On This Day, Feb. 26: Grand Canyon becomes national park

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1531, an earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, killed more than 20,000 people.

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte and 1,200 men left his exile on the Isle of Elba to start his 100-day campaign to regain France.

In 1919, 37 years after the first bill to establish the Grand Canyon as a national park was introduced, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Grand Canyon National Park Act, bringing the landmark under the protection of the National Park Service, preserving it for future generations.

In 1929, Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park was established following the signing of an executive order by President Calvin Coolidge.

File Photo by A.J. Sisco/UPI

In 1935, Germany began operation of its air force, the Luftwaffe, under Reichmarshal Hermann Goering.

In 1970, National Public Radio was founded.

In 1984, the last U.S. Marines sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force left Beirut.

In 1993, a powerful bomb exploded in the parking garage below the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000. In Nov. 1997, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were found guilty of plotting and carrying out the attack following a three-month trial.

In 1994, 11 members of the Branch Davidian religious cult were acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges stemming from a federal raid and siege at the compound near Waco, Texas, the year before.

File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

In 1998, a federal jury in Amarillo, Texas, ruled in favor of Oprah Winfrey in a lawsuit filed by Texas cattlemen who said she caused beef prices to fall with a talk show about "mad cow" disease.

In 2005, Bank of America acknowledged it lost computer tapes containing account information on 1.2 million federal employee credit cards, including those of some U.S. senators.

In 2008, the New York Philharmonic performed a historic, 90-minute concert at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater in North Korea.

In 2012, George Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. The case spawned debate over Florida's "Stand Your Ground" laws and racism.

In 2017, Moonlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture after a mixup by presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, who mistakenly said La La Land won.

In 2019, thousands of children who crossed the border into the United States reported being sexually assaulted while in U.S. government custody over a four-year span.