March 2 - Events

Events

• 537 – Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoth army under king Vitiges begin 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.
• 871 – Æthelred of Wessex defeats a Danish invasion army at the Battle of Marton.
• 986 – Louis V becomes King of the Franks.
• 1121 – Dirk VI becomes the Count of Holland.
• 1127 – Assassination of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders.
• 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 was formally incorporated by Royal Charter signed by King Richard III of England.
• 1498 – Vasco da Gama's fleet visits the island of Mozambique Island.
• 1717 – The Loves of Mars and Venus is the first ballet performed in England.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia units arrest the Royal Governor of Georgia James Wright and attempt to prevent capture of supply ships in the Battle of the Rice Boats.
• 1791 – Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in 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.
• 1808 – The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh.
• 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 King of Sri Lanka.
• 1825 – Roberto Cofresí, one of the last successful Caribbean pirates, is defeated in combat and captured by authorities.
• 1836 – Texas Revolution: Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.
• 1855 – Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.
• 1861 – Emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia: Tsar Alexander II signs the emancipation reform into law, abolishing Russian serfdom.
• 1865 – East Cape War: The Volkner Incident in New Zealand.
• 1867 – The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.
• 1877 – U.S. presidential election, 1876: Just two days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
• 1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.
• 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.
• 1933 – The film King Kong opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
• 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 joined the Axis Pact.
• 1943 – World War II: Battle of the Bismarck Sea – United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships.
• 1946 – Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.
• 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.
• 1949 – The first automatic street light is installed in New Milford, Connecticut.
• 1955 – King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit.
• 1956 – Morocco gains its independence from France.
• 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 South Vietnamese Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
• 1969 – In Toulouse, France, the first test flight of the Anglo-French Concorde is conducted.
• 1969 – Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.
• 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.
• 1978 – Czech Vladimír Remek becomes the first non-Russian or non-American to go into space, when he is launched aboard Soyuz 28.
• 1983 – Compact Disc players and discs are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had been available only in Japan before then.
• 1989 – Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.
• 1990 – Nelson Mandela is elected deputy President of the African National Congress.
• 1991 – Battle at Rumaila Oil Field brings an end to the 1991 Gulf War.
• 1992 – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, San Marino, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan join the United Nations.
• 1993 – 1993 Storm of the Century begins to form over the North Atlantic Ocean.
• 1995 – Researchers at Fermilab announce the discovery of the top quark.
• 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, (ending on March 19 after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 Western troop fatalities).
• 2004 – War in Iraq: Al-Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
• 2012 – March 2–3, 2012 tornado outbreak: A tornado outbreak occurred over a large section of the Southern United States and into the Ohio Valley region, resulting in 40 tornado-related fatalities.