Events
1633 - The formal inquest of Galileo Galilei by the Inquisition begins.
1937 - Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft
1961 - Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space.
Births
1748 - Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, French botanist
1852 - Ferdinand von Lindemann, German mathematician
1884 - Otto Meyerhof, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate
Deaths
1971 - Igor Tamm, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
1997 - George Wald, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
More like this
February 28th
1704 - Birth of Louis Godin, French astronomer
Births
1867 - Charles Dillon Perrine, American-born astronomer
Births
1814 - Gabriel Auguste Daubrée, French geologist
Births