What Happened on February 2nd in History
30 historical events on this date
The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia's capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria and the second most-populous city in Australia. The city's name generally refers to a 9,993-square-kilometre...
Funeral of Queen Victoria.
Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days, which was longer than those of any of her...
The Paris Film Congress opens, an attempt by European producers to form an equivalent to the MPPC cartel in the United States.
The Paris Film Congress was a major meeting of European film producers and distributors in the French capital Paris from 2â4 February 1909. It intended to create an association to protect the...
Grand Central Terminal opens in New York City.
Grand Central Terminal is a commuter rail terminal at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus of the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem,...
The Tartu Peace Treaty is signed between Estonia and Russia.
The Treaty of Tartu is a peace treaty that was signed in Tartu on 2 February 1920 between the Republic of Estonia and Soviet Russia, ending the 1918â1920 Estonian War of Independence. In the treaty,...
Ulysses by James Joyce is published.
Ulysses is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. Partially serialised in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, the entire work was published in Paris...
The uprising called the "pork mutiny" starts in the region between KuolajÀrvi and Savukoski in Finland.
The Pork Mutiny was an incident in Northern Finland in 1922. On February 2, an incursion group consisting of 67 armed officers and enlisted members of Soviet Russia crossed the Finnish-Soviet border...
Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.
The 1925 serum run to Nome, also known as the Great Race of Mercy and The Serum Run, was a transport of diphtheria antitoxin by dog sled relay across the US territory of Alaska by 20 mushers and...
The Export-Import Bank of the United States is incorporated.
The ExportâImport Bank of the United States (EXIM) is the official export credit agency (ECA) of the United States federal government. Operating as a wholly owned federal government corporation, the...
Leonarde Keeler administers polygraph tests to two murder suspects, the first time polygraph evidence was admitted in U.S. courts.
Leonarde Keeler was an American inventor best known for co-inventing the polygraph. He was named after the polymath Leonardo da Vinci, and preferred to be called Nard. He was a Berkeley high school...
The Osvald Group is responsible for the first, active event of anti-Nazi resistance in Norway, to protest the inauguration of Vidkun Quisling.
The Osvald Group was a Norwegian organisation that was the most active World War II resistance group in Norway from 1941 to the summer of 1944. Numbering more than 200 members, it committed at least...
World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end when Soviet troops accept the surrender of the last organized German troops in the city.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
The Detroit Red Wings played in the first outdoor hockey game by any NHL team in an exhibition against the Marquette Branch Prison Pirates in Marquette, Michigan.
The Detroit Red Wings are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit. The Red Wings compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference....
Nine experienced ski hikers in the northern Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union die under mysterious circumstances.
The Ural Mountains, or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs northâsouth mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan...
Pakistan suggests a six-point agenda with Kashmir after the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965.
Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir...
Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader of Uganda.
Awon'go Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan military officer and politician who seized and held power as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until his overthrow in 1979. In 1971, he overthrew...
The international Ramsar Convention for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands is signed in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran.
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is...
Reports surface that the FBI is targeting allegedly corrupt Congressmen in the Abscam operation.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. An agency of the United States...
Hama massacre: The government of Syria attacks the town of Hama.
The Hama massacre occurred in February 1982 when the Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies paramilitary force, under the orders of President Hafez al-Assad, besieged the town of Hama for 27...
After the 1986 People Power Revolution, the Philippines enacts a new constitution.
The People Power Revolution, also known as the EDSA Revolution or the February Revolution, was a series of popular demonstrations in the Philippines, mostly in Metro Manila, from February 22 to 25,...
SovietâAfghan War: The last Soviet armoured column leaves Kabul.
The SovietâAfghan War took place in Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 47-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Communist-led Afghan...
Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress and promises to release Nelson Mandela.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authoritarian political...
Cebu Pacific Flight 387 crashes into Mount Sumagaya in the Philippines, killing all 104 people on board.
Cebu Pacific Flight 387 was a domestic flight from Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Metro Manila to Lumbia Airfield in Cagayan de Oro. On February 2, 1998, the 30-year-old McDonnell Douglas...
First digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realized by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments.
Digital cinema is the digital technology used within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film....
Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men's singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket strung with a...
The Government of Canada introduces the Civil Marriage Act. This legislation would become law on July 20, 2005, legalizing same-sex marriage.
The Government of Canada, formally His Majesty's Government, is the federal executive of Canada, which includes ministers of the Crown and the federal civil service ; it is corporately branded as...
Police officer Filippo Raciti is killed when a clash breaks out in the Sicily derby between Catania and Palermo, in the Serie A, the top flight of Italian football. This event led to major changes in stadium regulations in Italy.
On 2 February 2007, football violence occurred between football supporters and the police in Catania, Sicily, Italy. The clashes occurred during and after the Serie A match between the Catania and...
The ferry MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Papua New Guinea near the Finschhafen District, with an estimated 146â165 dead.
MV Rabaul Queen was a passenger ferry owned by the Papua New Guinea company Rabaul Shipping. The ship, built in Japan in 1983, operated on short runs in that country, before being brought to Papua...
The Burmese military establishes the State Administration Council, the military junta, after deposing the democratically elected government in the 2021 Myanmar coup d'Ă©tat.
The Tatmadaw, also known as the Sit-Tat, is the armed forces of Myanmar. It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force....
Slovenian NBA player Luka Doncic is traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis in one of the largest trades in American sports history.
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, and Croatia to the south and southeast;...