March 2

Events

Pre-1600

• 537 - Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoth army under king Vitiges begins the siege of the capital. Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate; he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off.
• 986 - Louis V becomes the last Carolingian king of West Francia after the death of his father, Lothaire.
• 1331 - Fall of Nicaea to the Ottoman Turks after a siege.
• 1444 - Skanderbeg organizes a group of Albanian nobles to form the League of Lezhë.
• 1458 - George of Poděbrady is chosen as the king of Bohemia.
• 1476 - Burgundian Wars: The Old Swiss Confederacy hands Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, a major defeat in the Battle of Grandson in Canton of Neuchâtel.
• 1484 - The College of Arms is formally incorporated by Royal Charter signed by King Richard III of England.
• 1498 - Vasco da Gama's fleet visits the Island of Mozambique.

  1601–1900

• 1657 - The Great Fire of Meireki begins in Edo, Japan, causing more than 100,000 deaths before it exhausts itself three days later.
• 1776 - American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia units attempt to prevent capture of supply ships in and around the Savannah River by a small fleet of the Royal Navy in the Battle of the Rice Boats.
• 1791 - Claude Chappe demonstrates the first semaphore line near Paris.
• 1797 - The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.
• 1807 - The U.S. Congress passes the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.
• 1811 - Argentine War of Independence: A royalist fleet defeats a small flotilla of revolutionary ships in the Battle of San Nicolás on the River Plate.
• 1815 - Signing of the Kandyan Convention treaty by British invaders and the leaders of the Kingdom of Kandy.
• 1836 - Texas Revolution: The Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico is adopted.
• 1855 - Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.
• 1859 - The two-day Great Slave Auction, once thought to be the largest such auction in United States history, begins.
• 1865 - East Cape War: The Völkner Incident in New Zealand.
• 1867 - The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.
• 1877 - Just two days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 U.S. presidential election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote.
• 1882 - Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick Maclean in Windsor.

  1901–present

• 1901 - United States Steel Corporation is founded as a result of a merger between Carnegie Steel Company and Federal Steel Company which became the first corporation in the world with a market capital over $1 billion.
• 1901 - The U.S. Congress passes the Platt Amendment limiting the autonomy of Cuba, as a condition of the withdrawal of American troops.
• 1903 - In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.
• 1917 - The enactment of the Jones–Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
• 1919 - The first Communist International meets in Moscow.
• 1932 - Finnish president P. E. Svinhufvud gives a radio speech, which four days later finally ends the Mäntsälä Rebellion and the far-right Lapua Movement that started it.
• 1933 - The film King Kong premieres in Radio City Music Hall and RKO Roxy in New York City
• 1937 - The Steel Workers Organizing Committee signs a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel, leading to unionization of the United States steel industry.
• 1939 - Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope and takes the name Pius XII.
• 1941 - World War II: First German military units enter Bulgaria after it joins the Axis Pact.
• 1943 - World War II: During the Battle of the Bismarck Sea Allied aircraft defeated a Japanese attempt to ship troops to New Guinea.
• 1949 - Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
• 1955 - Norodom Sihanouk, king of Cambodia, abdicates the throne in favor of his father, Norodom Suramarit.
• 1962 - In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win seizes power in a coup d'état.
• 1962 - Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.
• 1965 - The US and Republic of Vietnam Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
• 1968 - Baggeridge Colliery closes marking the end of over 300 years of coal mining in the Black Country.
• 1969 - In Toulouse, France, the first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted.
• 1970 - Rhodesia declares itself a republic, breaking its last links with the British crown.
• 1972 - The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.
• 1977 - Libya becomes the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya as the General People's Congress adopted the "Declaration on the Establishment of the Authority of the People".
• 1978 - Czech Vladimír Remek becomes the first non-Russian or non-American to go into space, when he is launched aboard Soyuz 28.
• 1978 - The late iconic actor Charlie Chaplin's coffin is stolen from his grave in Switzerland.
• 1983 - Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.
• 1986 - Aeroflot Flight F-77 crashes near Bugulma Airport, killing all 38 people aboard.
• 1989 - Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons by the end of the century.
• 1990 - Nelson Mandela is elected deputy president of the African National Congress.
• 1991 - Establishment of Kuwait Democratic Forum, center-left political organization in Kuwait.
• 1991 - Battle at Rumaila oil field brings an end to the 1991 Gulf War.
• 1992 - Start of the war in Transnistria.
• 1992 - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, San Marino, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, all of which were former Soviet republics, join the United Nations.
• 1995 - Researchers at Fermilab announce the discovery of the top quark.
• 1995 - Space Shuttle Endeavour launches from the Kennedy Space Center on STS-67, carrying the ASTRO-2 spacelab observatory.
• 1998 - Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
• 2002 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins,.
• 2004 - War in Iraq: Al-Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
• 2006 - In Monterrey, Mexico, a man identified as Diego Santoy Riveroll committed a double murder against two children, followed by an attempted murder of his ex-partner, Erika. The incident is popularly known as the Cumbres case.
• 2012 - A tornado outbreak occurs over a large section of the Southern United States and into the Ohio Valley region, resulting in 40 tornado-related fatalities.
• 2014 - The Oscar Selfie, regarded as one of the most influential and important images of all time, is taken at the 86th Academy Awards.
• 2017 - The elements Moscovium, Tennessine, and Oganesson are officially added to the periodic table at a conference in Moscow, Russia.
• 2022 - Russian forces capture the city of Kherson during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which subsequently began the start of the Russian occupation and military-civilian administration in Kherson. Kherson is the only regional capital in Ukraine that Russia captured.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 480 - Benedict of Nursia, Italian Christian saint
• 1316 - Robert II of Scotland
• 1409 - Jean II, Duke of Alençon
• 1432 - Countess Palatine Margaret of Mosbach, countess consort of Hanau
• 1453 - Johannes Engel, German doctor, astronomer and astrologer
• 1459 - Pope Adrian VI
• 1481 - Franz von Sickingen, German knight
• 1545 - Thomas Bodley, English diplomat and scholar, founded the Bodleian Library
• 1577 - George Sandys, English traveller, colonist and poet

