Tuesday, 3rd February 2026 in Lübbenau

3rd February in the Stars – Star Sign Aquarius

Today, the zodiac sign Aquarius celebrates its birthday.

Personality Profile

Personality People born on February 3rd are visionary innovators with a fierce independent streak. They think progressively, question established norms, and bring fresh perspectives wherever they go. Their originality makes them natural trendsetters who express themselves authentically.

Strengths & Weaknesses Their strengths include innovation, analytical thinking, and humanitarian commitment. However, they can seem emotionally detached and tend toward stubbornness. Sometimes they lack patience for details or emotional depth in relationships.

Love February 3rd natives seek partners who respect their intellectual independence. They prefer stimulating conversation over sentimentality and need freedom for personal growth. They show loyalty through reliable support and honest communication.

Caree & Finance These individuals thrive in fields demanding innovation: technology, research, social causes. They're entrepreneurial and think long-term. Financial success comes through original ideas, though they should avoid impulsive decisions.

Health February 3rd natives benefit from mental stimulation and unconventional activities. They must release nervous energy through movement and emotional stagnation through connection. Regular routines help calm their often overactive minds.

That night, the moon was in its new moon phase.

Chinese year of the Snake (Wood).

Fun Facts About 3rd February

Name Days in Your Language: Ansgar, Barclay, Baxter, Blaise, Blase, Blasia, Blaze, Norma, Norman, Norris

Someone born on this day would be just 133 days old today — roughly 3,197 hours, 191,830 minutes, or 11,509,843 seconds spent on Earth so far.

It's the 34. day of the year. In 2026, 3rd February falls on a Tuesday.

There are 331 days still to come.

We’re currently in Week 6 — the year marches on.

Famous Birthdays on 2nd February

On this day, 161 notable people were born on 2nd February — spanning from 1338 to 2004. From world leaders to artists and scientists, discover who shares this birthday.

03/02/2004

Rei, Japanese rapper and singer

Rei Naoi , known mononymously as Rei, is a Japanese singer and rapper based in South Korea. She is a member of the South Korean girl group Ive, under Starship Entertainment.

Scoot Henderson, American basketball player

Sterling "Scoot" Henderson is an American professional basketball player for the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played for Carlton J. Kell High School in his hometown of Marietta, Georgia, where he was a five-star recruit. At age 17, Henderson signed with the NBA G League Ignite after graduating early from high school and became the youngest player in G League history. In his second season, he was selected as a captain of the G League Next Up Game. Henderson was drafted with the 3rd pick in the 2023 NBA draft by the Trail Blazers.

03/02/2001

Tre Mann, American basketball player

Tre'shaun Albert Mann is an American professional basketball player for the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Florida Gators. Mann was selected with the 18th overall pick in the 2021 NBA draft by the Oklahoma City Thunder. He played nearly three seasons for Oklahoma City before he was traded to the Hornets in a deal for Gordon Hayward in February 2024 before the Trade Deadline.

Rhys Williams, English footballer

Rhys Williams is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Premier League club Liverpool. He will become a free agent on 30 June 2026.

03/02/1999

Kanna Hashimoto, Japanese actress

Kanna Hashimoto is a Japanese actress and former singer. From 2011 to 2017, she was a member of the Fukuoka-based idol girl group Rev. from DVL. During her time with the group, in 2013, a fan-taken photo of her performing went viral on Twitter and 2channel, bringing her to nationwide attention.

03/02/1998

Tyler Huntley, American football player

Tyler Isaiah Huntley is an American professional football quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). Nicknamed "Snoop", he played college football for the Utah Utes, leading them to Pac-12 South Division titles in 2018 and 2019. Huntley was signed by the Ravens as an undrafted free agent in 2020, and was selected as a replacement in the 2023 Pro Bowl after starting four games in place of injured starter Lamar Jackson.

Isaiah Roby, American basketball player

Isaiah Owen Roby is an American professional basketball player for the Westchester Knicks of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

03/02/1995

Tao Tsuchiya, Japanese actress

Tao Tsuchiya is a Japanese actress. She is best known for her memorable role of Makimachi Misao in the movie series Rurouni Kenshin, as Mai Nakahara in The 8-Year Engagement, Koharu in The Cinderella Addiction and most recently as Yuzuha Usagi in Netflix's Alice in Borderland. Her older sister, Honoka, works as a model, while her younger brother, Shimba Tsuchiya, is also an actor.

03/02/1994

Rougned Odor, Venezuelan baseball player

Rougned Roberto Odor, nicknamed "Rougie", is a Venezuelan professional baseball second baseman for the Navegantes del Magallanes of the Venezuelan Major League. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Texas Rangers, New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, and San Diego Padres.

