Canada to be born in Canada.

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26/02/1945

World War II: US troops reclaim the Philippine island of Corregidor from the Japanese.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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26/02/1936

In the February 26 Incident, young nationalist Japanese military officers assassinate multiple cabinet statesmen and start a rebellion in downtown Tokyo, which is ended 3 days later.

The February 26 incident , also known as the 2–26 incident, was an attempted coup d'état in the Empire of Japan on 26 February 1936. It was organized by a group of young Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) officers with the goal of purging the government and military leadership of their factional rivals and ideological opponents.

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26/02/1935

Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles.

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi era, which lasted from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations as well as the perpetration of the Holocaust, the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.

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Robert Watson-Watt carries out a demonstration near Daventry which leads directly to the development of radar in the United Kingdom.

Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt was a Scottish radio engineer and pioneer of radio direction finding and radar technology.

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26/02/1929

President Calvin Coolidge signs legislation establishing the 96,000 acres (390 km2) Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Calvin Coolidge was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously served as the 29th vice president from 1921 to 1923, under President Warren G. Harding, and as the 48th governor of Massachusetts from 1919 to 1921. Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government conservative, with a taciturn personality and dry sense of humor that earned him the nickname "Silent Cal".

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26/02/1919

President Woodrow Wilson signs an act of Congress establishing the Grand Canyon National Park.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only Democrat to serve as president during the Progressive Era, when Republicans dominated the presidency and legislative branches. As president, Wilson made significant economic reforms and led the United States through World War I. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism.

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26/02/1914

HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

HMHS Britannic was the third and final vessel of the White Star Line's Olympic class of ocean liners and the second White Star ship to bear the name Britannic. She was the younger sister of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner. She operated as a hospital ship from 1915 until her sinking near the Greek island of Kea, in the Aegean Sea at position 37°42′05″N 24°17′02″E, in November 1916. At the time she was the largest hospital ship in the world, and the largest vessel built in Britain.

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26/02/1909

Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, is first shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London.

Kinemacolor was the first successful colour motion picture process. Used commercially from 1909 to 1915, it was invented by George Albert Smith in 1906. It was a two-colour additive colour process, photographing a black-and-white film behind alternating red/orange and blue/green filters and projecting them through red and green filters. It was demonstrated several times in 1908 and first shown to the public in 1909. From 1909 on, the process was known and trademarked as Kinemacolor and was marketed by Charles Urban's Natural Color Kinematograph Company, which sold Kinemacolor licences around the world.

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26/02/1876

Japan and Korea sign the Treaty of Kangwha, which grants Japanese citizens extraterritoriality rights in Korea, opens three Korean ports to Japanese trade, and ends Korea's status as a tributary state of Qing dynasty China.

The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the period of Japanese history spanning 79 years, starting from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From August 1910 to September 1945, it included the Japanese archipelago, the Kurils, Karafuto, Korea, and Taiwan. The South Seas Mandate and concessions such as the Kwantung Leased Territory were de jure not internal parts of the empire but dependent territories. In the closing stages of World War II, with Japan defeated alongside the rest of the Axis powers, the formalized surrender was issued on September 2, 1945, in compliance with the Potsdam Declaration of the Allies, and the empire's territory subsequently shrunk to cover only the Japanese archipelago resembling modern Japan.

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26/02/1870

The Beach Pneumatic Transit in New York City, intended as a demonstration for a subway line, opens.

The Beach Pneumatic Transit was an early technology demonstrator for underground public transit in New York City. Running on pneumatic power, it was built by Alfred Ely Beach between 1869 and early 1870. The original terminus resided in the basement of the Rogers Peet Building in Lower Manhattan, near the old City Hall station. A one-car shuttle carried riders between the building and a dead end approximately 300 feet (91 m) away. Despite ambitious plans to construct stations along a five-mile route to Central Park, the project never expanded beyond the short demonstration track and closed in 1873.

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26/02/1815

Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from exile on the island of Elba.

Napoleon I was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and North Africa during the Napoleonic Wars. He was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. As a statesman, he enacted the Napoleonic Code, which continues to influence legal systems worldwide, and reformed education by establishing state lycées.

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26/02/1794

The first Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen burns down.

The first Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark, was built on Slotsholmen in 1745 as a new main residence for King Christian VI of Denmark-Norway. It was built on the same site as its predecessor, Copenhagen Castle, which had assumed a monstrous appearance and started to crumble under its own weight after several extensions.

