202 BC – coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, initiating four centuries of the Han dynasty’s rule over China

1638 – The Scottish National Covenant is signed in Edinburgh.

1784 – John Wesley charters the Methodist Church.

1849 – Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, four months 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.

1885 – The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone. (American Bell would later merge with its subsidiary.)

1922 – The United Kingdom ends its protectorate over Egypt through a Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

1928 – C. V. Raman discovers Raman scattering.

1947 – February 28 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of an estimated 30,000 civilians

1953 – In a Cambridge University laboratory, scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

1954 – The first color television sets using the NTSC standard are offered for sale to the general public

1959 – Discoverer 1, an American spy satellite that is the first object intended to achieve a polar orbit, is launched. It failed to achieve orbit.

1972 – Sino-American relations: The United States and People’s Republic of China sign the Shanghai Communiqué.

1975 – In London an underground train fails to stop at Moorgate terminus station and crashes into the end of the tunnel, killing 43 people

1986 – Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden, is assassinated in Stockholm.

1998 – First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.

2002 – During the religious violence in Gujarat, 97 people killed in the Naroda Patiya massacre and 69 in Gulbarg Society massacre

2004 – Over one million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the February 28 Incident in 1947

2007 – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made a gravitational slingshot against Jupiter to change the planned trajectory towards Pluto.

2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pope to do so since 1415