On March 2nd...

links will open in a new window

1127 Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, was assassinated.

1459 Pope Adrian VI was born.

1629 King Charles I dissolved the English Parliament.

1769 American politician De Witt Clinton was born.

1791 John Wesley, founder of Methodism, died.

1793 American politician Sam Houston was born.

1799 Congress standardized U.S. weights and measures.

1807 The U.S. Congress banned the slave trade, effective January 1, 1808.

1810 Pope Leo XIII was born.

1819 The Territory of Arkansas was organized.
1819 The United States passed its first immigration law.

1824 Composer Bedrich Smetana was born.

1829 American politician Carl Schurz was born.

1836 Texas declared its independence from Mexico and established the Republic of Texas.

1853 The Territory of Washington was organized.

1861 The Dakota and Nevada territories were organized.

1865 The Freedman's Bureau was founded.

1867 The first Reconstruction Act was passed by the U.S. Congress.
1867 The United States Department of Education was created.

1868 The University of Illinois opened.

1876 Eugenio Marie Giuseppe Pacelli, aka Pope Piux XII, was born.

1877 Rutherford B. Hayes was declared President by one vote, the day before inauguration.

1888 The Convention of Constantinople was signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.

1899 Mount Rainier National Park was created.

1900 Composer Kurt Weill was born.

1904 The "Official Playing Rules of Professional Base Ball Clubs" was adopted.
1904 Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, author of children's books, was born.

1909 Baseball player Mel Ott was born.

1917 Puerto Rico became an official territory of the United States.
1917 Musician/actor Desi Arnaz was born.

1925 A uniform system of numbering U.S. highways was adopted (even numbers for north-south routes, odd for east-west routes).

1929 The U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals was created.

1930 Novelist D.H. Lawrence died.

1931 Stearman delivered its first U.S. military planes built in Wichita, Kansas (3 YPT 9's, to the U.S. Army Air Corps).
1931 Mikhail Gorbachev, Premier of the Soviet Union, was born.

1933 Sanriku, Japan, was struck by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake.

1939 Cardinal Eugenio Marie Giuseppe Pacelli was elected to succeed Pope Pius XI, and took the name Pius XII.
1939 Archaeologist Howard Carter died.

1942 Musician Lou Reed was born.

1943 The Battle of the Bismarck Sea began.

1946 Ho Chi Minh was elected President of North Vietnam.

1949 The world's first automatic street light was installed in New Milford, Connecticut.
1949 Actress Gates McFadden was born.

1950 Singer Karen Carpenter was born.

1951 The first NBA All-Star Game was played (East beat West 111-94 at Boston).

1953 The Academy Awards were first broadcast on television by NBC.

1956 Morocco gained independence from France.

1962 Wilt Chamberlain became the first (and to date only) professional basketball player to score 100 points in a single game.
1962 Musician Jon Bon Jovi was born.

1965 The movie Sound of Music was released.

1969 The Concorde made its first experimental flight.

1972 Pioneer 10 was launched on a mission to explore the outer planets.
1972 Jean-Bédell Bokassa appointed himself President for Life of the Central African Republic.

1978 "Dallas" premiered on CBS-TV.

1985 Football player Reggie Bush was born.

1987 Actor Randolph Scott died.

1999 Singer Dusty Springfield died.

2003 Rhythm and blues singer Hank Ballard died.

2004 Marge Schott, owner of the Cincinnati Reds, died.

2008 Musician Jeff Healey died.

Questions or comments about this page?

This page was last updated on December 31, 2017.