The following events occurred inFebruary 1969:

• U.S. PresidentRichard M. Nixon instructed his national security adviser,Henry Kissinger, to pursue a secret plan of action to establish dialogue between the governments of theUnited States and thePeople's Republic of China beginning with meetings between diplomats inPoland, where both nations had embassies.^[1]
• Born:
  • Gabriel Batistuta, Argentine-born soccer football striker who starred in Italy's Serie A major league, and for Argentina's national team in three World Cup competitions; in Avellaneda,Santa Fe Province
  • Andrew Breitbart, American conservative news publisher and creator of theBreitbart website (d. 2012); inLos Angeles

• TheBurdell Mansion commune, home at one time to members of theGrateful Dead rock band and later to more than 50hippies who called their group The Chosen Family, was destroyed by an electrical fire. Decades later, California statearchaeologists would excavate the ruins to study the hippie culture.^[2]
• Born:Dambisa Moyo, Zambian-born economist and author of four bestselling books, including 2010'sHow the West Was Lost; inLusaka
• Died:Boris Karloff (William Henry Pratt), 81, English-born actor known for portrayal ofFrankenstein's monster in horror films, and as the narrator in the cartoon adaptation ofHow the Grinch Stole Christmas!^[3]

• Eduardo Mondlane, the 48-year-old leader of theMozambique nationalist organizationFRELIMO, was assassinated by a time bomb that had been planted inside a book mailed to him at his headquarters inDar es Salaam inTanzania. Investigators were never able to determine whether Mondlane's murder had been carried out by the Portuguese colonial government of Mozambique or by Mondlane's rivals within FRELIMO.^[4][5] Mondlane was succeeded bySamora Machel, who would become the firstPresident of Mozambique when the east African nation was granted independence by Portugal in 1975.
• At thePalestinian National Congress inCairo,Yasser Arafat was elected as the new chairman of thePalestine Liberation Organization (PLO), replacingYahya Hammuda. Arafat would serve as PLO Chairman until shortly before his death in 2004.^[6]
• As the hijacking toCuba of American passenger jets continued, Eastern Air Lines Flight 7 was diverted toHavana along with its 87 passengers, includingAllen Funt and a crew from the popular practical joke TV show,Candid Camera.^[7][8] The plane was diverted as it approachedMiami on its flight fromNewark, New Jersey. Because of Funt's reputation as the host of the hidden camera prank show, many of the passengers thought at first that the hijacking was part of the filming of aCandid Camera episode.^[9]
• Born:
  • Retief Goosen, South African professional golfer and 2001 and 2004 U.S. Open winner; in Pietersburg (nowPolokwane)
  • Beau Biden (Joseph R. Biden III), American politician and Attorney General of Delaware from 2007 to 2015; inWilmington, Delaware (died of brain cancer, 2015)
• Died:
  • C. N. Annadurai, 59,Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, died just 20 days after he had successfully lobbied for the name of the populous (over 40 million residents)state of India to be changed from Madras to Tamil Nadu.
  • Al Taliaferro, 63, American comic strip artist who had drawn theDonald Duck newspaper comic since 1938

• The derailment of theTrichinopoly toMadras express train inIndia killed 25 people and injured another 25. Nearly all of the victims had been non-paying passengers riding on the roof of the train.^[10]
• Born:Maniac (stage name for Sven Erik Kristiansen), Norwegian musician, best known as the former vocalist in the black metal bandMayhem^[11]

• Turn-On, a new sketch comedy show onABC from the creators of NBC's popularLaugh-In, premiered at 8:30 in the evening Eastern time, for its first and only episode. One television station inCleveland,WEWS-TV, took the show off the air after the first commercial break,^[12] and stations inPortland andSeattle refused to air it after learning of the reaction in the earlier time zones.^[13] Enough viewers and ABC station owners were offended by the show and its cancellation was announced two days later.^[14][15]
• Thirty-one people were killed in a fire at the Bandai Kokusai Hotel in theJapanese ski resort ofKoriyama, and another 28 injured.^[16] The blaze broke out in the hotel's nightclub and was driven by winter winds throughout the building. Masaki Matsushita, a nude dancer at the nightclub, told fire investigators later that she had accidentally started the blaze when she had "placed a gasoline-soaked rag on an oil stove backstage" while preparing to perform her act before 300 customers.^[17]
• António de Oliveira Salazar, thePrime Minister of Portugal who had ruled the nation as its dictator from 1932 until a brain hemorrhage in 1968, was released from the hospital inLisbon.^[18] Salazar had been replaced as prime minister while in a coma, but would not be told of the decision; he would continue in the belief that he ruled as Portugal's leader until his death in 1970.
• Angeles Flying Service Flight 601, a Beechcraft Super H18 air taxi that regularly ferried passengers fromPort Angeles, Washington toSeattle, crashed and burned immediately after its early-morning takeoff, killing all 10 people aboard.^[19][20]
• Born:
  • Michael Sheen, Welsh stage and film actor; inNewport
  • Bobby Brown, American R&B singer and songwriter; inBoston
• Died:
  • Conrad Hilton Jr., 42, American businessman, heir to the Hilton Hotels fortune, and playboy, died from complications of alcoholism
  • Thelma Ritter, 66, American stage and film actress

