On this day in history

February 28

29 births · 17 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

2026 Iran War

0 years ago

Born this day

1533

Michel de Montaigne

Died aged 59

Photo (modified): anonymous · Public domain

Oldest record

1254th

Bai Juyi

birth anniversary

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Famous births29

AD 772 · 1254 yrs

Bai Juyi

Bai Juyi (also Bo Juyi or Po Chü-i; Chinese: 白居易, Mandarin pinyin Bái Jūyì; 772–846), courtesy name Letian (樂天), was a Chinese musician, poet, and politician during the Tang dynasty. Many of his poems concern his career or observations made about everyday life, including as governor of three different provinces.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 74

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1533 · 493 yrs

Michel de Montaigne

Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne (28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), commonly known as just Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant writers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularising the essay as a literary genre.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 59

View profile Photo (modified): anonymous · Public domain

1863 · 163 yrs

Vladimir Vernadsky

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (Russian: Владимир Иванович Вернадский), known in Ukraine as Volodymyr Ivanovych Vernadsky (Ukrainian: Володимир Іванович Вернадський; 12 March 1863 – 6 January 1945), was a Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemistry,…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 81

View profile Photo (modified): АН СССР · Public domain

1895 · 131 yrs

Marcel Pagnol

Marcel Paul Pagnol (also US: pah-NYAWL; French:; 28 February 1895 – 18 April 1974) was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Regarded as an auteur, in 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie française.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 131

View profile Photo (modified): Studio Harcourt · Public domain

1896 · 130 yrs

Philip Showalter Hench

Philip Showalter Hench (February 28, 1896 – March 30, 1965) was an American physician.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 130

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1901 · 125 yrs

Linus Pauling

Linus Carl Pauling ( PAW-ling; February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist and peace activist. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 125

View profile Photo (modified): US-Gov., Library of Congress, biographical file · Public domain

1913 · 113 yrs

Sergey Mikhalkov

Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov (Russian: Сергей Владимирович Михалков; 13 March 1913 – 27 August 2009) was a Russian author of children's books and satirical fables. He wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 113

View profile Photo (modified): Presidential Press and Information Office · CC BY 4.0

1915 · 111 yrs

Peter Medawar

Sir Peter Brian Medawar (28 February 1915 – 2 October 1987) was a Brazilian-born biologist and writer of Lebanese-British descent who, from a succession of research and teaching posts (Oxford through the Royal Institution), and senior U.K.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 111

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1926 · 100 yrs

Svetlana Alliluyeva

Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva (née Stalina; 28 February 1926 – 22 November 2011), later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 100

View profile Photo (modified): UPI · Public domain

1929 · 97 yrs

Frank Gehry

Frank Owen Gehry ( GAIR-ee; né Goldberg; February 28, 1929 – December 5, 2025) was a Canadian and American architect and designer known for his postmodern designs and use of unconventional forms and materials.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ArtWould be 97

View profile Photo (modified): City of Toronto / Jose San Juan · Attribution

1930 · 96 yrs

Leon Cooper

Leon N. Cooper (né Kupchik; February 28, 1930 – October 23, 2024) was an American theoretical physicist and neuroscientist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on superconductivity.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 96

View profile Photo (modified): Kenneth C. Zirkel · CC BY-SA 3.0

1939 · 87 yrs

Daniel C. Tsui

Daniel Chee Tsui (Chinese: 崔琦; pinyin: Cuī Qí, born February 28, 1939) is an American physicist. He is currently serving as the Professor of Electrical Engineering, emeritus, at Princeton University.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceAge 87

View profile Photo (modified): Istvan Hargittai · CC BY 4.0

Showing 12 of 29

Famous deaths17

1648 · 378 yrs

Christian IV of Denmark

Christian IV (12 April 1577 – 28 February 1648) was King of Denmark and Norway, and Duke of Holstein and Schleswig from 1588 until his death in 1648. His reign of 59 years and 330 days makes him the longest-reigning monarch in Scandinavian history.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyDied aged 70

View profile Photo (modified): Pieter Isaacsz · Public domain

1869 · 157 yrs

Alphonse de Lamartine

Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (French:; 21 October 1790 – 28 February 1869) was a French author, poet, and statesman. Initially a moderate royalist, he became one of the leading critics of the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe, aligning more with the Republican Left and Social Catholicism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Adrien Tournachon · Public domain

