February 28 in History

Emperor Gaozu of Han (256 or 247 – 1 June 195 BC), personal name Liu Bang, was the founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty. Liu Bang was among the few dynastic founders to have been born in a peasant family. He initially entered the Qin dynasty bureaucracy as a minor law enforcement officer in his hometown in Pei County, within the conquered state of Chu. During the political chaos following the death of Qin Shi Huang, who had been the first emperor in Chinese history, Liu Bang renounced his civil service position and became a rebel leader, taking up arms against the Qin dynasty. He outmaneuvered rival rebel leader Xiang Yu to invade the Qin heartland and forced the surrender of the Qin ruler Ziying in 206 BC. After the fall of the Qin dynasty, Xiang Yu, as the de facto chief of the rebels, divided the former Qin Empire into the Eighteen Kingdoms, with Liu Bang forced to accept control of the poor and remote region of Bashu (present-day Sichuan, Chongqing, and southern Shaanxi), and assuming the title "King of Han". Within the year, Liu Bang broke out with his army and conquered the Three Qins, starting the Chu–Han Contention, a civil war among various forces seeking to inherit the Qin dynasty's former territory. In 202 BC, Liu Bang emerged victorious following the Battle of Gaixia, took control over much of the territory previously ruled by Qin, and established the Han dynasty with himself as the emperor. During his reign, Liu Bang reduced taxes and corvée labour, promoted Confucianism, and suppressed revolts by the rulers of vassal states not from his own clan, among many other actions. He also initiated the policy of heqin, a system of arranged marriages, to maintain peace between the Han Empire and the Xiongnu following the Han defeat at the Battle of Baideng in 200 BC. He died in 195 BC and was succeeded by his son Liu Ying.

The Fourth Council of Constantinople was the eighth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church held in Constantinople from 5 October 869, to 28 February 870. It was attended by over 103 bishops. In contrast, the pro-Photian council of 879–80 was attended by 383 bishops. The Council met in ten sessions from October 869 to February 870 and issued 27 canons. The council was called by Emperor Basil I the Macedonian, with the support of Pope Hadrian II. It deposed and anathematized Photius, a layman who had been appointed as Patriarch of Constantinople, and reinstated his predecessor Ignatius. The Council also reaffirmed the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea in support of icons and holy images and required the image of Christ to have veneration equal with that of the gospel book. It was a reaction against the local Council of Constantinople (867) that excommunicated Pope Nicholas I and declared him anathema. A later council, the Eastern Orthodox Fourth Council of Constantinople, was held after Photios had been reinstated on the order of the emperor. Today, the Catholic Church recognizes the council in 869–870 as "Constantinople IV", while the Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize the councils in 879–880 as "Constantinople IV" and revere Photios as a saint. Whether and how far the Greek Fourth Council of Constantinople was confirmed by Pope John VIII is a matter of dispute. Some argue that he did accept it, in his Letters to the Emperors Basil I, Leo VI and Alexander, which were read in the second session of the 879/80 council, his so-called letter to Photios and his Commonitorium. Francis Dvornik has argued that subsequent popes accepted the council of 879 as binding, only choosing the council of 869–70 as ecumenical years later after the Great Schism due to issues with certain canons (namely the implicit condemnation of the filioque). Siecienski disagrees with Dvornik's assessment. The previous seven ecumenical councils are recognized as ecumenical and authoritative by both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians.

The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico from about 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those who spoke Nahuatl. Aztec culture was organized into city-states (altepetl), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahua polities or peoples of central Mexico in the pre-Hispanic era, as well as the Spanish colonial era (1521–1821).

