February 27

February 27 in history:

• 2002: In the Indian state of Gujarat, Muslim extremists attacked and burned a train full of Hindu activists returning from a trip to the city of Ayodhya, where they were agitating for the construction of a Hindu temple on a site where a mosque had earlier been destroyed; this grim incident sparked retaliatory attacks in Gujarat in which hundreds of Muslims died.

• 1991: In a televised address, President George Bush announced that Kuwait had been liberated and that offensive action against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War would end at midnight (EST; 8 a.m. on February 28, in the Middle East).

• 1973: Members of the American Indian Movement seized the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, protesting discriminatory actions against Native Americans and calling for an investigation of the official tribal administration; they occupied the site for 72 days.

• 1933: The Reichstag building in Berlin was destroyed by fire; alleging that the fire was part of a Communist plot, the new Nazi government of Adolf Hitler immediately suspended civil rights and suppressed the opposition.

• 1844: The Dominican Republic proclaimed its independence from Haiti.