• Residents of the West Indies island ofAnguilla voted overwhelmingly for independence from the United Kingdom and the creation of a republic. The final result was 1,739 in favor and only four against on the island of 6,000 people.^[21][22] British paratroopers and municipal policemen from St. Kitts would invade the island on March 19 and dismantle the republic.^[23]
• Born:Masaharu Fukuyama, Japanese singer-songwriter and actor; inNagasaki^[24]

• Nine passengers were killed, and 47 seriously injured inAustralia after the engineer of theSouthern Aurora express train had a fatal heart attack as he approached the crossing atViolet Town, Victoria.^[25] The train was nearing the end of its overnight trip fromSydney toMelbourne and passengers were preparing to eat breakfast when the collision with a freight train happened at 7:10 in the morning. A subsequent autopsy concluded that engineer John Bowden was dead before the train ran through two warning signals and a stop signal.^[26][27]
• Diane Crump ofWoodmont, Connecticut, became the first woman jockey to ride a racehorse in American competition.^[28] With odds of 50-to-1 on the horse, Bridle 'n Bit, 19-year-old Crump finished tenth in a field of 12 in the seventh race that day at Florida'sHialeah race track nearMiami.
• The highest gust of wind in British history took place atKirkwall, atScotland'sOrkney Isles on theNorth Sea, with a wind burst measured at 136 miles per hour (219 km/h).^[29]
• Died:Frank "Cannonball" Richards, 81, American carnival and vaudeville performer whose act involved taking heavy blows to his stomach^[30]

• At 1:05 in the morning local time (07:05 UTC), theAllende meteorite exploded as it entered the atmosphere over the village ofPueblito de Allende in Mexico's Chihuahua state. As the meteor exploded into two pieces which then fragmented into thousands, most of the stones fell in and around Pueblito Allende. Eventually, more than twotonnes — 2,000 kilograms (4,400 lb) — of fragments would be picked up; the Allende meteorite has become the most studied in the world, and is among the rarest because of its composition ofcarbonaceous chondrite.^[31]
• February 8, 1969, was the last date for an issue of the weekly magazine,The Saturday Evening Post,^[32] though it was placed on newsstands and sent to subscribers a week earlier.^[33] ThePost would be resurrected a year later as a semi-monthly magazine.

• TheBoeing 747 "jumbo jet" was flown for the first time, taking off at 11:44 in the morning Pacific Time from Boeing's Paine Field airfield atEverett, Washington.^[34] The flight had been scheduled to last two and a half hours, but pilot Jack Waddell reported difficulty with a wing flap 34 minutes after takeoff, and the 335 ton jet, largest commercial airliner in the world, returned for a landing at 12:49.
• The ADN news agency ofEast Germany announced that the government would bar travel along the three corridors fromWest Germany toWest Berlin, effective February 15, in an apparent effort to block West German state and federal officials from participating in theMarch 5 presidential election, to be held in West Berlin by 1,036 electors.^[35]
• TACCOMSAT, theTacticalCommunicationsSatellite and the largest communications satellite to ever be launched from the United States, was put into a geostationary orbit above the equator by a Titan 3C booster rocket launched fromCape Kennedy.^[36]
• The Israeli Navy recovered the distress buoy from the submarineINSDakar, which had disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea on January 25, 1968.^[37] However, the wreckage itself would not be located for another 30 years, finally being found on May 28, 1999.^[38]
• Born:Ian Eagle, American TV sports announcer; inMiami
• Died:Gabby Hayes, 83, American character actor in Western films who portrayed the sidekick comedy relief for Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and several other Western stars.