The National Covenant (Scottish Gaelic: An Cùmhnant Nàiseanta) was an agreement signed by many people of Scotland during 1638, opposing the proposed Laudian reforms of the Church of Scotland (also known as the Kirk) by King Charles I. The king's efforts to impose changes on the church in the 1630s caused widespread protests across Scotland, leading to the organisation of committees to coordinate opposition to the king. Facing royal opposition, its leaders arranged the creation of the National Covenant to bolster the movement by tapping into patriotic fervour. It became widely adopted throughout most of Scotland with supporters henceforth known as Covenanters. The Covenant opposed changes to the Church of Scotland, and committed its signatories to stand together in the defence of the nation's religion. Charles saw this as an act of rebellion against his rule, leading to the Bishops' Wars and beginning the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The expenses of fighting the Bishops' Wars required the king to summon the Short Parliament and Long Parliament in England, his disputes with which led to the outbreak of the English Civil War.

Elias Lönnrot (Finnish: [ˈeliɑs ˈlønruːt] ; 9 April 1802 – 19 March 1884) was a Finnish medical doctor, philosopher, poet, musician, linguist, journalist, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for synthesizing the Finnish national epic, Kalevala (1835, enlarged 1849) from short ballads and lyric poems he gathered from Finnish oral tradition during several field expeditions in Finland, Russian Karelia, the Kola Peninsula and Baltic countries. In botany, he is remembered as the author of the 1860 Flora Fennica, the first scientific text written in Finnish rather than in Latin.

USS Princeton was a screw steam warship of the United States Navy. Commanded by Captain Robert F. Stockton, Princeton was launched on 5 September 1843. On 28 February 1844, during a Potomac River pleasure cruise for dignitaries, one gun exploded, killing six people, including Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur and Secretary of the Navy Thomas Walker Gilmer, and injuring others, including a United States Senator and Captain Stockton. The disaster on board the Princeton killed more top US government officials in one day than any other tragedy in American history. President John Tyler, who was aboard but below decks, was not injured. The ship's reputation in the Navy never recovered.

The 1925 Charlevoix–Kamouraska earthquake struck northeastern North America on February 28, reaching 6.2 on the moment magnitude scale. It was one of the most powerful measured in Canada in the 20th century, with a maximum perceived intensity of VIII (Severe) on the Mercalli intensity scale at its epicentre in the area of Charlevoix-Kamouraska along the Saint Lawrence River near île aux Lièvres and not greater than VI (Strong) in the United States. The quake was felt in Quebec City, Shawinigan, and Montreal in Canada, and as far south in the U.S. as Virginia, and as far west as the Mississippi River.

The February 28 incident (also called the February 28 massacre, the 228 incident, or the 228 massacre) was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan in 1947 that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang–led Nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC). Directed by provincial governor Chen Yi and president Chiang Kai-shek, thousands of civilians were killed beginning on February 28. While the event is primarily characterized by the military crackdown, the initial stages involved widespread civil unrest and violence directed against innocent Mainland civilians. Historical research also indicates that various groups, including members of the Communist Party, participated in the uprising. The incident is considered one of the most important events in Taiwan's modern history and was a critical impetus for the Taiwan independence movement. In 1945, following the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, the Allies handed administrative control of Taiwan over to China, thus ending 50 years of Japanese colonial rule. Local residents became resentful of what they saw as high-handed and frequently corrupt conduct on the part of the Kuomintang (KMT) authorities, including the arbitrary seizure of private property, economic mismanagement, and exclusion from political participation. The flashpoint came on February 27, 1947, in Taipei, when agents of the State Monopoly Bureau struck a Taiwanese widow suspected of selling contraband cigarettes. An officer then fired into a crowd of angry bystanders, hitting one man, who died the next day. Soldiers fired upon demonstrators the next day, after which a radio station was seized by protesters and news of the revolt was broadcast to the entire island. As the uprising spread, the KMT-installed governor Chen Yi called for military reinforcements, and the uprising was violently put down by the National Revolutionary Army. Two years later, and for 38 years thereafter, the island would be placed under martial law in a period known as the "White Terror". During the White Terror, the KMT persecuted perceived political dissidents, and the incident was considered too taboo to be discussed. President Lee Teng-hui became the first president to discuss the incident publicly on its anniversary in 1995. The event is now openly discussed, and its details have become the subject of government and academic investigation. February 28 is now an official public holiday called Peace Memorial Day, on which the president of Taiwan gathers with other officials to ring a commemorative bell in memory of the victims. Monuments and memorial parks to the victims of the February 28 incident have been erected in a number of Taiwanese cities. In particular, Taipei's former Taipei New Park was renamed 228 Peace Memorial Park, and the National 228 Memorial Museum was opened on February 28, 1997. The Kaohsiung Museum of History also has a permanent exhibit detailing the events of the incident in Kaohsiung. In 2019, the Transitional Justice Commission exonerated protesters who were convicted by the government in the aftermath. The number of deaths from the incident and massacre was estimated to be between 18,000 and 28,000. Other estimates are much lower. While the majority of the casualties were Taiwanese at the hands of the military, historical records also document hundreds of Mainland civilians (Waishengren) were killed or injured by angry mobs. A government commission was set up under the administration of the pro-Taiwan independence president, Lee Teng-hui, to determine the facts. Using the civil registry set up during the Japanese administration, which was acknowledged by all as very efficient, they determined who was living at the time of the handover to the Chinese administration. The commission was given the power to award to the family of anyone who died in the period of the insurrection and the restoration of Nationalist government rule an amount of NT$6,000,000, about US$150,000. The families did not have to prove that the death was related to the above events. A total of 800 people came forward to get the awards for the people who died during the period.

