March 2: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – March 2 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 2nd March 1629: King Charles I of England on this day dissolved the Parliament against opposition and imprisoned 9 members of the parliament.
18th Century – What Happened on March 2 – The 1700s
2. 2nd March 1789: Pennsylvania today ended the prohibition of theatrical performances.
3. 2nd March 1799: Weights and Measures in the US were on this day standardized by the US Congress.
19th Century – March 2 This Day That Year – The 1800s
4. 2nd March 1807: The US Congress passed a bill to “prohibit the import of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States from any foreign kingdom, place or country.
5. 2nd March 1807: After the fall of British Prime Minister William Granville’s government, William Cavendish-Bentinck became the British Prime Minister for the second time.
6. 2nd March 1808: The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish Learned Society, held its inaugural meeting in Edinburg today.
7. 2nd March 1815: The Kandyan treaty was on this day signed by British invaders and the Sri Lankan King today.
8. 2nd March 1819: The first immigration law was on this day passed by the US.
9. 2nd March 1836: Texas on this day declared its independence from Mexico and they formed an interim government.
10. 2nd March 1858: The cotton bale metallic tie was on this day patented by Fredrick Cook in New Orleans.
11. 2nd March 1861: The territory of Nevada for formed today.
12. 2nd March 1861: The first printing plant was purchased on this day by the Government printing office in Washington.
13. 2nd March 1866: The manufacture of sewing machine needles started today by Excelsior Needle Company.
14. 2nd March 1867: The Education Department was on this day created by the US Congress.
15. 2nd March 1868: This day marks the opening of opening of the University of Illinois.
16. 2nd March 1882: Queen Victoria on this day narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. She was shot at by gunman Roderick Maclean while she was boarding a train in Windsor.
17. 2nd March 1887: The American Trotting Association was formed today in Detroit.
18. 2nd March 1888: The convention of Constantinople was on this day signed. The guarantees free maritime passage through the Suez Canal both during war and peace.
19. 2nd March 1897: Legislation that would have required a literacy test for immigrants entering the country was vetoed by US President Cleveland.
20. 2nd March 1899: The rank of Admiral was on this day created for the US Navy by US President McKinley.
21. 2nd March 1899: The US Congress on this day established the Mount Rainier National Park in Washington.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day March 2nd – The 1900s
22. 2nd March 1901: The Platt amendment which limited Cuban autonomy as a condition of withdrawal of the US troops was on this day passed by the US Congress.
23. 2nd March 1901: The first telegraph company opened on this day in Hawaii.
24. 2nd March 1903: The first ever hotel exclusively for women and having 415 rooms, “The Martha Washington Hotel”, was opened today in New York.
25. 2nd March 1906: The German dock workers went on strike at the end of the night shift. British strikebreakers were brought in. It took over a month and a half to settle the issue.
26. 2nd March 1907: General Louis Botha was on this day named Prime Minister of Transvaal.
27. 2nd March 1908: The Committee of the Russian Republican Administration was founded today in New York.
28. 2nd March 1910: In Wellington, two trains crashed in a snowstorm. 118 people died in the crash.
29. 2nd March 1911: Maurice Maeterlinck’s “Blue Bird” opens in Paris today.
30. 2nd March 1915: A Jewish military force was formed on this day by Vladimir Jabotinsky, to fight Palestine.
31. 2nd March 1917: Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship by the Jones-Shafroth Act. They continue to retain the status.
32. 2nd March 1917: Declining popularity following “Bloody Sunday” when the palace guards massacred defenseless demonstrators and forced Romanov dynasty Czar Nicolas II to abdicate.
33. 2nd March 1919: In the Kremlin, the first congress of the Communist International was opened today.
34. 2nd March 1925: Male suffrage was on this day recognized by the Japan House of Representatives.
35. 2nd March 1925: The first formal highway system was implemented on this day. The state and federal highway officials had officially established a numbering system.
36. 2nd March 1933: Japan was on this day hit by the most powerful earthquake in 130 years.
