What happened on 26 February?

8 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1885 Congo Free State King Leopold II of Belgium turns the Congo into a private rubber colony; millions perish.
2. 1815 Napoleon escapes from Elba With a thousand men in seven small ships, Napoleon slips past the Royal Navy and lands in the south of France. Sent to arrest him, the 5th Line finds him walking alone into their m
3. 1802 Born: Victor Hugo French novelist, poet and dramatist; political exile and author of Les Misérables.
4. 1920 The Cabinet of Dr Caligari German Expressionist horror film with tilted painted sets.
5. 2003 Darfur conflict Janjaweed militias and Sudanese government attack non-Arab populations; mass atrocities continue for years.
6. 1993 The 1993 World Trade Center bombing A truck bomb in the North Tower's underground garage kills six people and injures over a thousand — planned by Ramzi Yousef, whose uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will later conceive
7. 1991 The Highway of Death Coalition aircraft catch the Iraqi army retreating from Kuwait City on Highway 80 and destroy over a thousand vehicles in hours. The images of the charred column shock the world an
8. 1924 Hitler turns his trial into a stage Tried for treason after the Beer Hall Putsch before a sympathetic Munich court, Hitler is allowed to speak for hours and emerges a national name — sentenced to five years, serving