The Accra riots started on 28 February 1948 in Accra, the capital of the then British colony of the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana). Police broke up a protest march by unarmed ex-servicemen who were agitating for their benefits as veterans of World War II, having fought with the Gold Coast Regiment of the Royal West African Frontier Force. Three of the protest leaders of the group were left dead - Sergeant Nii Adjetey, Corporal Patrick Attipoe and Private Odartey Lamptey; all three have since been memorialized in Accra. The 28 February incident is considered "the straw that broke the camel's back", marking the key point in the process of the Gold Coast becoming the first African colony to achieve independence, becoming Ghana on 6 March 1957.

Floyd County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,942. Its county seat is Prestonsburg. The county, founded in 1800, is named for Colonel John Floyd (1750–1783).

The Northrop T-38 Talon is a two-seat, twinjet supersonic jet trainer designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer Northrop Corporation. It was the world's first supersonic trainer as well as the most produced.

Flight X-167 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Aeroflot from Semipalatinsk (now Semey) to Karaganda on February 28, 1973. The flight, conducted with a Yakovlev Yak-40 aircraft, ended in tragedy when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff, resulting in the deaths of all 32 occupants on board. The exact cause of the accident remains undetermined despite extensive investigation.

A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday 28 February 1974. The Labour Party, led by former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, gained seats, and became the largest party, but was short of an overall majority. The governing Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Edward Heath, lost seats, even though it polled a higher vote share than Labour. This resulted in the first hung parliament since 1929. Heath sought a coalition with the Liberals, but the two parties failed to come to an agreement and so Wilson became prime minister for a second time, his first with a minority government. Wilson called another early election in September, which was held in October and resulted in a Labour majority. The February election was also the first general election to be held with the United Kingdom as a member state of the European Communities (EC), which was widely known as the "Common Market". Its results saw Northern Ireland diverging heavily from the rest of the United Kingdom, with all twelve candidates elected being from local parties (eleven of them representing unionist parties) after the decision of the Ulster Unionist Party to withdraw support from the Conservative Party in protest over the Sunningdale Agreement. The Scottish National Party achieved significant success at the election by increasing its share of the popular vote in Scotland from 11% to 22%, and its number of MPs from one to seven. Plaid Cymru also succeeded for the first time in getting candidates elected at a general election in Wales (its sole previous seat was won at a by-election in 1966). Although Heath's incumbent Conservative government polled the most votes by a small margin, the Conservatives were overtaken in terms of seats by Wilson's Labour Party because of a more efficiently distributed Labour vote. Ultimately, the decision by the seven Ulster Unionist MPs not to take the Conservative whip proved decisive in giving Labour a slim plurality of seats. The other four unionists elected were hardliners who were not affiliated with the UUP. Both the Labour and the Conservative parties lost a considerable share of the popular vote, largely to the Liberal Party under Jeremy Thorpe's leadership, which polled two-and-a-half times its share of the vote in the previous election. However, even with over 6,000,000 votes, only 14 Liberal MPs were elected. There had been some media projections that the Liberals could take twice as many seats. Given that it was not obvious who could command the support of the House, Heath did not resign immediately as prime minister. However, he knew that even if he could persuade all eleven of Northern Ireland's unionist MPs to support a Conservative government, at least on confidence matters, over one led by Wilson, he would still need the support of the Liberals to have a workable majority. Heath, therefore, started negotiations with Thorpe to form a coalition government. Thorpe, never enthusiastic about supporting the Conservatives, demanded major electoral reforms in exchange for such an agreement. Unwilling to accept such terms, Heath resigned, and Wilson returned for his second stint as Prime Minister. The election night was covered live on the BBC and was presented by Alastair Burnet, David Butler, Robert McKenzie and Robin Day. ITV also covered the election, with the results being presented by Robert Kee, Peter Snow, Peter Jay, Richard Rose and Andrew Gardner. Prominent members of Parliament who retired or were defeated at the election included Gordon Campbell, Bernadette McAliskey, Enoch Powell, Richard Crossman, Tom Driberg and Patrick Gordon Walker. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, the first to take place after the United Kingdom became a member of the European Communities on 1 January 1973, and the first since 1929 not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for a single party. This was also the first time since 1910 that two general elections were held in the same year.

