According to some folk beliefs, this is the time when the divine beings who descended to the mortal world for New Year’s Eve begin their ascent back to heaven, a return sometimes referred to as Tiangong Huícháo. Families may perform brief farewell rituals with incense or candles to express gratitude and bid them a respectful send-off.
Since New Year’s Eve, people have been attending feasts and enjoying rich, oily foods. By the twelfth day, many have been indulging in heavy celebratory dishes for nearly two weeks. As a result, it has become customary from this day onward to shift toward lighter, often vegetarian meals to restore balance.
February 28, 1936 -
Wife vs. Secretary starring, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and Myrna Loy premiered on this date.
Please refer to the flowchart provided to follow along - This was the fifth of six films paring Gable and Harlow, and the fourth picture for Gable and Loy starring together. This was the first film Loy and Harlow appeared together. They would be together again for Libeled Lady in 1936.
February 28, 1945 -
The film directorial debut of Elia Kazan, an adaptation of the Betty Smith's novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, starring Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan, Peggy Ann Garner, Ted Donaldson, and James Gleason, opened on this date.
After being so impressed by the dailies of the film, executives at Fox wanted to re-shoot the entire movie in Technicolor, but Elia Kazan refused.
February 28, 1953 -
One of the greatest animated shorts of all time, Duck Amuck, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Daffy Duck, opened on this date.
Originally, Chuck Jones was to appear in live action as the mystery animator at the end, but it was decided late in production that it should be Bugs Bunny.
February 28, 1963 -
Patsy Cline made the final TV appearance on this date, when she's on The Glenn Reeves Show, performing San Antonio Rose and I Fall To Pieces.
She died tragically in a plane crash just five days later at the age of 30.
February 28, 1970 -
Simon and Garfunkel's song Bridge over Troubled Water reached number one on this date and stayed there for the next six weeks.
Simon wrote this song with just two verses, considering the song "a little hymn." Garfunkel and producer Roy Halee heard it as more epic, and convinced him to write a third verse, which Paul did in the studio (the "Sail on, Silvergirl part"). This was very unusual for Simon, as he usually took a long time writing his lyrics. Simon's "little hymn" got a grand production, and after hearing it, Paul thought it was too long, too slow and too orchestral to be a hit. Clive Davis at Columbia Records is the one who heard the commercial appeal of the song, and insisted they market it like crazy and use it as the album title.
February 28, 1983 -
The 256th and final episode of M*A*S*H, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, aired on CBS-TV on this date.
It's the second time the phrase "son-of-a-bitch" was said, uncensored, on the series. Both times it was said by Hawkeye. The first time was in Guerrilla My Dreams, which was also the first time the curse was ever uttered on network television. Hawkeye said it once before, in The Interview, but it was bleeped, as it would have been in a 1951 interview.
February 28, 1983 -
Produced by Steve Lillywhite, U2 released their third studio album War, on this date.
It's their first album to sell a million copies in America.
February 28, 1986 -
The Brat-Pack Classic, Pretty In Pink, starring Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, Jon Cryer and James Spader premiered on this date.
The filmmakers wanted Blane, to be "a hunky, square-jawed jock," but Molly Ringwald wasn't attracted to that sort of guy. Ringwald had some say in the casting, and after Andrew McCarthy auditioned, she told John Hughes and Howard Deutch her thoughts on him. "That's the kind of guy I would fall in love with." They thought he was a "twerpy guy", and weren't interested, but Ringwald pushed for his casting.
February 28, 1989 -
America started following the goings on at with Minnesota State University Screaming Eagles football team when Coach, starring Craig T. Nelson, Shelley Fabares, Jerry Van Dyke, and Bill Fagerbakke premiered on ABC-TV on this date.
The Coach theme song was performed by the Iowa State University Cyclone Football "Varsity" Marching Band. The Iowa State band was the winner of a national contest for the right to play the piece for TV.
February 28, 1992 -
An adult animated series Fish Police, produced by Hanna-Barbera and featured the voice of John Ritter, Héctor Elizondo, Ed Asner, Jonathan Winters, Tim Curry, Robert Guillaume, Buddy Hackett, and Megan Mullally that debuted on CBS on this date.
Lasted for only one season for which six episodes were produced. Only the first three episodes were shown in the U.S. market, before the show was cancelled and pulled off the air,
Today in History:
February 28, 202 BC -
Liu Bang, who rose from obscurity to be crowned as Emperor Gaozu, on this date, at the Xianyang Palace in modern-day Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China.
This marked the beginning of the Han Dynasty, one of the most significant and influential dynasties in Chinese history, lasting from 202 BC to 220 AD.
Once again, what the hell do you care.
February 28, 1574 -
Two impertinent heretics were burned at the stake in Mexico at a spectacular auto-da-fe comparable to those in Spain.
February 28, 1844 -
Julia Gardiner met her future husband, President John Tyler, on this date.
The USS Princeton departed Alexandria, Virginia on a pleasure and trial trip down the Potomac with President John Tyler, his Cabinet and approximately two hundred guests on board. Upon the final firing of Captain Robert F. Stockton's Peacemaker (a newly designed cannon), the defective gun finally burst, instantly killing Secretary of State Abel Upshur; Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer; Captain Beverly Kennon, Chief of the Bureau of Construction, Equipment and Repairs; Virgil Maxcy of Maryland, Charge d'Affaires to Belgium, 1837–42; David Gardiner of New York, the father of Julia Gardiner; and the President's valet, a black slave named Armistead.
