On Feb. 29, 1972, Hank Aaron signed a three-year deal with the Atlanta Braves that paid him $200,000 per year, making him the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball at the time. Two years later, Aaron became baseball’s career home run king when he broke Babe Ruth’s long-standing record.
On Feb. 29, 1988, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu was arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.
On Feb. 28, 1993, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, with media in tow, raided the Waco, Texas, compound of the Branch Davidian religious group, prompting a gun battle in which four agents and six Davidians were killed. The federal agents were attempting to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on information that the religious sect was stockpiling weapons. A nearly two-month standoff after the unsuccessful raid ended with an assault on the compound on April 19, 1993, and a fire that burned the compound to the ground killing 76 Davidians, including Koresh and 20 children.
On Feb. 27, 1854, the Republican Party of the United States was organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
On Feb. 25, 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of repressively ruling the nation and Corazon Aquino became the Philippines’ first woman president in a peaceful revolution sometimes called the “Yellow Revolution” because of the yellow ribbons used during street demonstrations.
On Feb. 24, 1803, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of William Marbury vs. James Madison, Secretary of State of the United States, confirming the legal principle of judicial review — the ability of the Supreme Court to limit congressional power by declaring legislation unconstitutional.
On Feb. 24, 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Later, he was acquitted by the Senate.
On Feb. 23, 1836, the Battle of the Alamo began with Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launching an assault on the Alamo Mission near modern-day San Antonio, Texas. The siege lasted 13 days until Mexican forces overwhelmed the mission.
On Feb. 23, 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington, D.C., after dodging opposition mobs in Baltimore, Maryland.
On Feb. 23, 1903, Cuba leased Guantánamo Bay to the U.S. “in perpetuity.”
On Feb. 23, 1945, during the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U.S. flag.
On Feb. 22, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend, Christoph Probst, members of a close-knit group of University of Munich students calling themselves “The White Rose,” were executed after being caught distributing leaflets urging Germans to resist Hitler and the Nazis. [For more see today’s commentary.)
On Feb. 22, 1980, the U.S. hockey team defeated the four-time defending gold-medal-winning Soviet team 4 – 3 before a frenzied crowd of 10,000 spectators at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The victory of the youthful American college players beating the Soviet squad, considered the best in the world, became known as “The Miracle on ice.”
On Feb. 22, 1732, George Washington, who would go on to become “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” was born in Virginia.