• The Kingdom ofThailand heldelections for Parliament for the first time since the1958 military coup, in accordance with the new 1968 constitution.^[39] Field MarshalThanom Kittikachorn, who had been prime minister since 1963, retained his office as the leader of the new military-backedUnited Thai People's Party (UTPP), which won 75 of the 219 seats in theHouse of Representatives.^[40] Thirty of the 72 winning independent candidates would join the UTPP.^[41]

• U.S. President Nixon called for "a war on organized crime", requesting Congress to pass laws allowing confiscation of Mafia assets including any funds traced to criminal activity. The result would be the passage of theOrganized Crime Control Act of 1970 (OCCA).^[42]
• Thirteen days afterseizing control of the computer center atSir George Williams University inMontreal, student protesters set fire to the room on the seventh floor of the Henry F. Hall Building as city police moved to retake the facility.^[43] The climax to the siege, which ended with the arrest of 50 students, was the damage of computers and data worth one million dollars.
• Divers of theItalian Navy controlled an explosion that destroyed the platform on which engineerGiorgio Rosa proclaimed theRepublic of Rose Island.^[44]
• Born:
  • Bill Warner, American motorcycle racer and one-time holder of the land speed record of 311.945 miles per hour (502.027 km/h); inLittle Falls, New York (killed in motorcycle crash, 2013)
  • Jennifer Aniston, American TV actress and comedienne best known for portrayingRachel Green onFriends; inSherman Oaks, California

• Raymond Barre, theEEC Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, presented the "Barre Plan", the first step within the six Common Market nations to coordinate their economic and monetary policies, to theEuropean Economic Community. Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany would approve the plan on July 17.^[45]
• NASA launched anotherApollo Applications Project (AAP)-relatedAerobee 150sounding rocket fromWhite Sands Missile Range. The rocket carried aNaval Research Laboratory payload to a 187.9-kilometre (116.8 mi) altitude to record photographically 18extreme ultraviolet spectra ofsolar photosphere,chromosphere, andcorona, using a flight design verification unit of the high-resolutionspectrograph planned forApollo Telescope Mount (ATM)-A and ATM-B. Rocket and instruments performed satisfactorily.^[46]
• Born:
  • Hong Myung-bo, manager of theSouth Korea national soccer football team from 1990 to 2002; inSeoul
  • Darren Aronofsky, American film director known forPi andBlack Swan; inNew York City

• African-American students staged simultaneous protests on college campuses across the United States as part of the "Black Campus Movement" (BCM). An author would later write that "If there was a day, orthe day, that black campus activists forced the racial reconstruction of higher education, it was February 13, 1969... It was like no other day in the history of black higher education... this day had been in the making for more than one hundred years and changed the course of higher education for decades to come."^[47]
• Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) terrorists set off a time bomb at theCanadian Stock Exchange and theMontreal Exchange injuring 27 people. At 2:45 in the afternoon, an anonymous phone call warned of a bomb somewhere in the building, but the explosion happened only three minutes later at the trading floor. At the time, there were 300 traders, exchange employees and people taking orders by phone.^[48]
• Born:Bryan Thomas Schmidt, American science fiction author and editor; inTopeka^[49]
• Died:Florence Mary Taylor, 89, Australian architect, engineer and pilot

• Pope Paul VI issuedMysterii Paschalis, amotu proprio, deleting many names from theRoman calendar of saints, includingValentine, who was celebrated on this day.
• Died:Vito Genovese, 71, Italian-born American mobster, died of a heart attack while imprisoned at the federal medical center inSpringfield, Missouri. Genovese, nicknamed "The King of the Racketeers", had continued to run his Mafia empire from prison while serving a 15-year sentence for narcotics trafficking.^[50]

• FourU.S. Department of Interior scientists (Ed Clifton, Conrad Mahnken, Richard Waller and John VanDerwalker) entered the undersea habitatTektite I on the seabed ofGreat Lameshur Bay off theU.S. Virgin Islands with the goal of setting a record for living and working in asaturation diving environment.^[51][52] By March 18, the four aquanauts had set a new record for longest time underwater by a single team, and they remained atTektite I until April 15, returning to the surface after 58 days undersea.^[53]
• Born:
  • Roberto Balado, Cuban amateur super heavyweight boxer, 1992 Olympic gold medalist and three-time world amateur champion (1989, 1991, 1993); inJovellanos (killed in car accident, 1994)
  • Birdman (stage name for Bryan Christopher Williams), American rap music artist and entrepreneur; inNew Orleans
• Died:
  • Zahurul Haq, 34,Pakistani Air Force officer and one of the 35 defendants in theAgartala Conspiracy Case, was fatally shot while in jail and awaiting trial. His death would cause so much outrage inEast Pakistan that the Pakistani government would decide to drop the conspiracy charges and release the remaining defendants only a few days later. Within two years, the uprising would lead to East Pakistan becoming independent asBangladesh, and Haq is now celebrated as a Bengali martyr.^[54]
  • Pee Wee Russell, 62, American jazz drummer

