Today is Wednesday, February 26, the 57th day of 2014. There are 308 days left in the year.
1815 — Napoleon and 1,200 leave Elba to start 100-day re-conquest of France
1848 — Marx and Engels publish “The Communist Manifesto”
1919 — Congress established Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona
1930 — First red and green traffic lights installed (Manhattan, NYC)
1936 — Military coup in Japan
1952 — P.M. Winston Churchill announces that Britain has its own atomic bomb
1977 — First flight of Space Shuttle (atop a Boeing 747)
1980 — Egypt and Israel exchange ambassadors for the first time
1983 — Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album goes to No. 1 and stays No. 1 for 37 weeks
1995 — London finance house of Barings collapse after losses in Singapore by trader Nick Leeson