February 3Birthdays & History

On this day: February 3 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 1047Drogo of Hauteville is elected as count of the Apulian Normans during the Norman conquest of Southern Italy.Europe
2. 1112Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.Europe
3. 1451Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire.Middle East
4. 1488Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.Europe
5. 1509The Portuguese navy defeats a joint fleet of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Republic of Ragusa at the Battle of Diu in Diu, India.EuropeMiddle EastAsia
6. 1583Battle of São Vicente takes place off Portuguese Brazil where three English warships led by navigator Edward Fenton fight off three Spanish galleons sinking one in the process.EuropeLatin America
7. 1637Tulip Mania collapses within the Dutch Republic.Europe
8. 1639The House of Assembly of Barbados meets for the first time.Latin America
9. 1690The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas.North America
10. 1706During the Battle of Fraustadt Swedish forces defeat a superior Saxon-Polish-Russian force by deploying a double envelopment.Europe
11. 1716The 1716 Algiers earthquake sequence began with an Mw 7.0 mainshock that caused severe damage and killed 20,000 in Algeria.Africa
12. 1781American Revolutionary War: British forces seize the Dutch-owned Caribbean island Sint Eustatius.North AmericaEuropeLatin America
13. 1783Spain–United States relations are first established.EuropeNorth America
14. 1787Militia led by General Benjamin Lincoln crush the remnants of Shays' Rebellion in Petersham, Massachusetts.North America
15. 1807A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captures the Spanish Empire city of Montevideo, now the capital of Uruguay.EuropeLatin America
16. 1809The Territory of Illinois is created by the 10th United States Congress.North America
17. 1813José de San Martín defeats a Spanish royalist army at the Battle of San Lorenzo, part of the Argentine War of Independence.EuropeLatin America
18. 1830The London Protocol of 1830 establishes the full independence and sovereignty of Greece from the Ottoman Empire as the final result of the Greek War of Independence.EuropeMiddle East
19. 1862Moldavia and Wallachia formally unite to create the Romanian United Principalities.Europe
20. 1870The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.North America
21. 1913The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.North America
22. 1916The Centre Block of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada burns down with the loss of seven lives.North America
23. 1917World War I: The American entry into World War I begins when diplomatic relations with Germany are severed due to its unrestricted submarine warfare.North AmericaEurope
24. 1918The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,630 meters) long.North America
25. 1927A revolt against the military dictatorship of Portugal breaks out at Porto.Europe
26. 1930The Communist Party of Vietnam is founded at a "Unification Conference" held in Kowloon, British Hong Kong.AsiaEurope
27. 1931The Hawke's Bay earthquake, New Zealand's worst natural disaster, kills 258.Oceania
28. 1933Adolf Hitler announces that the expansion of Lebensraum into Eastern Europe, and its ruthless Germanisation, are the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Nazi foreign policy.Europe
29. 1943The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive.Europe
30. 1944World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison.OceaniaNorth AmericaAsia
31. 1945World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 and 3,000 and dehouses another 120,000.Europe
32. 1945World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan.North AmericaAsiaAsia
33. 1953The Batepá massacre occurs in São Tomé when the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners unleash a wave of violence against the native creoles known as forros.Europe
34. 1958Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community.Europe
35. 1959Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as The Day the Music Died.North America
36. 1959Sixty-five people are killed when American Airlines Flight 320 crashes into the East River on approach to LaGuardia Airport in New York City.North America
37. 1960British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of "a wind of change", signalling that his Government is likely to support decolonisation.Europe
38. 1961The United States Air Force begins Operation Looking Glass, and over the next 30 years, a "Doomsday Plane" is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States' bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC's command post.North America
39. 1966The Soviet Union's Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon, and the first spacecraft to take pictures from the surface of the Moon.Europe
40. 1971New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption.North America
41. 1972The first day of the seven-day 1972 Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, making it the deadliest snowstorm in history.Middle East
42. 1984Doctor John Buster and a research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the United States announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.North America
43. 1984Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger.North America
44. 1989After a stroke two weeks previously, South African President P. W. Botha resigns as leader of the National Party, but stays on as president for six more months.Africa
45. 1989A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954.Latin America
46. 1994Space Shuttle program: STS-60 is launched, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Shuttle.Europe
47. 1995Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.North America
48. 1998Cavalese cable car disaster: A United States military pilot causes the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy.North AmericaEurope
49. 2005One hundred five people are killed when Kam Air Flight 904 crashes in the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan.Asia
50. 2007A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339.Middle East
51. 2014A school shooting in Moscow, Russia leaves two people dead and one wounded.Europe
52. 2023Ohio train derailment: A freight train containing vinyl chloride and other hazardous materials derails and burns in East Palestine, Ohio, United States, releasing hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air and contaminating the Ohio River.North America
53. 2026Islamist militants massacred at least 162 while injuring and kidnapping dozens in two villages in Kwara State, Nigeria.Africa

Source: Wikipedia "February 3" / CC BY-SA 4.0