• Fifteen travelers were arrested by Communist China's navy after the yachts they were sailing strayed into Chinese territorial waters as they traveled fromHong Kong toMacao.^[55] The people on board the luxury yachtsMorasum,Reverie andUin-Na-Mara included four Americans, two Britons, three Taiwanese and a Frenchman. The 15 (four of whom were children), who were in Hong Kong to celebrate the Chinese New Year, had been warned not to make the trip because of the weather and found themselves surrounded byPeople's Liberation Army Navy gunboats. The group would be held captive on the mainland for seven weeks, until the release of 13 of the 15 on April 3, when theReverie and theUin-Na-Mara would be allowed to return to Hong Kong. TheMorasum, however, would be held by China, along with its captain, Simeon Baldwin, and a passenger, Bessie Hope Donald, because of the yacht's electronic equipment and a suspicion that it was being used for espionage.^[56] Baldwin, Donald, and theMorasum were eventually allowed to leave on December 7.^[57]
• The state of emergency that had existed inPakistan (includingEast Pakistan, now Bangladesh) since 1965 was lifted by Pakistan's PresidentMohammad Ayub Khan.^[58]

• Soviet Ambassador to WashingtonAnatoly Dobrynin was hosted by U.S. President Richard Nixon for the first time. After meeting at the White House, they agreed to set up "a secret back channel" between Dobrynin andHenry Kissinger to discuss the possibility of nuclear disarmament.^[59]
• Sixteen people were killed in South Africa, and another 70 seriously injured, when their passenger train collided with an overturned gasoline tanker car atLanglaagte, a suburb ofJohannesburg.^[60][61]
• Died:
  • Berry L. Cannon, 33, Americanaquanaut, died ofcarbon dioxide poisoning while attempting to repair theSEALAB III habitat offSan Clemente Island, California.^[62] "Had it not been for the tragic loss," an author would write later, "who knows how far the U.S. Navy might have advanced undersea research? It was his death, though, that caused the funding sponsors of this research to withdraw their support and the SEALAB program died a quiet death."^[63]
  • Paul Barbarin, 69, American jazz drummer, suffered a fatal heart attack while leading his Onward Brass Band on St. Charles Street in a parade held inNew Orleans on the night before theMardi Gras celebrations. Barbarin stopped to ask for a glass of water before being stricken moments later.^[64]

• All 35 passengers and crew on boardHawthorne Nevada Airlines Flight 708 were killed after their DC-8 plane crashed into the side ofMount Whitney shortly after taking off fromHawthorne, Nevada. The 32 passengers had spent the previous day at the El Capitan Casino and were returning toLong Beach, California.^[65] The wreckage of the "gambler's special" would not be located until August 8.^[66]
• Eight people in the small town ofCrete, Nebraska, were killed, and 11 others seriously injured, after a railroad tank car ruptured and spread a fog ofanhydrous ammonia fumes throughout the community. Five of the dead were residents, and another three were hoboes who had been riding aboard the Burlington Railroad train as it traveled from Denver to Chicago.^[67]
• The name of theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was changed to the Committee on Internal Security by a 305 to 79 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.^[68]

• In its race against the United States to be the first to land a man on theMoon (with veteran cosmonautAlexei Leonov as commander), theSoviet Union attempted to placeLunokhod lunar rover intolow Earth orbit, to be taken to the Moon by a more powerful rocket, theN1. Less than a minute after liftoff from Baikonur, however, the uncrewed mission ended when the rocket booster exploded. A second setback would follow two days later.^[69]
• Casey Station, an innovative Antarctic research station for theAustralian Antarctic Territory, was established.^[70] Originally referred to as "Repstat" because it was the replacement station for theWilkes Station, it was renamed in honor ofRichard Casey, the outgoingGovernor-General of Australia.
• TheBritish Postal Museum & Archive, now simply referred to asThe Postal Museum, was opened at the King Edward Building in a ceremony presided over by Queen Elizabeth II.^[71]

