On This Day: February 27

This is the 58th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras was first celebrated in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1827 when a group of young men returned from a trip to Paris and introduced the French carnival idea. Mardi Gras is always on the Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday) before Ash Wednesday, the day that marks the beginning of the Lenten season. Mardi Gras means 'Fat Tuesday' from the custom of using all the fats in the home before Lent. The term was first used in America in 1699 by the French explorer Pierre le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, who gave the name Pointe du Mari Gras to a spot on the Mississippi River, to commemorate the traditional pre-Lenten observance in France. Famous Mardi Gras carnivals outside France and New Orleans are held in Rio de Janeiro and Sydney.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Alnoth, St. Herefrith of Louth, and St. Leander of Seville.

Dominican Republic: Independence Day.

Events

1801 - The District of Columbia was placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.

1879 - American chemists Ira Remsen and Constantine Fahlberg announced their discovery of saccharin.

1883 - Oscar Hammerstein of New York City patented the first practical cigar-rolling machine.

1897 - Great Britain agreed to United States arbitration in a border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, defusing a diplomatic crisis.

1922 - The 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, providing for female suffrage, was unanimously declared constitutional.

1933 - The burning down of the Reichstag building in Berlin offered the Nazis, who blamed the Communists, the opportunity to suspend personal liberty.

1939 - The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed sit-down strikes.

1974 - "People" magazine debuted.

1991 - President George Bush declared the end of the Gulf War. Kuwait was declared liberated.

1997 - Divorce became legal in Ireland; it had been the only nation in Europe in which divorce was illegal.

2002 - A Muslim mob attacks a train a few minutes after it leaves the Godhra railway station, killing at least 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya.

2005 - Pre-pay price capping on the Transport for London oyster card is introduced.

2007 - The general strike against Lansana Conté in Guinea ends.

Births

274 - Constantine, Roman emperor.

1807 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet.

1886 - Hugo Black, American politician and Supreme Court associate justice.

1902 - John Steinbeck, American writer.

1932 - Elizabeth Taylor, American Academy Award-winning actress.

1934 - Ralph Nader, American consumer activist.

1959 - Johnny Van Zant, American Southern rock vocalist.

1964 - Todd Bodine, race car driver born in Chemung, New York.

1973 - Ali Tabatabaee, one of two main vocalists in the band Zebrahead.

Deaths

1936 - Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist, psychologist, and physician, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904.

1989 - Konrad Lorenz, Austrian zoologist, credited for establishing the science of ethology.

1998 - George H. Hitchings, American scientist, recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

2003 - Fred Rogers, the host of TV's "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."

2006 - Otis Chandler, best known as the publisher of the Los Angeles Times between 1960 and 1980.

2007 - Bobby Rosengarden, jazz drummer, percussionist, and bandleader.

2008 - William F. Buckley, Jr., an American author and conservative commentator.