03/02/1993

Adam Reach, English footballer

Adam Michael Reach is an English professional footballer who plays as a left-back or left winger for EFL Championship club Lincoln City.

03/02/1992

Olli Aitola, Finnish ice hockey player

Olli Aitola is a Finnish ice hockey player who plays as a defenceman for KeuPa HT on loan from JYP Jyväskylä.

James White, American football player

James Calvin White is an American football coach and former running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons with the New England Patriots. White played college football for the Wisconsin Badgers and was selected by the Patriots in the fourth round of the 2014 NFL draft. A three-time Super Bowl champion, he set the Super Bowl records for receptions and points scored in Super Bowl LI and is also tied with Darren Sproles for the record for the most receptions (15) in a playoff game. Since retiring as a player, he has served as the head football coach at Benet Academy and the assistant running backs coach for the Illinois Fighting Illini.

03/02/1990

Sean Kingston, American-Jamaican singer-songwriter

Kisean Paul Anderson, known professionally as Sean Kingston, is an American former singer and convicted fraudster. Born in Miami, and raised in Jamaica, he signed with J. R. Rotem's record label Beluga Heights Records, in a joint venture with Koch and Epic Records in 2007. The label released his 2007 debut single "Beautiful Girls", which peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100 and served as lead single for his debut album Sean Kingston (2007). It peaked at number 6 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the top 40-single "Take You There", while his second album, Tomorrow (2009), saw a commercial decline, but spawned the top five-single "Fire Burning". His third album, Back 2 Life (2013), failed to chart and served as his final release on a major label, but spawned the moderate hit "Beat It".

03/02/1989

Jia, Chinese singer and actress

Meng Jia, simply known as Jia, is a Chinese singer and actress. She was a member of South Korean girl group Miss A until her contract expired in May 2016. After leaving Miss A, Meng Jia signed with Banana Culture Music in 2016 to pursue her solo career in China.

Slobodan Rajković, Serbian footballer

Slobodan Rajković is a Serbian retired footballer who played as a centre back.

03/02/1988

Cho Kyu-hyun, South Korean singer

Cho Kyu-hyun, referred to as Kyuhyun, is a South Korean singer, musical theatre actor, and television host. He debuted as a new member of boy group Super Junior in May 2006. Apart from his group's activities, he has established himself as a musical actor, notably through his participation in the original and Korean versions of stage musicals including The Three Musketeers, Catch Me If You Can, Moon Embracing the Sun, Singin' in the Rain, The Days, Robin Hood, Werther, Mozart!, The Man Who Laughs, Phantom, and Frankenstein. He was also cast in television shows including Radio Star, We Got Married, Mamma Mia, Fluttering India and in the third, fourth, seventh, and eighth seasons of New Journey to the West. He debuted as a solo artist with his debut mini album, At Gwanghwamun, on November 13, 2014, making him the first Super Junior member to debut as a solo artist.

03/02/1987

Elvana Gjata, Albanian singer

Elvana Gjata is an Albanian singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born and raised in Tirana, she has been referred to as a "Diva of Albanian music". She rose to recognition in Albania and other Albanian-speaking territories in the Balkans following the release of her two studio albums, Mamës (2007) and Afër dhe larg (2011). The singer saw further success through many acclaimed singles, as well as her extended plays 3 (2018) and Çelu (2021), and has achieved multiple number one singles in the Albanian singles chart. Gjata has also received numerous awards and accolades, including two Balkan Music Awards, a Festivali i Këngës Award, four Kënga Magjike Awards and a Top Fest Award.

03/02/1986

Mathieu Giroux, Canadian speed skater

Mathieu Giroux is a Canadian speed-skater. He shared medals at team pursuit medals at world cup races in Calgary and Salt Lake City in 2009. He represented Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics. On February 27, he won a gold medal in the team pursuit along with Denny Morrison and Lucas Makowsky.

Kanako Yanagihara, Japanese actress

Kanako Yanagihara is a Japanese actress, comedian, and tarento, who has been featured in Cartoon KAT-TUN, the live-action drama Otomen, and collaborated on the music for Keroro Gunso the Super Movie 3: Keroro vs. Keroro Great Sky Duel. She is represented with Ohta Production.

03/02/1985

Angela Fong, Canadian wrestler and actress

Angela Carolyn Fong is a Canadian retired professional wrestler, model, ring announcer, cheerleader and actress. She is best known for her time at WWE from 2007 to 2010 under the ring name Savannah, and at Lucha Underground from 2014 to 2019, under the ring name Black Lotus.

Andrei Kostitsyn, Belarusian ice hockey player

Andrei Olegovich Kostitsyn is a former Belarusian professional ice hockey forward.