• U.S. PresidentRichard M. Nixon asked Congress to begin the process of abolishing theElectoral College with a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be considered by the states. Nixon, who said that the American presidential voting system "once again requires overhaul to repair defects spotlighted by the circumstances of 1968" suggested that the amendment take the form of either dividing each state's electoral votes "in a manner that may more closely approximate the popular vote" in the state, or that the popular vote winner be declared president as long as he or she had gotten at least 40 percent of the vote. If no candidate won at least 40%, the top two vote getters would face each other in a runoff election.^[72]

• The second major setback for the Soviet Union's crewed lunar program happened as the most powerful Soviet rocket, the uncrewedN1, was launched for the first time. The rocket lifted off from theBaikonur Cosmodrome, in the Kazakh SSR, at 3:18 in the afternoon local time (0918 UTC). Only 70 seconds later, however, its 30 engines shut down by themselves, or by a destruct order from ground control.^[69] The payload, a modified lunar spacecraft, separated and landed 21 miles (34 km) from Baikonur, and the rest of the N1 fell 31 miles (50 km) further. An author forPopular Science magazine would comment more than 40 years later, "In less than two minutes, the Soviets’ last valiant effort to beat America to the Moon was reduced to piles of twisted and burnt metal.^[73]
• The official newspaper of theCentral Committee of the Chinese Communist Party,People's Daily, announced the party's decision to concentrate resources on "socialist industrialization" to quickly develop small-scale factories in the nation's rural provinces. In the two years following the publication of the editorial "Grasp Revolution, Promote Production and Win a New Victory on the Industrial Front", tens of thousands of iron works, cement plants, fertilizer plants and other small production facilities would be constructed, especially in the provinces ofHeilongjiang,Henan,Hebei,Hunan,Hubei,Guangxi andShandong.^[74]
• A volcanic eruption began onDeception Island, the site ofAntarctic research stations established by both theUnited Kingdom and byChile. The blast triggered flooding, and by the time it ended less than 48 hours later, the abandoned Chilean research station was destroyed and the British station was so severely damaged that it had to be abandoned permanently.^[75]
• With his popularity in sharp decline,Pakistan's President Ayub Khan announced that he would not run for re-election.^[76]
• Born:Petra Kronberger, Austrian alpine skier, 1992 Olympic double gold medalist and the first woman to win races in all five World Cup skiing events (downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super giant slalom and combined downhill and slalom) in one racing season (1990–91); inSt. Johann im Pongau

• Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Bengali leader of theAwami League and leader of the fight for the rights of the Bengali Muslim residents ofEast Pakistan against thePakistan government, was released unconditionally after nine months imprisonment. Mujib and 33 others were set free as Pakistan's government dropped all charges arising from theAgartala Conspiracy Case, the orders coming on the same day as more than a million students protested the government of Ayub Khan.^[77] In 1971, East Pakistan would become independent from West Pakistan as the new nation ofBangladesh, with Mujib as its first president.
• The final stage of theTet Offensive, theNorth Vietnamese Army andViet Cong attack onSouth Vietnam, was launched on multiple provinces. The "Vietnam Spring Offensive", which would lead to President Nixon's decision to carry theVietnam War intoCambodia, would continue until June 8.^[78][79]
• ThePopular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine was founded.^[80]
• Born:
  • Thomas Jane, American TV actor; as Thomas Elliott III inBaltimore
  • Clinton Kelly, Panamanian-born American television host; inPanama City

• In the aftermath of the new Communist offensive against South Vietnam during the American halt of bombing, U.S. President Nixon decided to expand theVietnam War intoCambodia. Nixon was en route toBrussels onAir Force One for his first tour of Europe as president when, asHenry Kissinger would later recount, "he suddenly ordered the bombing of the Cambodian sanctuaries" of the Viet Cong guerrillas, "without consulting relevant officials" and "in the absence of a detailed plan for dealing with the consequences."^[81] Nixon would cancel the order two days later after his aides intervened, but would order the first attack on March 18.^[82]
• Born:Michael Campbell, New Zealand professional golfer, 2005 U.S. Open winner and winner the same year of theHSBC World Match Play Championship; inHāwera
• Died:
  • King Saud, 67,ruler of Saudi Arabia from 1953 until he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son,King Faisal, in 1964, died of a heart attack.^[83]
  • Madhubala (screen name for Mumtaz Jehan Dehlavi), 36, Indian actress and leading lady ofHindi cinema, died of a lung illness