1915 · 111 yrs

Sergei Witte

Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (Russian: Сергей Юльевич Витте, romanized: Sergey Yulyevich Vitte, IPA:; 29 June 1849 – 13 March 1915), also known as Sergius Witte, was a Russian statesman who served as the first prime minister of the Russian Empire, replacing the emperor as head of government.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 65

View profile Photo (modified): Chapiro, St. Petersburg · Public domain

1916 · 110 yrs

Henry James

Henry James ((1843-04-15)15 April 1843 – (1916-02-28)28 February 1916) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 72

View profile Photo (modified): John Singer Sargent (died 1925) · Public domain

1925 · 101 yrs

Friedrich Ebert

Friedrich Ebert (4 February 1871 – 28 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as the first president of Germany from 1919 until his death in 1925. Ebert was elected leader of the SPD on the death in 1913 of August Bebel.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 54

View profile Photo (modified): Hermann Noack · Public domain

1936 · 90 yrs

Charles Nicolle

Charles Jules Henri Nicolle (21 September 1866 – 28 February 1936) was a French bacteriologist who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his identification of lice as the transmitter of epidemic typhus.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 69

View profile Photo (modified): Roland Huet · Public domain

1941 · 85 yrs

Alfonso XIII

Alfonso XIII (Spanish: Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena; French: Alphonse Léon Ferdinand Marie Jacques Isidore Pascal Antoine de Bourbon; 17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African for his Africanist views, was King of Spain from his…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

RoyaltyWould be 140

View profile Photo (modified): Kaulak · Public domain

1963 · 63 yrs

Rajendra Prasad

Rajendra Prasad (3 December 1884 – 28 February 1963) was an Indian politician, lawyer, journalist and scholar who served as the first president of India from 1950 to 1962 for two terms. He joined the Indian National Congress during the Indian independence movement and became a major leader from the region of Bihar.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LawWould be 141

View profile Photo (modified): Food_Minister_Rajendra_Prasad_during_a_radio_broadcast_in_Dec_1947.jpg : photodivision.gov.in derivative work: Shivamset · Public domain

1986 · 40 yrs

Olof Palme

Sven Olof Joachim Palme (Swedish:; 30 January 1927 – 28 February 1986) was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until his assassination in 1986.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 99

View profile Photo (modified): Bert Verhoeff for Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl

2006 · 20 yrs

Owen Chamberlain

Owen Chamberlain (July 10, 1920 – February 28, 2006) was an American physicist who shared with Emilio Segrè the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the antiproton, a sub-atomic antiparticle.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 106

View profile Photo (modified): Nobel foundation · Public domain

2011 · 15 yrs

Annie Girardot

Annie Suzanne Girardot (25 October 1931 – 28 February 2011) was a French actress. She often played strong-willed, independent, hard-working, and often lonely women, imbuing her characters with an earthiness and reality that endeared her to women undergoing similar daily struggles.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 95

View profile Photo (modified): Georges Biard · CC BY-SA 3.0

2011 · 15 yrs

Jane Russell

Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American actress, model, and singer. She was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s and starred in more than 20 films.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 105

View profile Photo (modified): Trailer screenshot Licencing information : http://www.creativeclearance.com/guidelines.html#D2 Trailer can be viewed her · Public domain

Showing 12 of 17

Events5

1658 · 368 yrs

Treaty of Roskilde

The Treaty of Roskilde was negotiated at the parsonage of Høje Taastrup Church and was concluded on 26 February (OS) or 8 March 1658 (NS) in the Danish city of Roskilde during the Second Northern War between Frederick III of Denmark–Norway and Karl X Gustav of Sweden.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

2016 · 10 yrs

88th Academy Awards

The 88th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2015 and took place on February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, 5:30 p.m. PST.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Culture

2023 · 3 yrs

Tempi train crash

On 28 February 2023, a head-on collision occurred between two trains south of the Tempe Valley in Greece, about halfway between the Greek villages of Tempi and Evangelismos in the Thessaly region.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Disaster

2026 · 0 yrs

2026 Iran War

Since 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel have been at war with Iran and its regional allies. The war follows the Twelve-Day War in June 2025 and sporadic fighting during the Middle Eastern crisis sparked by the Gaza war (2023–present).

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

War

2026 · 0 yrs

Assassination of Ali Khamenei

On 28 February 2026, Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, was assassinated in Tehran as part of a series of Israeli airstrikes aimed at high-ranking Iranian officials. Khamenei's death was confirmed by the Iranian government on 1 March.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tragedy

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