February 29th

Today's Highlight in History:
On February 29th, 1940, "Gone with the Wind" won eight Academy Awards, including best picture of 1939.

On this date:
In 1504, Christopher Columbus, stranded in Jamaica during his fourth voyage to the West, used a correctly predicted lunar eclipse to frighten hostile natives into providing food for his crew.

In 1792, composer Gioacchino Antonio Rossini was born in Pesaro, Italy.

In 1796, President Washington proclaimed Jay's Treaty, which settled some outstanding differences with Great Britain, in effect.

In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a seven-member commission to facilitate completion of the Panama Canal.

In 1956, President Eisenhower announced he would seek a second term of office.

In 1960, the first Playboy Club, featuring waitresses clad in "bunny" outfits, opened in Chicago. (Hugh Hefner closed the corporate-owned clubs in 1986, calling them "passe.")

In 1968, the discovery of the first "pulsar," a star which emits regular radio waves, was announced by Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell at Cambridge, England.

In 1968, President Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) warned that racism was causing America to move "toward two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal."

In 1980, former Israeli foreign minister Yigal Allon, who had played an important role in the Jewish state's fight for independence, died at age 61.

In 1984, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau announced he was stepping down after more than 15 years in power.

Twelve years ago: South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other religious leaders were arrested while kneeling near Parliament with a petition against government bans on anti-apartheid groups. (All were freed hours later.)

Eight years ago: Muslims and Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina began casting ballots in an independence referendum; Serbs boycotted the vote, calling it illegal.

Four years ago: About 30 television and entertainment industry executives met with President Clinton at the White House, where they promised to devise a TV ratings system. 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 was sentenced to life in prison; an accomplice who had testified against him, Larry Demery, is also serving a life sentence.) A Peruvian commercial jetliner crashed in the Andes, killing all 123 people on board.

"Many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have if we didn't spend half our time wishing."

-- Alexander Woollcott, American author and critic (1887-1943).