37. 2nd March 1934: The Union Pacific on this day tested the lightweight high-speed passenger train in Omaha.
38. 2nd March 1937: Mexico on this day nationalized oil.
39. 2nd March 1938: Over 200 deaths were caused on this day by landslides and floods in Los Angeles, California.
40. 2nd March 1939: The Massachusetts legislature voted for the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution.
41. 2nd March 1939: Pope Pious XII was on this day elected as the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.
42. 2nd March 1940: Tuppura Island in Finland was on this day conquered by the Soviet armies.
43. 2nd March 1941: After it joined the Axis Pact, the first German military unit entered Bulgaria on this day.
44. 2nd March 1944: Over 500 people on board a train that stopped in a tunnel near Salerno in the Apennine Mountains die due to suffocation caused by inhalation of carbon monoxide fume.
45. 2nd March 1945: The US 8th Air Force on this day bombed Dresden.
46. 2nd March 1946: Ho Chi Minh on this day was elected President of North Vietnam.
47. 2nd March 1946: Dutch troops on this day landed in East Bali.
48. 2nd March 1949: The US Air Force B-50 Super Fortress “Lucky Lady II” completed a non-stop round-the-world flight and landed in Fort Worth TX. It covered a distance of 23,452 miles in 94 hours.
49. 2nd March 1949: The first automatic street lights were installed in New Milford, Connecticut. Up to this time, the street lights were being manually switched on and off.
50. 2nd March 1958: Yemen today announced that it would join the United Arab Republic.
51. 2nd March 1958: The first overland crossing of Antarctica via the South Pole was completed by an expedition led by British explorer Dr. Vivian Fuchs. It was done in 99 days.
52. 2nd March 1962: US President John F Kennedy today announced that the US would resume above-ground nuclear testing.
53. 2nd March 1962: Prime Minister U Nu of Burma and Ex-President Sao Swe Thaik were arrested by General Ne Win of Burma. The non-elected government of General Ne Win lasted for 18 months.
54. 2nd March 1965: Over a hundred US Air Force jet bombers bombed an ammunition depot at Xom Bang about 10 miles inside North Vietnam in what was called Operation Rolling Thunder.
55. 2nd March 1967: The US on this day performed a nuclear test at its Nevada test site.
56. 2nd March 1968: The biggest plane in the world “Lockheed C5A Galaxy” was on this day displayed by the US Air Force.
57. 2nd March 1968: The USSR on this day launched a space probe Zonda 4, which failed to leave the earth’s orbit.
58. 2nd March 1969: Russia and China both communist countries opened fire against each other today. The Soviet and Chinese troops clashed on the Ussuri River in the eastern portion of the USSR.
59. 2nd March 1969: Today the supersonic airliner “Concord”, a British and French project made its maiden flight reaching 10,000 feet height and a speed of 300 MPH.
60. 2nd March 1970: The Prime Minister of Rhodesia Ian Smith declared Rhodesia a republic on this day.
61. 2nd March 1972: The US on this day launched “Pioneer ! 0” from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to planet Jupiter. It sent back photos the first close-up images of the planet.
62. 2nd March 1973: “Black September” terrorists occupy the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum.
63. 2nd March 1974: The Grand Jury on this day concluded that President Richard Nixon was involved in the Watergate cover-up.
64. 2nd March 1974: First class postage was on this day raised from 8 cents to 10 cents in the US.
65. 2nd March 1977: Libya today amended its constitution.
66. 2nd March 1978: Soyuz 28 carries two cosmonauts to Salyut 6 today.
67. 2nd March 1981: Three Pakistani terrorists hijack an aircraft on this day.
68. 2nd March 1983: The USSR on this day performed an underground nuclear test.
69. 2nd March 1984: Iran’s offensive against Iraq failed.
70. 2nd March 1986: Corazon Aquino was on this day sworn in as President of the Philippines. To restore the civil rights of the citizens of her country was her first public declaration after becoming the president.