It also injured about 20 people, including Captain Stockton (who received severe powder burns on his face, and all the hair on his head was burned off.) A Court of Inquiry exonerated Capt. Stockton due to his political influence (he supported Tyler’s campaign), blaming the explosion on John Ericsson, designer of the ships' engines (despite the fact Ericsson had nothing to do with the design of the Peacemaker gun. Capt. Stockton, in fact, stole the design plans from Ericsson, got a key element of the design wrong in the process, and passed them off as his own), and "bad luck". When Julia Gardiner, who was aboard, found out her father had died in the explosion she fainted into President Tyler's arms.
Isn't love grand.
February 28, 1905 -
Jane Lathrop Stanford, the wife of the late Leland Stanford, died of suspected arsenic poisoning at the Moana Hotel in Honolulu. A coroner’s jury confirmed the result.
Her body was returned to the mainland under the care of David Starr Jordan, the president of Stanford Univ. An examination by Stanford physicians claimed no trace of strychnine and set heart attack as cause of death.
A will signed 19 months earlier had left the bulk of her $30 million estate to Stanford University. After 100 years, the only thing certain about the case - Stanford did in fact died of strychnine poisoning and somebody got away with murder.
February 28, 1915 –
The freedom of any society varies proportionately with the volume of its laughter.
Samuel Joel Zero Mostel, (blacklisted by the HUAC in the '50s), larger than life actor and comedian, was born on this date.
February 28, 1939 -
On July 31, 1931, while working on the second edition of New International Dictionary for the G. and C. Merriam Company, Austin M. Patterson, Merriam-Webster's chemistry editor, sent a slip of paper reading "D or d, cont./density." it was meant as a note to say the the letters D or d could be used as the abbreviation for the word Density. The typo word got past proofreaders and appeared on page 771 of the dictionary around 1934.
The ghost word "dord" was not discovered to have made it into the dictionary until this date in the New International Dictionary. The word was a great source of embarrassment for the G. and C. Merriam Company, since it's not actually a word. For some reason though, they never go around to kicking it out of the dictionary until 1947.
(But please feel free to use it in Scrabble, citing the above mentioned page as proof of it's existence.)
February 28, 1948 -
The first Broadway show I ever heard was the recording of Carousel, and it was a very vivid experience.
Bernadette Lazzara (Bernadette Peters), Actress/Singer was born on this date.
February 28, 1954 -
The first NTSC standard color television sets were sold on this date. The first set was made by Westinghouse, and sold for $1295 (approximately one-half the cost of a new car.)
Only 30 of these sets were sold by April of that year and only 500 sets were ever be built. On March 25th, RCA began shipping its mass-produced all-electronic compatible color set, for $1,000, and later in the year, a still cheaper model that would secure the company’s dominance in the television market.
February 28, 1968 -
Singer and early 60s heartthrob Frankie Lymon was found dead from a heroin overdose next to his syringe, in his grandmother's New York City apartment, on this date. Years later, three women, Zola Taylor, Elizabeth Waters and Elmira Eagle, each claim to be Lymon's rightful widow and sue to stake out a piece of his estate.
SO, I'm hoping the answer to the question, Why do fools fall in love? - isn't so that they can O.D. and have three women pick over the bones of their rotting corpse.
February 28, 1979 -
Mr. Ed, the talking horse, died. This was not the horse who actually starred on the TV show, but another horse who did publicity work as Mr. Ed.
The original Mr. Ed (Bamboo Harvester) died in 1970.
But what do you care.
February 28, 1986 -
Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme was assassinated as he left a movie theater in Stockholm on this date.
In 1996 South African former police officer Eugene de Kock said that Craig Williamson, a South African spy, was involved in the murder. In 1997 lawyer Pelle Svensson said that his client, Lars Tingstrom, wrote a statement on his deathbed in prison in 1993 that he committed the killing. The family of Christer Pettersson, a drug addict and alcoholic, was convinced that he was the killer. In 1999, Abdullah Ocalan in Turkey suggested that a rival PKK organization killed Olaf Palme.
It seems everybody wanted to get into the act.
February 28, 1993 -
Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco used armed force attempting to serve Branch Davidian leader David Koresh with a search warrant (one with no actual evidence of any illegal activity whatsoever), in what the BATF viewed as a publicity stunt to improve their image.
While the agents carefully coordinated the raid with eleven different media outlets, something apparently tipped off Koresh and as these things usual happen - things do not go well: six Davidians and four ATF agents were killed.
The warrant instead could have been served peacefully, while Koresh did his daily morning jog.
February 28, 2013 –
Pope Benedict XVI resigned as the pope of the Catholic Church, on this date.
Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger became the first pope to resign since 1415. At 94, the pope emeritus tenaciously clings to the buttocks of life.
February 28, 2014 -
Ukrainian authorities have accused Russia of deploying troops and occupying government buildings in the region of Crimea. Russia was accused of sending armed troops to the Sevastopol airport and attempting to provoke Ukraine into armed conflict.
This was just the first of many controversial moves made by Russia during the Ukraine government crisis.
Now more than ever, please keep the people of Ukraine and their struggles in your thoughts today.
Before you go, please note -
There are 20 days until Spring!
(Christmas is in 300 days)
And so it goes
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