What Happened on February 3rd in History
30 historical events on this date
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.
The Twin Peaks Tunnel is a 2.27-mile-long (3.65 km) light rail/streetcar tunnel in San Francisco, California. The tunnel runs under Twin Peaks and is used by the K Ingleside, L Taraval, M Ocean View...
A revolt against the military dictatorship of Portugal breaks out at Porto.
The February 1927 Revolt, sometimes also referred to as the February 1927 Revolution, was a military rebellion in Portugal that took place between February 3 and 9, 1927, centered in Porto, the city...
The Communist Party of Vietnam is founded at a "Unification Conference" held in Kowloon, British Hong Kong.
The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the sole legal party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Founded in 1930 by Ho Chi Minh, the CPV dominantly established the government of Democratic...
The Hawke's Bay earthquake, New Zealand's worst natural disaster, kills 258.
The 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, also known as the Napier earthquake, occurred in New Zealand at 10:47 am on 3 February, killing 256, injuring thousands and devastating the Hawke's Bay region. It...
Adolf Hitler announces that the expansion of Lebensraum into Eastern Europe, and its ruthless Germanisation, are the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Nazi foreign policy.
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party,...
The SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive.
Dorchester was a coastal passenger steamship requisitioned and operated by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) in January 1942 for wartime use as a troop ship allocated to United States Army...
World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison.
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...
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.
Berlin, the capital of Germany, was subject to 363 air raids during the Second World War. It was bombed by the RAF Bomber Command between 1940 and 1945, the United States Army Air Forces' Eighth Air...
World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan.
The Commonwealth of the Philippines was an unincorporated territory and commonwealth (dependency) of the United States that existed from 1935 to 1946. It was established following the...
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.
The Batepá massacre occurred on 3 February 1953 in colonial São Tomé when hundreds of native creoles known as forros were massacred by the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners. Many...
Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community.
The Benelux Union, or simply Benelux, is a politico-economic union, alliance and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of three neighbouring states in Western Europe: Belgium, the...
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.
Charles Hardin Holley, known professionally by his stage name Buddy Holly, was an American singer, songwriter, and musician who was a central and pioneering figure of rock and roll. He was born to a...
Sixty-five people are killed when American Airlines Flight 320 crashes into the East River on approach to LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
American Airlines Flight 320 was a scheduled flight between Chicago Midway Airport and New York City's LaGuardia Airport. On February 3, 1959, the Lockheed L-188 Electra performing the flight...
British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of "a wind of change", signalling that his Government is likely to support decolonisation.
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the...
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.
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is a part of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and is one of the six armed forces and...
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.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's...
New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption.
Francesco Vincent "Frank" Serpico is an American retired detective with the New York City Police Department (NYPD), best known for whistleblowing on police corruption. In the late 1960s and early...
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.
The Iran blizzard of February 1972 was the deadliest blizzard in history, as recorded by the Guinness Book of Records. A week-long period of low temperatures and severe winter storms, lasting 3–9...
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.
John Edmond Buster is an American physician who, while working at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine, directed the research team that performed the first embryo transfer...
Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger.
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for...
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.
A stroke is a medical condition in which blood flow to a part of the brain is reduced or blocked causing cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and...
A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954.
The 1989 Paraguayan coup d'état, also known as La Noche de la Candelaria, was a coup d'état that took place on 2–3 February 1989 in Asunción, Paraguay, led by General Andrés Rodríguez against the...
Space Shuttle program: STS-60 is launched, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Shuttle.
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for...
Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Eileen Marie Collins is an American retired NASA astronaut and Air Force colonel. A flight instructor and test pilot, Collins was the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle and the first to command...
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.
The Cavalese cable car crash, also known as Strage del Cermis, occurred on 3 February 1998, near the Italian town of Cavalese, a ski resort in the Dolomites some 40 kilometres (25 mi) northeast of...
One hundred five people are killed when Kam Air Flight 904 crashes in the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan.
Kam Air Flight 904 was a scheduled passenger domestic flight from Herat Airport in Herat to Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan's capital Kabul. On 3 February 2005 the aircraft crashed in...
A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339.
The February 2007 Al-Saydiya market bombing was the detonation of a large truck bomb in a busy market in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The suicide attack killed at least 135 people and injured 339...
A school shooting in Moscow, Russia leaves two people dead and one wounded.
On 3 February 2014, a school shooting occurred at School No. 263 in the Otradnoye District of Moscow, Russia. 15-year-old pupil Sergey Gordeyev, armed with a rifle, killed his geography teacher and...
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.
On February 3, 2023, at 8:55 p.m. EST (UTC−5), a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, United States. The train was carrying hazardous materials when 38 cars derailed....
Islamist militants massacred at least 162 while injuring and kidnapping dozens in two villages in Kwara State, Nigeria.
On 3 February 2026, hundreds of extremist militants attacked the villages of Woro and Nuku in Kwara State, Nigeria, killing at least 162 residents. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Nigeria in...