The Moorgate tube crash occurred on 28 February 1975 at 8:46 am on the London Underground's Northern City Line; 43 people died and 74 were injured after a train failed to stop at the line's southern terminus, Moorgate station, and crashed into its end wall. It is considered the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground. No fault was found with the train, and the inquiry by the Department of the Environment concluded that the accident was caused by the actions of Leslie Newson, the 56-year-old driver. The crash forced the first carriage of the six-car train into the roof of the tunnel at the front and back, but the middle remained on the trackbed; the 16-metre-long (52 ft) coach was crushed to 6.1 metres (20 ft). The second carriage was concertinaed at the front as it collided with the first, and the third rode over the rear of the second. The brakes were not applied and the dead man's handle was still depressed when the train crashed. It took 13 hours to remove the injured, many of whom had to be cut free from the wreckage. With no services running into the adjoining platform to produce the piston effect pushing air into the station, ventilation was poor and temperatures in the tunnel rose to over 49 °C (120 °F). It took a further four days to extract the last body, that of Newson; his cab, normally 91 centimetres (3 ft) deep, had been crushed to 15 centimetres (6 in). The post-mortem on Newson showed no medical reason to explain the crash. A cause has never been established, and theories include suicide, that he may have been distracted, or that he was affected by conditions such as transient global amnesia or akinesis with mutism. The subsequent inquest established that Newson had also inexplicably overshot platforms on the same route on two other occasions earlier in the week of the accident. Tests showed that Newson had a blood alcohol level of 80 mg/100 ml—the level at which one can be prosecuted for drink-driving—though the alcohol may have been produced by the natural decomposition process over four days at a high temperature. In the aftermath of the crash, London Underground introduced a safety system that automatically stops a train when it is travelling too fast. This became known informally as Moorgate protection. Northern City Line services into Moorgate ended in October 1975 and British Rail services started in August 1976. After a long campaign by relatives of the dead, two memorials were unveiled near the station, one in July 2013 and one in February 2014.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent socialist republic, which would encompass all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argued that the all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected. The Provisional IRA emerged in December 1969, due to a split within the previous incarnation of the IRA and the broader Irish republican movement. It was initially the minority faction in the split compared to the Official IRA but became the dominant faction by 1972. The Troubles had begun shortly before when a largely Catholic, nonviolent civil rights campaign was met with violence from both Ulster loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), culminating in the August 1969 riots and deployment of British soldiers. The IRA initially focused on defence of Catholic areas, but it began an offensive campaign in 1970 that was aided by external sources, including Irish diaspora communities within the Anglosphere, and the Palestine Liberation Organization and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. It used guerrilla tactics against the British Army and RUC in both rural and urban areas, and carried out a bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and England against military, political and economic targets, and British military targets in mainland Europe. They also targeted civilian contractors to the British security forces. The IRA's armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, killed over 1,700 people, including roughly 1,000 members of the British security forces and 500–644 civilians. The Provisional IRA declared a final ceasefire in July 1997, after which its political wing Sinn Féin was admitted into multi-party peace talks on the future of Northern Ireland. These resulted in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In 2005, the IRA formally ended its armed campaign and decommissioned its weapons under the supervision of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. Several splinter groups have been formed as a result of splits within the IRA, including the Continuity IRA, which is still active in the dissident Irish republican campaign, and the Real IRA.