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26/02/1775

The British East India Company factory on Balambangan Island is destroyed by Moro pirates.

The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies, and later with East Asia. The company gained control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures and had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British Army at certain times.

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26/02/1616

Galileo Galilei is formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun.

The Galileo affair was an early 17th century political, religious, and scientific controversy regarding the astronomer Galileo Galilei's defence of heliocentrism, the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. It pitted supporters and opponents of Galileo within both the Catholic Church and academia against each other through two phases: an interrogation and condemnation of Galileo's ideas by a panel of the Roman Inquisition in 1616, and a second trial in 1632 which led to Galileo's house arrest and a ban on his books.

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26/02/1606

The Janszoon voyage of 1605–06 becomes the first European expedition to set foot on Australia, although it is mistaken as a part of New Guinea.

Willem Janszoon captained the first recorded European landing on the Australian continent in 1606, sailing Duyfken from Bantam, Java. As an employee of the Dutch East India Company, Janszoon had been instructed to explore the coast of New Guinea in search of economic opportunities. He had originally arrived in the Dutch East Indies from the Netherlands in 1598, and became an officer of the VOC on its establishment in 1602.

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26/02/1365

The Ava Kingdom and the royal city of Ava (Inwa) were founded by King Thado Minbya.

The Ava Kingdom also known as Inwa Kingdom or Kingdom of Ava was the dominant kingdom that ruled upper Burma (Myanmar) from 1365 to 1555. Founded in 1365, the kingdom was the successor state to the petty kingdoms of Myinsaing, Pinya and Sagaing that had ruled central Burma since the collapse of the Pagan Kingdom in the late 13th century.

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26/02/1266

Battle of Benevento: An army led by Charles, Count of Anjou, defeats a combined German and Sicilian force led by Manfred, King of Sicily. Manfred is killed in the battle and Pope Clement IV invests Charles as king of Sicily and Naples.

The Battle of Benevento was a major medieval battle fought on 26 February 1266, near Benevento in present-day Southern Italy, between the forces of Charles I of Anjou and those of King Manfred of Sicily. Manfred's defeat and death resulted in Charles' conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily, effectively ending the rule of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in the Italian Peninsula and marking the rise of the royal Capetian House of Anjou. The engagement was part of the conflict which pitted Guelphs against Ghibellines.

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26/02/1074

Battle of Kemej: The royal army of Solomon, King of Hungary defeats the force of his rebellious cousin Duke Géza.

The Battle of Kemej was an internal conflict between Solomon, King of Hungary and his cousin Duke Géza, took place on 26 February 1074 near Kemej in present-day Heves County. As a result of a betrayal, Géza was defeated, but he managed to flee from the advancing and overwhelming royal army.

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26/02/0364

Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor.

Valentinian I, sometimes known as Valentinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 364 to 375. He is the second-last emperor to govern the empire as a whole, albeit he only did so from February 26th to March 28th of 364, after which he appointed Valens to rule over the Eastern half the empire, while he remained in control of the West. During his reign, he fought successfully against the Alamanni, Quadi, and Sarmatians, strengthening the border fortifications and conducting campaigns across the Rhine and Danube. Also, his general Theodosius the Elder defeated a revolt in Africa and the Great Conspiracy. Valentinian founded the Valentinian dynasty, with his sons Gratian and Valentinian II succeeding him in the western half of the empire and his daughter Galla marrying emperor Theodosius I.

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26/02/0320

Chandragupta I is officially crowned as the first Gupta Emperor.

Chandragupta I was a monarch of the Gupta Empire, who ruled in northern and central India. His title "Mahārājadhirāja" suggests that he was the first suzerain ruler of the dynasty. It is not certain how he turned his small ancestral kingdom into an empire, although a widely accepted theory among modern historians is that his marriage to the Licchavi princess Kumaradevi helped him extend his political power. Their son Samudragupta further expanded the Gupta Empire.

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01/01/1970

According to Ptolemy, the epoch (origin) of the Nabonassar Era began at noon on this date. Historians use this to establish the modern BC chronology for dating historic events.

Claudius Ptolemy, better known mononymously as Ptolemy, was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European science. The first was his astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest, originally entitled Mathēmatikḗ Syntaxis. The second is the Geography, which is a thorough discussion on maps and the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day. This is sometimes known as the Apotelesmatika but more commonly known as the Tetrábiblos.

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