  1601–1900

• 1628 - Cornelis Speelman, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies
• 1651 - Carlo Gimach, Maltese architect, engineer and poet
• 1705 - William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, Scottish lawyer, judge, and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer
• 1740 - Nicholas Pocock, English naval painter
• 1760 - Camille Desmoulins, French journalist and politician
• 1769 - DeWitt Clinton, American lawyer and politician, 6th Governor of New York
• 1770 - Louis-Gabriel Suchet, French general
• 1779 - Joel Roberts Poinsett, American physician and politician, 15th United States Secretary of War
• 1793 - Sam Houston, American soldier and politician, 1st President of the Republic of Texas
• 1800 - Yevgeny Baratynsky, Russian-Italian poet and philosopher
• 1810 - Pope Leo XIII
• 1816 - Alexander Bullock, American lawyer and politician, 26th Governor of Massachusetts
• 1817 - János Arany, Hungarian journalist and poet
• 1820 - Multatuli, Dutch writer
• 1824 - Bedřich Smetana, Czech pianist and composer
• 1829 - Carl Schurz, German-American general, lawyer, and politician, 13th United States Secretary of the Interior
• 1836 - Henry Billings Brown, American lawyer and judge
• 1842 - Carl Jacobsen, Danish brewer, art collector, and philanthropist
• 1846 - Marie Roze, French soprano
• 1849 - Robert Means Thompson, American commander, lawyer, and businessman
• 1859 - Sholem Aleichem, Ukrainian-American author and playwright
• 1860 - Susanna M. Salter, American activist and politician
• 1862 - John Jay Chapman, American lawyer, author, and poet
• 1866 - Margaret Sibella Brown, Canadian bryologist
• 1869 - Julien Félix, French military officer and aviator
• 1876 - James A. Gilmore, American businessman and baseball executive
• 1876 - Pope Pius XII
• 1880 - René Vallon, French aviator
• 1886 - Willis H. O'Brien, American animator and director
• 1886 - Kurt Grelling, German logician and philosopher
• 1900 - Kurt Weill, German-American pianist and composer