03/02/1984

Elizabeth Holmes, American fraudster, founder of Theranos

Elizabeth Anne Holmes is an American biotechnology entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud in connection with her health technology company Theranos. Holmes founded Theranos in 2003, and its valuation soared in the early 2010s after it claimed to have revolutionized blood testing by developing methods that needed only very small volumes of blood, such as from a fingerprick. In 2015, Forbes had named Holmes the youngest and wealthiest self-made female billionaire in the United States on the basis of a $9-billion valuation of her company. In the following year, as accusations of fraud about Theranos's claims began to surface, Forbes revised its estimate of Holmes's net worth to zero, and Fortune named her in its feature article on "The World's 19 Most Disappointing Leaders".

Matthew Moy, American actor

Matthew James Moy is an American actor. He co-starred as Han Lee on the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls and provides the voice of Lars Barriga on Steven Universe and Steven Universe Future.

03/02/1982

Becky Bayless, American wrestler

Rebecca Treston better known by her ring name Rebecca "Becky" Bayless, is an American professional wrestler, currently working for independent promotions such as Women's Extreme Wrestling, Wrestling Superstars Unleashed, Wrestlicious, and Women Superstars Uncensored. In the past she has worked for a number of major independent promotions, primarily Ring of Honor (ROH), Full Impact Pro, and Shimmer Women Athletes. She is also known for working for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) under the ring name Cookie and for ROH and Shimmer as a backstage/in-ring interviewer.

Marie-Ève Drolet, Canadian speed skater

Marie-Ève Drolet is a Canadian short track speed skater who competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics where she won a bronze in the relay event. She also has six ISU World Championship medals to her name and was a two time overall World Junior Champion in 2000 and again in 2001.

Bridget Regan, American actress

Bridget Catherine Regan is an American actress best known for her lead roles as Kahlan Amnell in the ABC adventure romance series Legend of the Seeker (2008–10) and Sasha Cooper in the last three seasons of the TNT action drama series The Last Ship (2016–18), as well as her recurring roles as Rebecca Lowe / Rachel Turner in the USA Network police procedural drama series White Collar (2013–14), Rose Solano in The CW romantic comedy drama series Jane the Virgin (2014–19), Dottie Underwood in the ABC action adventure superhero series Agent Carter (2015–16), and lawyer Monica Stevens in the ABC police series The Rookie (2018–2026). Regan has also appeared in films such as The Babysitters (2007), John Wick (2014), and Devil's Gate (2017).

03/02/1978

Joan Capdevila, Spanish footballer

Joan Capdevila Méndez is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a left-back.

Amal Clooney, British-Lebanese barrister and activist

Amal Clooney is a Lebanese and British international human rights lawyer. She has represented several high-profile clients, including former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad, Filipino-American journalist Maria Ressa, Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova, and Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy.

03/02/1977

Maitland Ward, American actress and model

Maitland Ward is an American actress, pornographic film actress and model. She made her acting debut as Jessica Forrester on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful (1994–1996). Continuing to appear in film and television through the mid-2000s, she came to further prominence for playing Rachel McGuire on the sixth and seventh seasons of the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World (1998–2000). After retiring from mainstream acting in 2007, Ward began performing in pornographic films in 2019.

Daddy Yankee, Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and record producer

Ramón Luis Ayala Rodríguez, known professionally as Daddy Yankee, is a Puerto Rican rapper, singer and songwriter. Dubbed the "King of Reggaeton", he is often cited as an influence by other Hispanic urban performers.

Marek Židlický, Czech ice hockey player

Marek Židlický is a Czech former professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League (NHL). He was selected in the sixth round, 176th overall, by the New York Rangers in the 2001 NHL entry draft.

03/02/1976

Mathieu Dandenault, Canadian ice hockey player

Mathieu Alexandre Dandenault is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He played for the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Canadiens in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Isla Fisher, Omani-Australian actress

Isla Lang Fisher is an Australian actress. Born in Muscat, Oman to Scottish parents with whom she moved to Australia during her childhood, she began appearing in television commercials before portraying Shannon Reed on the Australian soap opera Home and Away (1994–1997) for which she received two Logie Award nominations.

Tim Heidecker, American actor, comedian, and musician

Timothy Richard Heidecker is an American comedian, writer, director, actor, and musician. Along with Eric Wareheim, he is one half of the comedy duo Tim & Eric.

Eihi Shiina, Japanese fashion model and actress

Eihi Shiina is a Japanese fashion model and actress from Fukuoka, Japan. She got her first big break in 1995, working for Benetton, after which she represented Japan at the global Elite Model Look '95, then continuing as a magazine model.