71. 2nd March 1986: Protesters on this day stopped Land Rover company from being sold to the US.
72. 2nd March 1986: Santa Anita wins the first million-dollar purse for a handicap race.
73. 2nd March 1989: Representatives of 12 European countries today agreed to ban the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) by the end of the 20th century.
74. 2nd March 1990: The African National Congress on this day elected Nelson Mandela as its deputy President.
75. 2nd March 1991: A car bomb exploded in Colombo the capital city of Sri Lanka, killing 19 people including Ranjan Wijeratne, the Deputy Defense Minister of Sri Lanka.
76. 2nd March 1991: UN on this day voted in favor of the US resolution for a cease-fire with Iraq.
77. 2nd March 1992: Moldova joins the United Nations today.
78. 2nd March 1995: British traded Nick Leeson was on this day arrested for his involvement in the collapse of Barings Bank PLC.
79. 2nd March 1995: A gunman killed the Russian Anti-corruption journalist Vladislav Listyve in Mosco today.
80. 2nd March 1995: Space shuttle Endeavour 8 was launched on this day.
81. 2nd March 1997: Russian Soyuz TM-24 returns to earth today.
82. 2nd March 1997: Five percent of Apple was on this day acquired by Saudi Arabia’s billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal on this day.
83. 2nd March 1998: On this day the U.N. chief Kofi Annan’s deal to open presidential palaces of Iraq to arms inspectors was endorsed by the Security Council.
21st Century – March 2 This Day In History – The 2000s
84. 2nd March 2000: Former President of Chile Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, who was under house arrest in Great Britain was released from house arrest and was allowed to return to Chile.
85. 2nd March 2002: Operation Anaconda, the US invasion of Afghanistan began today. It ended on March 19. 500 Taliban and Al Qaida fighters and eleven Western troops lost their lives in the operation.
86. 2nd March 2003: Chung Cheng University on this day held the first International Symposium on Taiwan Sign Language linguistics.
87. 2nd March 2004: A series of explosions carried out by Al-Qaeda terrorists killed at least 178 and injured about 500 Shea Muslims in Iraq commemorating the day of Ashura.
88. 2nd March 2004: NASA on this day announced that Mars Rover Opportunity had discovered evidence of the existence of water on planet Mars in the past.
89. 2nd March 2004: The European Space Agency today launched space probe Rosetta to study comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko with the Philae Lander module aboard.
90. 2nd March 2006: An Italian Parliamentary Commission on this day concluded that the assassination attempt of Pope Paul II in 1981 was at the behest of the Soviet Union.
91. 2nd March 2006: The United States and India on this day finalized the nuclear deal in Delhi. President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have given India access to US civil nuclear technology. Its nuclear facilities are open for inspection. The deal has to be approved by the Congress.
92. 2nd March 2008: In the first such trip of an Iranian president, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived today in Iraq for a two-day visit.
93. 2nd March 2008: In Russia Dmitry Medvedev won the presidential election in Russia today.
94. 2nd March 2009: Heavy snowfall on the eastern coast of the United States resulted in the disruption of national and international flights and also in the closure of schools in the area. Hundreds of homes are without power.
95. 2nd March 2011: Apple’s iPad 2 was on this day unveiled by Steve Jobs.
96. 2nd March 2012: 25 out of the 27 European Union members signed a new Fiscal Compact to prevent excessive debts.
97. 2nd March 2012: Tornadoes struck the American states of Indiana and Kentucky. 27 people were killed in the Tornadoes.
98. 2nd March 2014: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to send troops to Ukraine received unanimous approval in the Russian parliament today.
99. 2nd March 2016: Emirates A-380 flies from Dubai to Auckland a distance of 14,200 KM in 17 hours 15 minutes. This is the longest scheduled commercial flight by distance.
100. 2nd March 2016: British scientists revealed a 440 million-year-old land fossil, the oldest known land fossil from Gotland, Sweden.
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