1504 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Native Americans to provide him with supplies.
1644 – Abel Tasman's second Pacific voyage began.
1704 – Queen Anne's War: French forces and Native Americans stage a raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing 56 villagers and taking more than 100 captive.
1712 – February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Old style.
1720 – Ulrika Eleonora, Queen of Sweden abdicates in favour of her husband, who becomes King Frederick I on 24 March.
1752 – King Alaungpaya founds Konbaung Dynasty, the last dynasty of Burmese monarchy.
1768 – Polish nobles formed Bar Confederation.
1796 – The Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain comes into force, facilitating ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.
1864 – American Civil War: Kilpatrick–Dahlgren Raid fails – plans to free 15,000 Union soldiers being held near Richmond, Virginia are thwarted.
1892 – St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated.
1912 – The Piedra Movediza (Moving Stone) of Tandil falls and breaks.
1916 – Tokelau is annexed by the United Kingdom.
1916 – Child labor: In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from twelve to fourteen years old.
1920 – Czechoslovak National assembly adopted the Constitution.
1936 – Baby Snooks, played by Fanny Brice, debuts on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
1936 – February 26 Incident in Tokyo ends.
1940 – For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
1940 – Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations.
1940 – In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, because of the war, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden's Consul General in San Francisco.
1944 – World War II: The Admiralty Islands are invaded in Operation Brewer led by American General Douglas MacArthur.
1952 – The island of Heligoland is restored to German authority.
1960 – The 5.7 Mw Agadir earthquake shakes coastal Morocco with a maximum perceived intensity of X (Extreme), destroying Agadir, and leaving 12,000 dead and another 12,000 injured.
1964 – In Sydney, Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser sets a new world record in the 100-meter freestyle swimming competition (58.9 seconds).
1972 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – South Korea withdraws 11,000 of its 48,000 troops from Vietnam.
1980 – Gordie Howe of the then Hartford Whalers makes NHL history as he scores his 800th goal.
1988 – South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.
1988 – Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the Canadian House of Commons to come out as gay.
1992 – First day of Bosnia and Herzegovina independence referendum.
1996 – Faucett Flight 251 crashes in the Andes, all 123 passengers and crew died.
2000 – Second Chechen War: 84 Russian paratroopers are killed in a rebel attack on a guard post near Ulus Kert.
2004 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide is removed as President of Haiti following a coup.
2008 – The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence decides to withdraw Prince Harry from a tour of Afghanistan "immediately" after a leak led to his deployment being reported by foreign media.
2008 – Misha Defonseca admits to fabricating her memoir, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, in which she claimed to have lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust.
2012 – Tokyo Skytree construction completed. Now it is the tallest tower in the world, 634 meters high, and second tallest (man-made) structure on Earth, next to Burj Khalifa
