February 26
1813 Robert R. Livingstone, one of the founding fathers of US, dies.
1815 French general Napoleon Bonaparte returns to France from exile in Elba.
1848 The Second French Republic is proclaimed.
1871 Preliminary Peace of Versailles is signed between France and Germany.
1909 Turkey recognises Austria’s annexation of Bosnia.
1916 Germans sink French transport ship Provence II, killing 930.
1929 US President Calvin Coolidge establishes Grand Teton National Park.
1936 Military coup in Japan replaces Koki Hirota as premier.
1952 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces Britain has its own atomic bomb.
1972 The floodwaters break through badly constructed strip-mine dams at Buffalo Creek, West Virginia.
1974 Ethiopian army units seize Asmara, second largest city in Ethiopia.
1980 Ahmad Shukeiri, first president of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, dies in Amman at 72.
1986 15 Egyptians were killed and over 300 injured in riots in Cairo.
1987 Afghan aircraft bomb two Pakistani border villages, killing at least 35 people.
1988 Panama President Eric Arthuro Delvalle is sacked by National Assembly after trying to dismiss General Manuel Antonio Noriega.
1990 Nicaraguans oust President Daniel Ortega, ending decade of leftist rule.
1991 The Kuwaiti capital is liberated by the Gulf War allies after 208 days of Iraqi occupation.
1993 A bomb at the World Trade Center in New York City kills six people.
1995 Saudi Arabia and Yemen sign an agreement to resolve their 60-year-old border dispute.
1996 A Sudanese military plane crashes in Sudan, killing all 70 passengers and crew.
2002 Two trains carrying railway workers collide in Wampersdorf, Austria, killing six.
2004 Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski is killed when his plane crashes in thick fog in a region of southern Bosnia.
2008 Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani appoints Major General Mohammad Asif as new head of military intelligence.
2010 A 507-carat diamond is sold by Petra Diamonds for $35.3 million (Dh129.83 million), breaking the record for the highest price paid for a rough diamond.
2013 A hot air balloon caught fire and exploded that killed 19 tourists in Luxor, Egypt.
2015 Australian researchers create two jet engines using 3D printing.
2016 Gianni Infantino is elected as Fifa president.
HIGHLIGHT
1993
Bomb blast hits World Trade Center
An explosion apparently caused by a car bomb in an underground garage shook the World Trade Center, a Manhattan landmark. Final casualty figures showed five dead and 1,042 injured, the vast majority from inhaling smoke as they struggled down stairwells to safety. The explosion rocked lower Manhattan, leaving many thousands of office workers trapped by thick black smoke in upper floors. The explosion was followed by a fire which sent smoke up to the 96th floor of the towers. Authorities said that three hours after the explosion people still remained trapped in the massive buildings, with hard-pressed firefighters trying to make their way up the smoke-filled staircases floor by floor. Police said two injured people were evacuated by helicopters hovering over the roof. Con Edison, New York’s power company, cut power to all buildings in the complex to help the fire department. The explosion, at the edge of New York’s financial hub, forced an end to trading in the commodity markets which are located in the complex.
