Local

March 1, 1990: John Hockenberry of National Public Radio was featured on the front page of the Tribune. Hockenberry visited his parents in Albert Lea before going to New York to start a new late-night talk show, “Heat.” Hockenberry had spent two years reporting from NPR’s Jerusalem office prior to the New York assignment.

Feb. 28, 1980: Amy Forsythe, a sixth grader in Albert Lea, won the fifth annual Ramsey School Science Fair. Her project was on solar heating.

Feb. 25, 1980: The Albert Lea City Council voted 6-0 to fund an aeration system for Fountain Lake. City Manager Paul Sparks recommended that the council approve the system as it would improve the fish population in the lake.

 

National

2018: Walmart announced that it would no longer sell firearms and ammunition to people younger than 21 and would remove items resembling assault-style rifles from its website. Dick’s Sporting Goods said it would stop selling assault-style rifles and ban the sale of all guns to anyone under 21.

2016: On the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, some leading Republicans voiced renewed concerns about Donald Trump’s comments and behavior, including his refusal to immediately disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. (Trump would score commanding wins in seven of the 11 Super Tuesday contests.)

2014: Delivering a blunt warning to Moscow, President Barack Obama expressed deep concern over reported military activity inside Ukraine by Russia and warned “there will be costs” for any intervention.

2012: Violent weather packing tornadoes continued to ravage the Midwest and South, resulting in some 15 deaths.

2005: In Santa Maria, California, the prosecution and defense gave opening statements in the sexual molestation trial of Michael Jackson, who was later acquitted.

1998: A jury in Amarillo, Texas, rejected an $11 million lawsuit brought by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey’s talk show for a price fall after a segment on food safety that included a discussion about mad cow disease.

1996: Cuba downed two small American planes operated by the group Brothers to the Rescue that it claimed were violating Cuban airspace; all four pilots were killed.

Daniel Green was convicted in Lumberton, North Carolina, of murdering James R. Jordan, the father of basketball star Michael Jordan, during a 1993 roadside holdup. (Green and an accomplice, Larry Martin Demery, were sentenced to life in prison.)

1994: A jury in San Antonio acquitted 11 followers of David Koresh of murder, rejecting claims they had ambushed federal agents; five were convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

Feb. 26, 1993: A truck bomb built by Islamic extremists exploded in the parking garage of the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others. (The bomb failed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower, as the terrorists had hoped; both structures were destroyed in the 9/11 attack eight years later.)

1993: A gun battle erupted at a religious compound near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh on weapons charges; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began.

1991: During the Persian Gulf War, 28 Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Operation Desert Storm came to a conclusion as President George H.W. Bush declared that “Kuwait is liberated, Iraq’s army is defeated,” and announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight, Eastern time.

1988: In a ruling that expanded legal protections for parody and satire, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned a $150,000 award that the Rev. Jerry Falwell had won against Hustler magazine and its publisher, Larry Flynt.

1973: Members of the American Indian Movement occupied the hamlet of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, the site of the 1890 massacre of Sioux men, women and children. (The occupation lasted until the following May.)

Feb. 25, 1964: Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) became world heavyweight boxing champion as he defeated Sonny Liston in Miami Beach.

Feb. 28, 1953: Scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick announced they had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

1951: The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office, was ratified.

Feb. 29, 1936: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a second Neutrality Act as he appealed to American businesses not to increase exports to belligerents.

1929: President Calvin Coolidge signed a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Feb. 27, 1922: The Supreme Court, in Leser v. Garnett, unanimously upheld the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed the right of women to vote.

1919: President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional act establishing Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

1917: The Associated Press reported that the United States had obtained a diplomatic communication sent by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to a German official in Mexico proposing a German alliance with Mexico and Japan should the U.S. enter World War I. (Outrage over the telegram helped propel America into the conflict.)

1892: The United States and Britain agreed to submit to arbitration their dispute over seal-hunting rights in the Bering Sea. (A commission later ruled in favor of Britain.)

1844: A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded as the ship was sailing on the Potomac River, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others.

1801: The District of Columbia was placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.

1796: President George Washington proclaimed Jay’s Treaty, which settled some outstanding differences with Britain, in effect.

1761: Boston lawyer James Otis Jr. went to court to argue against “writs of assistance” that allowed British customs officers to arbitrarily search people’s premises, declaring: “A man’s house is his castle.” (Although Otis lost the case, his statement provided early inspiration for American independence.)