Sven Olof Joachim Palme (; Swedish: [ˈûːlɔf ˈpâlːmɛ] ; 30 January 1927 – 28 February 1986) was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until his assassination in 1986. A longtime protégé of Prime Minister Tage Erlander, he became Prime Minister of Sweden and Chairman of the Social Democratic Party in 1969. He left office after failing to form a government after the 1976 general election, which ended 40 years of unbroken rule by the Social Democratic Party. While he served as a Leader of the Opposition, he also served as special mediator of the United Nations in the Iran–Iraq War, and was President of the Nordic Council in 1979. He faced a second defeat in 1979, but he returned as prime minister after electoral victories in 1982 and 1985, and served until his death. Palme was a pivotal and polarizing figure domestically as well as in international politics from the 1960s onward. Domestically, Palme pursued a left-wing and social democratic agenda for the country, including switching to unicameralism in the constitution, expanding the welfare state, advocating for womens' rights, and pushing for nuclear power, although his last term was more moderate due to Sweden's economic troubles. Many of his economic views were opposed by Sweden's business community. Materially, his reforms resulted in a reduction in infant mortality, an increase in the basic old-age pension replacement rate, and an increase in minimum replacement rate in healthcare earnings, among other improvements. He followed a policy of non-alignment towards the superpowers, frequently criticising both Soviet and American foreign policy. He supported numerous liberation movements and Third World governments. He was the first Western head of government to visit communist Cuba after its revolution. He publicly opposed numerous authoritarian regimes, including those of Francisco Franco of Spain, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, António de Oliveira Salazar of Portugal, Gustáv Husák of Czechoslovakia, and South Africa's apartheid system. His 1972 condemnation of American bombings in Hanoi resulted in a temporary freeze in Sweden–United States relations. Palme's assassination on a Stockholm street on 28 February 1986 was the first murder of a national leader in Sweden since Gustav III in 1792, and had a great impact across Scandinavia. Local convict and addict Christer Pettersson was originally convicted of the murder in Stockholm District Court but was unanimously acquitted by the Svea Court of Appeal. On 10 June 2020, Swedish prosecutors announced that there was "reasonable evidence" that Stig Engström had killed Palme. As Engström had killed himself in 2000, the authorities announced that the investigation into Palme's death was to be closed. The 2020 conclusion has faced widespread criticism from lawyers, police officers and journalists, decrying the evidence as only circumstantial, and – by the prosecutors' own admission – too weak to ensure a trial had the suspect been alive. The true identity of his assassin remains unknown.

Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Atlantis was manufactured by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985. Atlantis is the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J made from October 3 to 7, 1985. It was, along with Challenger, one of only two orbiters equipped to carry the Shuttle-Centaur booster.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF; unofficially abbreviated as BATFE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Justice. Its responsibilities include the investigation and prevention of federal offenses involving the unlawful use, manufacture, and possession of firearms and explosives; acts of arson and bombings; and illegal trafficking and tax evasion of alcohol and tobacco products. ATF also regulates via licensing the sale, possession, and transportation of firearms, ammunition, and explosives in interstate commerce. Many of ATF's activities are carried out in conjunction with task forces made up of state and local law enforcement officers, such as Project Safe Neighborhoods. ATF operates a unique fire research laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, where full-scale mock-ups of criminal arson can be reconstructed. ATF had 5,285 employees and an annual budget of almost $1.5 billion in 2021. ATF has received criticism over its handling of the investigation leading up to the Ruby Ridge standoff, the Waco siege, Operation Fast and Furious, and other controversies.

