more events on February 29
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1988
A Nazi document is discovered that implicates participation of Austrian president and former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim in WWII deportations.
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1972
Henry “Hank” Aaron becomes first baseball player to sign a baseball contract for $200,000 a year.
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1968
The Beatles win a Grammy Award for their album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
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Jocelyn Burnell, of Cambridge University, discovers first pulsar.
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1964
President Lyndon B. Johnson reveals the U.S. secretly developed the Lockheed A-11 jet fighter.
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1956
President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces he will seek second term.
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1952
The first pedestrian “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs are installed at 44th Street and Broadway at Times Square.
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1944
Dorothy Vredenburgh accepts an appointment by the Democratic National Committee becoming the first woman secretary of a national political party in the U.S.
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US forces catch Japanese troops off-guard and easily take control of the Admiralty Islands in Papua New Guinea.
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1940
Hattie McDaniel is first African American to win an Academy Award–best supporting actress–for her performance in Gone With The Wind.
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1936
Jack R. Lousma, Astronaut
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1904
Jimmy Dorsey, orchestra leader
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1868
British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli forms his first cabinet.
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1864
Lt. William B. Cushing leads a landing party from the USS Monticello to Smithville, NC, in an attempt to capture Confederate Brig. Gen. Louis Hebert, only to discover that Hebert and his men had already moved on Wilmington.
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Union Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick splits his forces at the Rapidan River ordering Col. Ulric Dahlgren to lead 500 men his men to Goochland Court House, while the remainder followed Kilpatrick in his raid on Richmond.
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1860
Herman Hollerith, inventor of a tabulation mechanism that was a forerunner to the computer.
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1856
Hostilities in Russo-Turkish War cease.
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1792
Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer
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1784
The Marquis de Sade is transferred from Vincennes fortress to the Bastille.
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1736
Anna Lee, founder of the Shaker movement in America.
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1712
Marquis Louis Joseph de Montcalm, Commander of French Forces in North America during French and Indian War.
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1692
Sarah Goode and Tituba are accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, sparking the hysteria that started the Salem Witch Trials.