03/02/1974

Ayanna Pressley, American politician

Ayanna Soyini Pressley is an American politician who has served as the U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 7th congressional district since 2019. This district includes the northern three quarters of Boston, most of Cambridge, parts of Milton, as well as all of Chelsea, Everett, Randolph, and Somerville.

03/02/1973

Ilana Sod, Mexican journalist and producer

Ilana Sod is a Mexican television and radio journalist, presenter, and producer. She has worked for a variety of media outlets and collaborated on initiatives relating to social issues and youth-oriented programming.

03/02/1971

Elisa Donovan, American actress

Elisa Donovan is an American actress. She played the role of Amber Mariens in the 1995 teen comedy film Clueless, and reprised her role in the TV series of the same name (1996-1999). Donovan went on to play the role of Morgan Cavanaugh in the sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch (2000–2003).

Sarah Kane, English playwright (died 1999)

Sarah Kane was an English playwright. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action.

Hong Seok-cheon, South Korean actor

Hong Seok-cheon is a South Korean actor, television personality, restaurateur and member of the dissolved Democratic Labor Party. He caused considerable controversy in his home country when he came out as gay in 2000, and remains the most prominent openly gay celebrity in Korea.

03/02/1970

Óscar Córdoba, Colombian footballer

Óscar Eduardo Córdoba Arce is a Colombian retired professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He played more than 70 games for the Colombia national team. He is also the only person to never concede a goal in a Copa América edition, having done so in 2001.

Warwick Davis, English actor, producer, and screenwriter

Warwick Ashley Davis is an English actor and television presenter. Active within the industry since he was eleven, Davis is among the highest-grossing supporting actors of all time and has the highest average gross revenue of all supporting actors. He played the title character in Willow (1988) and the Leprechaun film series (1993–2003); several characters in the Star Wars film series (1983–2024), most notably Wicket the Ewok; and Professor Filius Flitwick and the goblin Griphook in the Harry Potter film series (2001–2011).

03/02/1969

Beau Biden, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 44th Attorney General of Delaware (died 2015)

Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III was an American politician, lawyer, and Army National Guard officer who served as the 44th attorney general of Delaware from 2007 to 2015. A member of the Biden family and the Democratic Party, he was the eldest child of 46th U.S. president Joe Biden and Neilia Hunter Biden.

Retief Goosen, South African golfer

Retief Goosen is a South African professional golfer. He plays on the PGA Tour Champions. He has won two U.S. Opens, in 2001 and 2004, headed the European Tour Order of Merit in 2001 and 2002, and was in the top ten of the world rankings for over 250 weeks between 2001 and 2007. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame, class of 2019.

03/02/1968

Vlade Divac, Serbian-American basketball player and sportscaster

Vlade Divac is a Serbian professional basketball executive and a former player who was most recently the vice president of basketball operations and general manager of the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Marwan Khoury, Lebanese singer, songwriter, and composer

Marwan Khoury is a Lebanese singer, writer, composer and music arranger. He has composed hits for artists such as Majida El Roumi, Saber Rebaï, Nawal Al Zoghbi, Assala Nasri, Najwa Karam, Fadl Shaker, Elissa, Carole Samaha, Bassima, and Myriam Fares.

František Kučera, Czech ice hockey player

František Kučera is a Czech former professional ice hockey defenceman who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Chicago Blackhawks, Hartford Whalers, Vancouver Canucks, Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals.

03/02/1967

Tim Flowers, English footballer and coach

Timothy David Flowers is an English football manager and former player who currently manages Bromsgrove Sporting.

Mixu Paatelainen, Finnish footballer and coach

Mika-Matti Petteri "Mixu" Paatelainen is a Finnish professional football manager and former player who is currently the sporting director of Scottish League Two club The Spartans. A striker, he scored 18 goals in 70 appearances for the Finnish national team, which makes him Finland's all time thirteenth most capped player and fifth top goalscorer.

03/02/1966

Danny Morrison, New Zealand cricketer and sportscaster

Daniel Kyle Morrison is a New Zealand cricket commentator and former cricketer. He specialised as a pace bowler and was known for his useful outswinger. He made his Test debut for New Zealand in 1987 at the age of 21, playing against Australia.

03/02/1965

Manuel Loff, Portuguese politician

Manuel Vicente de Sousa Lima Loff is a Portuguese historian, politician and former member of the Assembly of the Republic, the national legislature of Portugal. An independent affiliated with the Portuguese Communist Party, he represented Porto from March 2023 to September 2023.

Maura Tierney, American actress and producer

Maura Lynn Tierney is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Lisa Miller on the sitcom NewsRadio (1995–1999), Abby Lockhart on the medical drama ER (1999–2009), and Helen Solloway on the mystery drama The Affair (2014–2019), the last of which won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.

