February 3

Historic Events

2026

Islamist militants massacred at least 162 while injuring and kidnapping dozens in two villages in Kwara State, Nigeria. ›

2023

Ohio 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. ›

2014

A school shooting in Moscow, Russia leaves two people dead and one wounded. ›

2007

A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339. ›

2005

One hundred five people are killed when Kam Air Flight 904 crashes in the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan. ›

1998

Cavalese 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. ›

1995

Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. ›

1994

Space Shuttle program: STS-60 is launched, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Shuttle. ›

1989

After 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. ›

1989

A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954. ›

1984

Doctor 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. ›

1984

Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger. ›

1972

The first day of the seven-day 1972 Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, making it the deadliest snowstorm in history. ›

1971

New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. ›

1966

The 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. ›

1961

The 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. ›

1960

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of "a wind of change", signalling that his Government is likely to support decolonisation. ›

1959

Rock 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. ›

1959

Sixty-five people are killed when American Airlines Flight 320 crashes into the East River on approach to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. ›

1958

Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community. ›

1953

The 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. ›

1945

World 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. ›

1945

World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan. ›

1944

World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison. ›

1943

The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive. ›

1933

Adolf Hitler announces that the expansion of Lebensraum into Eastern Europe, and its ruthless Germanisation, are the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Nazi foreign policy. ›

1931

The Hawke's Bay earthquake, New Zealand's worst natural disaster, kills 258. ›

1930

The Communist Party of Vietnam is founded at a "Unification Conference" held in Kowloon, British Hong Kong. ›

1927

A revolt against the military dictatorship of Portugal breaks out at Porto. ›

1918

The 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. ›

1917

World War I: The American entry into World War I begins when diplomatic relations with Germany are severed due to its unrestricted submarine warfare. ›

1916

The Centre Block of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada burns down with the loss of seven lives. ›

1913

The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax. ›

1870

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race. ›

1862

Moldavia and Wallachia formally unite to create the Romanian United Principalities. ›

1830

The 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. ›

1813

José de San Martín defeats a Spanish royalist army at the Battle of San Lorenzo, part of the Argentine War of Independence. ›

1809

The Territory of Illinois is created by the 10th United States Congress. ›

1807

A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captures the Spanish Empire city of Montevideo, now the capital of Uruguay. ›

1787

Militia led by General Benjamin Lincoln crush the remnants of Shays' Rebellion in Petersham, Massachusetts. ›

1783

Spain–United States relations are first established. ›

1781

American Revolutionary War: British forces seize the Dutch-owned Caribbean island Sint Eustatius. ›

1716

The 1716 Algiers earthquake sequence began with an Mw 7.0 mainshock that caused severe damage and killed 20,000 in Algeria. ›

1706

During the Battle of Fraustadt Swedish forces defeat a superior Saxon-Polish-Russian force by deploying a double envelopment. ›

1690

The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas. ›

1639

The House of Assembly of Barbados meets for the first time. ›

1637

Tulip Mania collapses within the Dutch Republic. ›

1583

Battle 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. ›

1509

The 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. ›

1488

Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south. ›

1451

Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire. ›

1112

Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states. ›

1047

Drogo of Hauteville is elected as count of the Apulian Normans during the Norman conquest of Southern Italy. ›