The 1997 Ardabil earthquake occurred on 28 February with a moment magnitude of 6.1 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The strike-slip earthquake occurred in northern Iran, near the city of Ardabil.

The 1997 military memorandum (Turkish: 28 Şubat, "28 February"; also called postmodern darbe, "post-modern coup") in Turkey was a memorandum, in which decisions issued by the Turkish military leadership on a National Security Council meeting on 28 February 1997 resulted in the resignation of Islamist prime minister Necmettin Erbakan of the Welfare Party, and the end of his coalition government. As the government was forced out without dissolving the parliament or suspending the constitution, the event has been famously labelled a "postmodern coup" by the Turkish admiral Salim Dervişoğlu. The process after the coup is alleged to have been organised by the West Working Group, a purported clandestine group within the military.

The 2001 Nisqually earthquake occurred at 10:54:32 local time on February 28, 2001, and lasted nearly a minute. The intraslab earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The epicenter was in the southern Puget Sound, northeast of Olympia, but the shock was felt in Oregon, British Columbia, eastern Washington, and Idaho. This was the most recent of several large earthquakes that occurred in the Puget Sound region over a 52-year period and caused property damage valued at $1–4 billion. One person died of a heart attack and several hundred were injured.

On 28 February 2002, a three-day period of inter-communal violence began in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra the day before, which caused the deaths of 58 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks (religious volunteers) returning from Ayodhya, is cited as having instigated the violence. Following the initial violence, further outbreaks occurred in Ahmedabad for three months; statewide, even further outbreaks of violence against the minority Muslim population of Gujarat continued for the next year. According to official figures, the riots ended with 1,044 dead, 223 missing, and 2,500 injured. Of the dead, 790 were Muslim and 254 Hindu. The Concerned Citizens Tribunal Report estimated that as many as 1,926 may have been killed. Other sources estimated death tolls in excess of 2,000. In addition to many brutal killings, many rapes were reported, as well as widespread looting and destruction of property. Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat and later Prime Minister of India, was accused of condoning the violence, as were police and government officials who allegedly directed the mob and gave them lists of Muslim-owned properties. Though officially classified as a communal riot, the events of 2002 have been described as a pogrom by many scholars; some commentators alleged that the attacks had been planned and that the attack on the train was a "staged trigger" to obfuscate what was actually premeditated violence. Instances of mass violence include the Naroda Patiya massacre that took place right next to a police training camp; the Gulbarg Society massacre that killed, among others, Ehsan Jafri, a former parliamentarian; and several incidents in Vadodara city. Scholars studying the 2002 riots state that they were premeditated and constituted a form of ethnic cleansing, and that the state government and law enforcement were complicit in the violence. Observers have stated that these events had met the "legal definition of genocide". In 2012, Modi was cleared of complicity in the violence by Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court of India. The SIT also rejected claims that the state government had not done enough to prevent the riots. The Muslim community reacted with anger and disbelief. The Supreme Court rejected multiple legal challenges to the SIT report in subsequent years, and in a 2022 decision ended legal proceedings involving Modi and allegations of state complicity. Approximately 600 individuals were accused in cases related to specific incidents: As of 2022, approximately 200 people had been convicted, and 150 had received life sentences, with various appeals pending.