03/02/1964

Indrek Tarand, Estonian historian, journalist, and politician

Indrek Tarand is an Estonian politician and a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Estonia. He was an independent politician, but a member of the European Green Party.

03/02/1963

Vũ Đức Đam, Vietnamese politician

Vũ Đức Đam is a Vietnamese politician who served as one of the Deputy Prime Ministers of Vietnam from 2013 until his sacking in 2023. A long-time assistant to the economic reformer Võ Văn Kiệt, Đam previously served as Chairman of the People's Committee (Governor) of Quảng Ninh province and as Minister of the Government Office prior to being appointed deputy prime minister, where he was in charge of the Science and Technology, Information and Communication, Tourism and Sports portfolio. He was also the Chairman of the National Committee for AIDS and the Prevention of Drug Addiction and Prostitution.

Raghuram Rajan, Indian economist and academic

Raghuram Govind Rajan is an Indian economist and the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. He served as the Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2006 and the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016. In 2015, during his tenure at the RBI, he became the Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements.

03/02/1962

Michele Greene, American actress, singer, and author

Michele Dominguez Greene is an American actress, singer, and author. She is known for her role as attorney Abby Perkins on the TV series L.A. Law from 1986 to 1991, for which she was nominated for a 1989 Primetime Emmy Award. She reprised the role in the 2002 TV reunion film L.A. Law: The Movie.

03/02/1960

Marty Jannetty, American wrestler

Fredrick Martin "Marty" Jannetty is an American retired professional wrestler who has worked for promotions including the World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E), the American Wrestling Association (AWA), World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), and has won a total of 20 championships.

Joachim Löw, German footballer and manager

Joachim "Jogi" Löw is a German football coach and former player. He was the manager of the Germany national team from 2006 until 2021. During his tenure as manager, he led Germany to victory at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia. In March 2021, Löw announced that he would resign from his position after the delayed Euro 2020. Of all head coaches of the Germany national football team, Löw has managed and won the most matches (124/198).

03/02/1959

Thomas Calabro, American actor

Thomas Calabro is an American actor and director.

Lol Tolhurst, English musician and songwriter

Laurence Andrew Tolhurst is an English musician, songwriter, producer, and author. He was a founder member of the Cure, for which he first played drums before switching to keyboards. He left the Cure in 1989, and later formed the bands Presence and Levinhurst. He has also published two books and developed the Curious Creatures podcast. His most recent studio release is the album Los Angeles (2023), in collaboration with Budgie and Jacknife Lee.

Óscar Iván Zuluaga, Colombian economist and politician, 67th Colombian Minister of Finance

Óscar Iván Zuluaga Escobar is a Colombian politician and economist who was the Democratic Center's nominee for President of Colombia in the 2014 election. He won the most votes in the first round of the election and but went on to lose to the incumbent Juan Manuel Santos Calderon in the second round.

03/02/1958

Joe F. Edwards, Jr., American commander, pilot, and astronaut

Joe Frank Edwards Jr., , is an American aerospace engineer, former naval officer, aviator, test pilot and NASA astronaut.

Greg Mankiw, American economist and academic

Nicholas Gregory Mankiw is an American macroeconomist who is currently the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Mankiw is best known in academia for his work on New Keynesian economics.

03/02/1957

Eric Lander, American mathematician, geneticist, and academic

Eric Steven Lander is an American mathematician and geneticist who is a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School.

03/02/1956

Nathan Lane, American actor and comedian

Nathan Lane is an American actor. Known for his versatile roles on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades including three Tony Awards, seven Drama Desk Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Actor Award. Lane was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2010, The New York Times hailed Lane as being "the greatest stage entertainer of the decade".

Lee Ranaldo, American musician and songwriter

Lee Mark Ranaldo is an American musician, singer and songwriter best known as guitarist and vocalist of alternative rock band Sonic Youth. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Ranaldo at number 33 on its "Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list. In May 2012, Spin published a staff-selected top 100 guitarist list, ranking Ranaldo and his Sonic Youth bandmate Thurston Moore together at number 1.

03/02/1954

Tiger Williams, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

David James "Tiger" Williams is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1974 to 1988 for five teams. He played in the 1981 NHL All-Star Game and the 1982 Stanley Cup Finals. Williams had a good scoring touch but was best known as an enforcer, and is the NHL's career leader in penalty minutes. He was nicknamed "Tiger" as a 5-year-old by his minor hockey coach in Weyburn, Saskatchewan.

03/02/1951

Arsène Auguste, Haitian footballer (died 1993)

Arsène Auguste was a Haitian international footballer who represented Haiti in the 1974 FIFA World Cup.

