On February 26

Former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao Kevin Lau was stabbed, prompting concerns and protests about media freedom.

A hot air balloon crashed near Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 people in the deadliest ballooning disaster in history.

African-American teenager Trayvon Martin was killed by neighborhood-watch coordinator George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, prompting a nationwide controversy.

In the first significant cultural visit from the United States to North Korea since the Korean War, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed in Pyongyang.

Barings Bank, the oldest merchant bank in London, was declared insolvent after its head derivatives trader in Singapore, Nick Leeson, lost £827 million while making unauthorised trades on futures contracts.

The Superliner railcar entered revenue service with Amtrak.

Imperial Japanese Army troops attempted a coup d'etat, occupying parts of Tokyo, and killing several politicians, including finance minister Takahashi Korekiyo.

With the aid of a radio station in Daventry, England, and two receiving antennae, Scottish engineer and inventor Robert Watson-Watt first demonstrated the use of radar.

Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe reinstated, violating the Treaty of Versailles signed at the end of World War I.

The Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded "Livery Stable Blues", the first jazz single ever released.

RMS Britannic, the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line after RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, was launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

Storm Ulysses struck Ireland, felling thousands of trees and causing damage to up to a quarter of all houses in Dublin.

Napoleon escaped from the Italian island of Elba (depicted), to which he had been exiled after the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon made the first recorded European landing in Australia, although he believed that he was on New Guinea.