February 29 in History

February 29 is the 60th day of the Gregorian calendar in such a year, with 306 days remaining until the end of that year.

February 29, known as a leap day in the Gregorian calendar.

• 1916 – In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from twelve to fourteen years old.
• 1940 – For her role as Mammy in the film Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award.
• 1940 – In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, due to WWII, physicist Ernest Lawrence received the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden’s Consul General.
• 1972 – Hank Aaron became the first player in the history of major league baseball to sign a $200,000 contract.
• 1988 – South African archbishop Desmond Tutu was arrested with 100 other clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.