Eugenijus Riabovas, Lithuanian footballer and manager

Eugenijus Riabovas is a Lithuanian football manager.

03/02/1950

Morgan Fairchild, American actress

Patsy Ann McClenny, known professionally as Morgan Fairchild, is an American actress. She began acting in the early 1970s and has had roles in several television series since then.

Pamela Franklin, Japanese-English actress

Pamela Franklin is a retired British actress. She is best known for her role as Sandy in the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), for which she received the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the BAFTA Award in the same category.

Grant Goldman, Australian radio and television host (died 2020)

Grant Goldman was an Australian radio and television presenter. He worked as both a voice-over and live presenter.

03/02/1948

Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, East Timorese Roman Catholic bishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, SDB, commonly known as Carlos Belo or Ximenes Belo is an East Timorese prelate of the Catholic Church. He became a bishop in 1988 and served as the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Díli from 1988 to 2002. In 1996, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with José Ramos-Horta for working "towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor". He is a professed member of the Salesians.

Henning Mankell, Swedish author and playwright (died 2015)

Henning Georg Mankell was a Swedish crime writer, children's author, and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most noted creation, Inspector Kurt Wallander. He also wrote a number of plays and screenplays for television.

03/02/1947

Paul Auster, American novelist, essayist, and poet (died 2024)

Paul Benjamin Auster was an American writer, novelist, memoirist, poet, and filmmaker. His notable works include The New York Trilogy (1987), Moon Palace (1989), The Music of Chance (1990), The Book of Illusions (2002), The Brooklyn Follies (2005), Invisible (2009), Sunset Park (2010), Winter Journal (2012), and 4 3 2 1 (2017). His books have been translated into more than 40 languages.

Dave Davies, English musician

David Russell Gordon Davies is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was the lead guitarist and backing vocalist for the English rock band the Kinks, led by his elder brother Ray, and the two of them were the only consistent members during their existence. Davies also sometimes undertook writing and/or lead vocals duties within the band, for example on the songs "Death of a Clown", "Party Line", "Strangers" and "Rats". He has also embarked on a solo career, releasing several singles during the late 1960s and has since released eight solo albums.

Stephen McHattie, Canadian actor and director

Stephen McHattie Smith is a Canadian actor. Since beginning his professional career in 1970, he has amassed over 200 film, television, and theatre credits; and has collaborated with directors like Darren Aronofsky, Bruce McDonald, and David Cronenberg. He played Jimmy Murray on the CBC drama Emily of New Moon (1998-2000) and Sgt. Frank Coscarella on the police procedural Cold Squad (1999-2001).

Melanie, American singer-songwriter (died 2024)

Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk, professionally known as Melanie or Melanie Safka, was an American singer-songwriter.

03/02/1945

Bob Griese, American football player and sportscaster

Robert Allen Griese is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback for 14 seasons with the Miami Dolphins of the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL). He earned All-American honors playing college football for the Purdue Boilermakers before being selected by the Dolphins of the AFL in the 1967 NFL/AFL draft.

03/02/1943

Blythe Danner, American actress

Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress. Accolades she has received include two Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Izzy Huffstodt on Huff (2004–2006), and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress for her performance in Butterflies Are Free on Broadway (1969–1972). Danner was twice nominated for the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for portraying Marilyn Truman on Will & Grace, and the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for her roles in We Were the Mulvaneys (2002) and Back When We Were Grownups (2004). For the latter, she also received a Golden Globe Award nomination.

03/02/1941

Dory Funk, Jr., American wrestler and trainer

Dorrance Earnest Funk, known professionally as Dory Funk Jr., is an American retired professional wrestler and wrestling trainer. The son of Dory Funk and brother of Terry Funk, he was the promoter of the Amarillo, Texas-based Western States Sports promotion.

03/02/1940

Fran Tarkenton, American football player and sportscaster

Francis Asbury Tarkenton, nicknamed "the Scrambler", is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Minnesota Vikings. He is widely regarded as the first great dual-threat quarterback in the NFL. He played college football for the Georgia Bulldogs, where he was recognized as a twice first-team All-SEC, and was selected by the Vikings in the third round of the 1961 NFL draft. After retiring from football in 1979, he became a media personality and computer software executive.

03/02/1939

Michael Cimino, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2016)

Michael Antonio Cimino was an American film director, screenwriter, producer and author. Notorious for his obsessive attention to detail and determination for perfection, Cimino achieved widespread fame with The Deer Hunter (1978), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

03/02/1938

Victor Buono, American actor (died 1982)

Victor Charles Buono was an American actor, comic, and briefly a recording artist. He was known for playing the villain King Tut in the television series Batman (1966–1968) and musician Edwin Flagg in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), the latter of which earned him Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations. He was a busy actor from his late teens until his death at the age of 43 and, with his large size and sonorous voice, he made a career of playing men much older than he actually was.

