Month: February 2024

Happy Leap Year Day! We all get this extra day once every four years, to keep the calendar in sync with the Earth’s 365-and-a-quarter day orbit. My personal tradition for leap year days is to contact friends and distant relatives with whom I’ve been out of touch for at least three years. Pictured above, in Holland: Crossing a flooded field with leaping poles. (“Met de polsstok door ondergelopen akker“.) — On February 29, 2020 a new, democratic constitution was adopted by the National Assembly elected by Czech and Slovak leaders, furthering the consolidation of the two states into Czechoslovakia. — …

On February 28, 1827, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad became the first steam-operated railway in the United States to be chartered as a common carrier of freight and passengers. — William Ewart Fairbairn (28 February 1885 – 20 June 1960) was a British soldier and police officer. He developed hand-to-hand combat methods for the Shanghai Police during the interwar period, as well as for the Allied special forces during World War II. He created his own fighting system known as Defendu. Notably, this included innovative pistol shooting techniques and the development of the Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife. — February 28th is …

On February 27th, 1933, the German Reichstag (parliament) building caught fire, a key event in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship. More recently, the terms “Reichstag Fire” and “False Flag Event” have both come into use to describe triggering events covertly used to shift public opinion and shape government policies. On February 27th, 1900 — Felix Hoffman patented acetylsalicylic acid, better known as aspirin. February 27th, 1902 Harry ‘Breaker’ Harbord Morant was executed in Pretoria. On this day in 2010, a magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile, causing widespread damage and triggering a tsunami that devastated coastal areas; it was the most …

Forced to abdicate as French emperor in 1814, Napoleon escaped from exile on the island of Elba on this day in 1815 and, gathering support en route, retook power on his return to Paris on March 20, ushering in the Hundred Days. — February 26, 1993: A truck bomb built by Islamic extremists explodes in the parking garage of the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others. — February 26th is also the birthday of Major-General Orde Charles Wingate (born, 1903, died 24 March 1944), an eccentric British Army officer …