Pope Benedict XVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City from 2005 until his resignation in 2013. Following his resignation, he chose to be known as "pope emeritus", a title he held until his death on 31 December 2022. Ordained as a priest in 1951 in Bavaria, Ratzinger embarked on an academic career and established himself as a highly regarded theologian by the late 1950s. He was appointed a full professor in 1958 when aged 31. After a long career as a professor of theology at several German universities, he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977, an unusual promotion for someone who had only been ordained to the episcopate less than a month prior and not having much pastoral experience. In 1981, he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the most important dicasteries of the Roman Curia. In 2002, he also became Dean of the College of Cardinals. Before becoming pope, he had been "a major figure on the Vatican stage for a quarter of a century"; he had had an influence "second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions" as one of John Paul II's closest confidants. Following the death of John Paul II on 2 April 2005, a conclave elected Ratzinger as his successor on 19 April; he chose Benedict XVI as his papal name in honour of Benedict XV and Benedict of Nursia. Benedict's writings were prolific and generally defended traditional Catholic doctrine, values, and liturgy. He was originally a liberal theologian but adopted conservative views after 1968. During his papacy, Benedict advocated a return to fundamental Christian values to counter the increased secularisation of many Western countries. He viewed relativism's denial of objective truth, and the denial of moral truths in particular, as the central problem of the 21st century. Benedict also revived several traditions and permitted greater use of the Tridentine Mass. He strengthened the relationship between the Catholic Church and art, promoted the use of Latin, and reintroduced traditional papal vestments, for which reason he was called "the pope of aesthetics". He also established personal ordinariates for former Anglicans and Methodists joining the Catholic Church. Benedict's handling of sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church and opposition to usage of condoms in areas of high HIV transmission were criticized by public health officials, anti-AIDS activists, and victims' rights organizations. Citing health reasons due to his advanced age, Benedict resigned as pope on 28 February 2013. He became the first pope to resign from office since Gregory XII in 1415, and the first without external pressure since Celestine V in 1294. He subsequently moved into the newly renovated Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City for his retirement. The 2013 conclave elected Francis as his successor on 13 March. In addition to his native German language, Benedict had proficiency in French, Italian, English, and Spanish. He also knew Portuguese, Latin, Biblical Hebrew, and Biblical Greek. He was a member of several social science academies, such as the French Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.

On 28 February 2023, a head-on collision occurred between two trains south of the Tempe Valley in Greece, about halfway between the Greek villages of Tempi and Evangelismos in the Thessaly region. The collision, follow-up derailment and fireball that ensued involving the InterCity 62 (IC62) passenger train operated by Hellenic Train and an intermodal freight train, killed 57, heavily injured 81 and lightly injured 99 people. The estimated number of people were 352 on the passenger train including 10 staff, and 2 staff on the freight train totalling 354 people on both trains. It is the most serious railway accident in Europe since 2013, when a train derailment in Santiago de Compostela killed 79 people. Vigils, angry protests, and clashes with the police occurred throughout Greece following the crash. Beginning on 2 March 2023, railway workers of Hellenic Train and the Athens Metro went on strike to protest the dangerous conditions related to the crash. Following the crash, Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned, taking responsibility for the crash and for his failure to bring Greek railways to 21st-century standards. However, he was reelected after standing for office just two months after the incident. The investigation has so far implicated 43 state officials – those directly responsible for the accident, such as the station master and Hellenic Train officials, but also those who failed to carry out the necessary upgrades to the system (European Train Control System and centralized traffic control). Accusations have also been made against officials from the Ministry of Infrastructure who manipulated the site of the accident with "landfilling" that followed the completion of the rescue operation. However, the trial is still a long way off (estimated at the end of 2025), with hundreds of petitions pending for the investigating judge to consider. The development of the investigation process has been closely followed by the Greek press, while private investigations by the relatives of the victims and through independent institutional bodies, such as the bar associations, collecting evidence to support the criminal accusations, are an unprecedented phenomenon for Greek society.

A prime minister, also known as a chief of cabinet, chief minister, first minister, minister-president or premier, is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but rather the head of government, serving as the chief of the executive under either a monarch or a president in a republican form of government.

The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic consisting of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's fourth-largest total area and third-largest population, exceeding 341 million.