Emile Griffith, American boxer and trainer (died 2013)

Emile Alphonse Griffith was an American professional boxer who won world titles in three weight divisions. He held the world light middleweight, undisputed welterweight, and middleweight titles. His best-known contest was a 1962 title match with Benny Paret. Griffith won the bout by knockout; Paret never recovered consciousness and died in the hospital 10 days later.

03/02/1937

Billy Meier, Swiss author and photographer

Eduard Albert Meier, commonly nicknamed "Billy", is the founder of a UFO religion called the "Freie Interessengemeinschaft für Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien" and alleged contactee whose UFO photographs are claimed to show alien spacecraft. Meier claims to be in regular contact with extraterrestrial beings he calls the Plejaren. He also presented other material during the 1970s such as metal samples, sound recordings and film footage. Meier claims to be the seventh reincarnation after six prophets common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Enoch, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Immanuel (Jesus), and Muhammad.

03/02/1936

Bob Simpson, Australian cricketer and coach (died 2025)

Robert Baddeley Simpson, known as Simmo, was an Australian cricketer who played for New South Wales, Western Australia and the Australian national team. He captained the Australian team from 1963/64 until 1967/68 and again in 1977/78. He later had a highly successful term as the coach of the national team.

03/02/1935

Johnny "Guitar" Watson, American blues, soul, and funk singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1996)

John Watson Jr., often known professionally as Johnny "Guitar" Watson, was an American musician. A flamboyant showman and electric guitarist in the style of T-Bone Walker, his recording career spanned 40 years, and encompassed rhythm and blues, funk and soul music.

03/02/1934

Juan Carlos Calabró, Argentinian actor and screenwriter (died 2013)

Juan Carlos Calabró was an Argentine actor and comedian.

03/02/1933

Paul Sarbanes, American lawyer and politician (died 2020)

Paul Spyros Sarbanes was an American politician and attorney from Maryland. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in both chambers of the United States Congress as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and as a member of the United States Senate from 1977 to 2007. Sarbanes was the longest-serving senator in the history of Maryland until he was surpassed by Barbara Mikulski by a single day when her term ended on January 3, 2017. He was the first Greek American senator.

03/02/1927

Kenneth Anger, American actor, director, and screenwriter (died 2023)

Kenneth Anger was an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning in 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle". Anger's films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle". He has been called "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers", with several films released before homosexuality was legalized in the U.S. Anger also explored occult themes in many of his films; he was fascinated by the English occultist Aleister Crowley and an adherent of Thelema, the religion Crowley founded.

Blas Ople, Filipino journalist and politician, 21st President of the Senate of the Philippines (died 2003)

Blas Fajardo Ople was a Filipino journalist and politician who held several high-ranking positions in the executive and legislative branches of the Philippine government, including as Senate President from 1999 to 2000, and as Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 2002 until his death. Perceived as a leftist-nationalist at the onset of his career in public service, Ople was, in his final years, a vocal supporter for allowing a limited United States military presence in the Philippines, and for American initiatives in the war on terror including the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

03/02/1926

Hans-Jochen Vogel, German lawyer and politician, 8th Mayor of Berlin (died 2020)

Hans-Jochen Vogel was a German lawyer and a politician for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He served as Mayor of Munich from 1960 to 1972, winning the 1972 Summer Olympics for the city and Governing Mayor of West Berlin in 1981, the only German ever to lead two cities with a million+ inhabitants. He was Federal Minister of Regional Planning, Construction and Urban Development from 1972 to 1974, and Federal Minister of Justice from 1974 to 1981. He served as leader of the SPD in the Bundestag from 1983 to 1991, and as Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1987 to 1991. In 1993, he co-founded the organisation Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie. He was a member of the National Ethics Council of Germany from its beginning in 2001.

03/02/1925

Shelley Berman, American actor and comedian (died 2017)

Sheldon Leonard Berman was an American comedian, actor, writer, teacher, and lecturer.

John Fiedler, American actor (died 2005)

John Donald Fiedler was an American actor. Recognizable for his distinctive voice, Fiedler's career lasted more than 55 years in stage, film, television and radio.

03/02/1924

Martial Asselin, Canadian lawyer and politician, 25th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (died 2013)

Joseph Ferdinand Martial Asselin was a Canadian politician and the 25th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (1990–1996).

E. P. Thompson, English historian and author (died 1993)

Edward Palmer Thompson was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class (1963).

