On February 27, 1947, while confiscating smuggled cigarettes on Yen Ping North Road in Taipei City, Monopoly Bureau personnel injured a female vendor and mistakenly killed a by-stander, inciting popular outrage. The next day, crowds in Taipei demonstrated in protest, marching to the Office of the Chief Executive to demand punishment of the killers. To their surprise, demonstrators were met with gunfire, which killed and injured several participants, thereby igniting a fury of widespread public protest. In order to resolve the conflict and extinguish pent-up resentment toward the government, local Taiwanese leaders organized a settlement committee to mediate the dispute and even presented demands for political reform.

Contrary to expectations, Chen Yi, haughty and obstinate by nature, entered into public negotiations, while at the same time treated these leaders as rebels and requested military assistance directly from Nanking. Chiang Kai-shek, Chairman of the Nationalist Government, upon hearing reports from Taipei, immediately dispatched military troops to Taiwan. On March 8th, the Twenty-First Army Division, under the command of Liu Yu-chin, landed at Keelung, and on the 10th, martial law was declared throughout the island. In the course of suppressing local resistance and pacifying the countryside, Ko Yuan-fen, Chief of Staff of the Garrison Command, Shin Hung-hsi, Commander of the Keelung Strategic Area, Peng Mengchi, Commander of the Kaohsiung Strategic Area, and Chang Mu-tao, Chief of the Military Police Corps, implicated numerous innocent citizens. Within months, the number of those killed, injured and missing exceeded ten thousand; residents of Keelung, Taipei, Chiayi and Kaohsiung suffered the greatest losses. This event is known today as the February 28th Incident.

During the subsequent half century, under the shadow of long-term martial law, both officials and private citizens have maintained a discreet silence, not daring to mention this taboo subject. Nevertheless, long-suppressed injustice eventually had to be rectified, and the problems of antagonism originating from native place differences and controversy over unification or independence needed to be solved After the lifting of martial law in 1987, many sectors of the populace truly felt that peace and harmony would be impossible unless these grave afflictions were first cured. Thereupon, an official investigation of the February 28th Incident was undertaken, the head of the state made a public apology, victims and their families were compensated, and a memorial to the incident was erected. However, full recovery from this devastating social wound yet awaits the joint efforts of the entire nation. By engraving this plaque, we seek to comfort the souls of the deceased, to soothe the suffering and resentment of countless victims and their families, and to evoke this event as a lesson to all our compatriots. From this day forth, let us unite as one with mutual trust, treating one another with love and sincerity while dissolving all enmity and revenge, in the hope of establishing eternal peace. May Heaven bless this beloved island and grant her everlasting life.

About the Monument: The Chinese text of the February 28 Monument is 642 characters long and engraved on a globe in official calligraphic style. In designing the monument, Cheng Tze-tsai symbolically positioned the text so that its midpoint fell directly on the Tropic of Cancer, which also passes through Taiwan. The globe has a round base, symbolizing that the February 28 Incident has finally returned to its natural order. The memorial was written by a committee of six scholars, including Prof. Lai Tze-han of Academia Sinica. The committee met nearly 30 times before the final version of the text was completed.