February 28 is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 306 days remaining until the end of the year (307 in leap years).
- 1991 – The first Gulf War ends.
- 1993 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group's leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.
- 1997 – An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 in Armenia and Azerbaijan kills around 1,100 people
- 1997 – An earthquake in northern Iran is responsible for about 3,000 deaths.
- 1997 – The North Hollywood shootout takes place, resulting in the injury of 19 people and the deaths of both perpetrators.
- 1997 – GRB 970228, a highly luminous flash of gamma rays, strikes the Earth for 80 seconds, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way.
- 1998 – First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehicle certified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.
- 1998 – Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.
- 2001 – The Nisqually Earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale hits the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the U.S. state of Washington.
- 2001 – Six passengers and four railway staff are killed and a further 82 people suffer serious injuries in the Selby rail crash.
- 2004 – Over 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (310 mi) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947
- 2005 – A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq kills 127.