Milestones: February 28, 2024

February 28, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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DOUBLE HELIX — TWO SCIENTISTS AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY ON FEB. 28, 1953 DETERMINED the double-helix structure of DNA, the molecule containing human genes. However, the scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick received significant assistance from another DNA researcher named Rosalind Franklin, who was omitted from the announcement and from the Nobel Prize that was awarded later. DNA— short for deoxyribonucleic acid— was discovered in 1869 but, its vital role in determining genetic inheritance wasn’t demonstrated until 1943. In the early 1950s, Watson and Crick were only two of many scientists who were trying to figure out DNA’s structure and were often in competition with each other. Watson produced a best-selling book, titled “The Double Helix,” but it turned out to be at the expense of their friendship, as Crick claimed he misrepresented their collaboration.

Another scientist, Maurice Wilkins, showed Watson and Crick Franklin’s x-ray photography just before the duo made their discovery. Crick and Watson shared their 1962 Nobel Prize with Wilkins. However, Franklin had died of cancer four years earlier and never learned how significant her photography was to the discovery.

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NATO’S FIRST MILITARY OPERATION — THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION (NATO) was already in its 45th year before it saw its first military action. On Feb. 28, 1994, U.S. fighter planes shot down four Serbian warplanes that were on a bombing mission in violation of Bosnia’s no-fly zone. The United States, 10 European countries, and Canada founded NATO in 1949 to be a safeguard against Soviet aggression, but its focus changed after the end of the Cold War, to peacekeeping missions. This was extended to nations that were outside the alliance. NATO agreed in 1994 to try resolving the conflict in the regions that had been part of the former Yugoslavia and enforced a no-fly zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

NATO, taking over from a failed peacekeeping endeavor, deployed 60,000 troops on Dec. 20, 1995, to enforce the Dayton peace accords that the former Yugoslavian states had signed just six days earlier.

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SPIRITUAL METHOD — SEEKING TO ESTABLISH CHURCH STRUCTURE FOR FOLLOWERS AFTER THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, Anglican clergyman John Wesley, on Feb. 28, 1784, chartered the first Methodist Church in the United States. The Anglican Church — the Church of England — had reportedly abandoned its believers during the War for Independence. Wesley did not establish Methodism as a new religion or denomination but rather as a spiritual method — or discipline — within the Anglican Church. However, Wesley’s zeal for evangelization and his spiritual disciplines certainly did not win him over to his Anglican counterparts, who considered his practices to be unorthodox. Wesley found welcome in Moravian Church circles but eventually left, on the advice of his fellow Oxford alumnus George Whitfield. They preached in open fields (just as the Gospels chronicle Jesus having done) when they found themselves unwelcome in Anglican churches. The American Methodist movement grew and became its own organization at a 1784 meeting held in Baltimore, and was named the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. However, the new denomination retained some of the vestiges of the Anglican Church.

Around the same time (1783-85), Loyalist clergyman Samuel Seabury became the first U.S. bishop in the newly-established Protestant Episcopal Church.

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GAVE BROOKLYN A SECOND CATHEDRAL — POPE BENEDICT XVI OFFICIALLY RESIGNED ON FEB. 28, 2013, less than three weeks after making the unexpected announcement that he would step down, and the first pope to do so in nearly six centuries. Benedict, who was 85 at the time, cited advanced age and declining health as his reasons for not being able to continue as pontiff, which he believed needed someone more energetic. Before being elected Pope in 2005 following the death of Pope John Paul II (since canonized), Benedict was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who, from 1981 to 2005 led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a major Vatican office that enforced traditional Catholic doctrine. He died on New Year’s Eve, 2022.

Pope Benedict had a Brooklyn connection. Just before he announced his resignation, he granted Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio’s request to designate an old Hispanic church in Prospect Heights as a co-cathedral. The Bishop of Brooklyn at the time, DiMarzio had seen the neighborhood’s potential and organized a multi-million-dollar restoration campaign.

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FAREWELL TO A BELOVED SITCOM — THE FINAL EPISODE OF THE LONG-RUNNING AND EMMY AWARD-WINNING TV SERIES M*A*S*H* aired on Feb. 28, 1983. The title stood for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and the series followed the stories of doctors who saved soldiers’ lives under great duress during the Korean War. However, M*A*S*H* had actually premiered before the end of the Vietnam War. The sitcom was based on the eponymous 1968 novel by Richard Hooker and the 1970 20th Century Fox film. The series finale was a special two-and-a-half hour episode that brought in 77% of America’s television viewing audience, making this the largest-ever percentage of viewers to watch a single TV show up to that time.

Alan Alda, a starring cast member who played Dr. Hawkeye Pierce, became the first person ever to win Emmy Awards for acting, directing and writing for the same show.

See previous milestones, here.