On This Day for February 28 - Olof Palme assassinated, Frank O. Gehry is featured, and more

Created: 2020-02-28 11:02 Updated: 2020-02-28 11:02 Notebook: On this Day in History

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February 28

FEATURED BIOGRAPHY

1929

Frank O. Gehry

FEATURED EVENT

1986

Olof Palme assassinated

MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2013: Benedict XVI became the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415. [ Test your knowledge of popes .]

(From left) Actors McLean Stevenson, Wayne Rogers, Gary Burghoff, and Alan Alda in a scene from the television series M*A*S*H.

1983: The final episode of the immensely popular TV series M*A*S*H aired and was watched by an estimated 106 million viewers.

1931: American basketball coach Dean Smith, who was one of the most successful men's basketball coaches in collegiate history, was born. [ Take our basketball player nicknames quiz .]

1901: American chemist Linus Pauling, who received two Nobel Prizes, one for Chemistry in 1954 and another for Peace in 1962 (for efforts to control the spread of nuclear weaponry), was born. [ Discover how much you know about the Nobel Prize .]

The Tom Thumb, the first American-built locomotive to operate in regular service.

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.

1942: During World War II , Japanese troops landed on the island of Java, which they occupied until 1945. [ Sort fact from fiction in our World War II quiz .]

SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY

ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY

1906

Bugsy Siegel
American gangster

1901

Linus Pauling
American scientist

1926

Svetlana Alliluyeva
Russian writer

1953

Paul Krugman
American economist

1923

Charles Durning
American actor and boxer