• The landmark decision ofTinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District was issued by the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that theFirst Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to public schools within limits.^[84][85] The case stemmed from an incident onDecember 16, 1965, when students Mary Beth Tinker, John Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War, and then were suspended after declining to remove them. JusticeAbe Fortas, writing for the 7 to 2 majority, observed that "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate," but added that schools retained the right to deter protests that "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school."^[86]
• Firing mortars fromJordan, Al-Fatah guerrillas lobbed artillery shells at the country residence of Israel's Prime Minister Levi Eshkol atDegania Alef near theSea of Galilee. In acknowledging the attack, the Israeli government noted that Eshkol was inJerusalem for more than three weeks.^[87]
• The AmericanMariner 6 probe was launched fromCape Kennedy,Florida in the United States at 8:29 p.m. local time, to begin a 226,300,000 mile journey toMars, where it was scheduled to make its closest approach on July 31.^[88]

• U.S. President Nixon announced that the United States would unilaterally discontinue its offensivebiological weapons program, and that research would be limited to defense against bio-weapons. Among the reasons was that the weapons had limited utility and were not a reliable deterrent and that it was important to discourage their acquisition by other nations.^[89]
• Died:Jan Zajíc, 18, a Czech student who, following the example ofJan Palach the previous month, set himself on fire to protest the Soviet Union's occupation of Czechoslovakia.^[90]

• Levi Eshkol, who had served as thePrime Minister of Israel since 1963, died of a heart attack inJerusalem while convalescing from a February 3 myocardial infarction.^[91] Deputy Prime MinisterYigal Allon acted as the interim premier until theKnesset could choose a permanent replacement from one of three candidates— Allon, Defense MinisterMoshe Dayan and former foreign ministerGolda Meir. TheAl Fatah guerrilla organization claimed in a statement issued fromDamascus that its February 24 rocket attack on Eshkol's rural residence had been the cause of wounds that claimed Eshkol's life, and the Israeli government's response was that "It is the most ridiculous and infantile of the Fatah's 1,001 nights fairy tales."^[92] Meir would become the new prime minister in March.
• Died:Karl Jaspers, 86, German-born Swiss psychiatrist and existentialist

• One of the least successfulBroadway productions,But, Seriously, opened atHenry Miller's Theatre. Despite a cast that includedRichard Dreyfuss andTom Poston, and the authorship of Academy Award-winning film screenwriterJulius J. Epstein (who won the Oscar forCasablanca), the play would be performed only four times, with its final performance on Saturday, March 1.But, Seriously would also prove to be the last Broadway play to be staged at Henry Miller's Theatre, which would not be revived for more than 30 years.^[93]
• Died:
  • John Boles, 73, American film actor and singer
  • Marius Barbeau, 85, Canadian anthropologist

• Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, on trial inLos Angeles for the 1968 murder of presidential candidateRobert F. Kennedy, stood up in court shortly after the first defense witness began to testify. After Superior Court Judge Herbert V. Walker sent the jury out and allowed Sirhan to speak, the accused assassin said "At this time I wish to withdraw my original plea of innocent and plead guilty on all counts," then added on further questioning that "I will ask to be executed," and that "I believe it is in my best interests. That is my prerogative." Judge Walker declined to accept the guilty plea, along with Sirhan's request to fire the three attorneys who had volunteered to defend him.^[94]
• Following an uprising in westernGuyana'sRupununi area by theindigenous minority, Prime MinisterForbes Burnham met with 150 chiefs and their advisers from the nine tribes (theWai Wai,Macushi,Patamona,Lokono,Kalina,Wapishana,Pemon,Akawaio andWarao) and pledged that they would be started on the path toward full Guyanese citizenship and that one of them would be chosen to be on the government's Lands Commission. Burnham's promises were a step toward meeting the Amerindian's demands, but would reportedly be considered by them to be insufficient.^[95]
• A 7.8 magnitude earthquake struckPortugal andMorocco at 2:42 UTC, killing 11 people in Morocco and two in Portugal.^[96][97]
• Born:
  • Robert Sean Leonard, Tony Award-winning American stage, TV, and film actor; as Robert Lawrence Leonard inWestwood, New Jersey
  • Pat Monahan, American singer-songwriter, frontman of the bandTrain; inErie, Pennsylvania^[98]

• February 1969
• February by year
• Months in the 1960s

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