03/02/1920

Henry Heimlich, American physician and author (died 2016)

Henry Judah Heimlich was an American thoracic surgeon and medical researcher. He is widely credited for the discovery of the Heimlich maneuver, a technique of abdominal thrusts for stopping choking, first described in 1974. He also invented the Micro Trach portable oxygen system for ambulatory patients and the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve, or "flutter valve", which drains blood and air out of the chest cavity.

03/02/1918

Joey Bishop, American actor and producer (died 2007)

Joseph Abraham Gottlieb, known professionally as Joey Bishop, was an American entertainer who appeared on television as early as 1948 and eventually starred in his own weekly comedy series playing a talk/variety show host, then later hosted a late-night talk show with Regis Philbin as his young sidekick on ABC. He also was a member of the "Rat Pack" with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. He is listed as the 96th entry on Comedy Central's list of 100 greatest comedians.

Helen Stephens, American runner, baseball player, and manager (died 1994)

Helen Herring Stephens was an American athlete and a double Olympic champion in 1936.

03/02/1917

Shlomo Goren, Polish-Israeli rabbi and general (died 1994)

Shlomo Goren was a Polish-born Israeli rabbi and Talmudic scholar. An Orthodox Jew and Religious Zionist, he was considered a foremost rabbinical legal authority on matters of Jewish religious law (halakha). In 1948, Goren founded and served as the first head of the Military Rabbinate of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), a position he held until 1968. Subsequently, he served as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv–Jaffa between 1968 and his 1972 election as the Chief Rabbi of Israel; the fourth Ashkenazi Jew to hold office. After his 1983 retirement from the country's Chief Rabbinate, Goren served as the head of a yeshiva that he established in Jerusalem.

03/02/1915

Johannes Kotkas, Estonian wrestler and hammer thrower (died 1998)

Johannes Kotkas was a heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler from Estonia who won a gold medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics. He held the European title in 1938, 1939 and 1947 and placed second at the 1953 world championships.

03/02/1914

Mary Carlisle, American actress, singer, and dancer (died 2018)

Mary Carlisle was an American actress, singer and dancer, best known for her roles as a wholesome ingénue in numerous 1930s musical-comedy films.

03/02/1912

Jacques Soustelle, French anthropologist and politician (died 1990)

Jacques Soustelle was an important and early figure of the Free French Forces, a politician who served in the French National Assembly and at one time served as Governor General of Algeria, an anthropologist specializing in Pre-Columbian civilizations, and vice-director of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in 1939. Soustelle and his followers opposed any compromise with anticolonial activists in Algeria in the Algerian War.

03/02/1911

Jehan Alain, French organist and composer (died 1940)

Jehan-Ariste Paul Alain was a French organist, composer and soldier. Born into a family of musicians, he learned the organ from his father and a host of other teachers, becoming a composer at 18, and composing until the outbreak of the Second World War 10 years later. His compositional style was influenced by the musical language of the earlier Claude Debussy, as well as his interest in music, dance and philosophy of the far east. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Alain became a dispatch rider in the Eighth Motorised Armour Division of the French Army; he took part in the Battle of Saumur, in which he was killed.

03/02/1909

André Cayatte, French lawyer and director (died 1989)

André Cayatte was a French filmmaker, writer and lawyer, who became known for his films centering on themes of crime, justice, and moral responsibility.

Simone Weil, French mystic and philosopher (died 1943)

Simone Adolphine Weil was a French philosopher, mystic and political activist. Despite her short life, her ideas concerning religion, spirituality and politics have remained widely influential in contemporary philosophy.

03/02/1907

James A. Michener, American author and philanthropist (died 1997)

James Albert Michener was an American writer. He wrote more than 40 books, most of which were long, fictional family sagas covering the lives of many generations, set in particular geographic locales and incorporating detailed history. Many of his works were bestsellers and were chosen by the Book of the Month Club. He was also known for the meticulous research that went into his books.

03/02/1906

George Adamson, Indian-English author and activist (died 1989)

George Alexander Graham Adamson MBE, also known as the Baba ya Simba, was a British wildlife conservationist and author, based in Kenya. His wife Joy Adamson related in her best-selling book Born Free (1960) the couple's life with Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned cub they raised and later released into the wild.

03/02/1905

Paul Ariste, Estonian linguist and academic (died 1990)

Paul Ariste was an Estonian linguist renowned for his studies of the Finno-Ugric languages, Yiddish and Baltic Romani language.

Arne Beurling, Swedish-American mathematician and academic (died 1986)

Arne Carl-August Beurling was a Swedish mathematician and professor of mathematics at Uppsala University (1937–1954) and later at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Beurling worked extensively in harmonic analysis, complex analysis and potential theory. The "Beurling factorization" helped mathematical scientists to understand the Wold decomposition, and inspired further work on the invariant subspaces of linear operators and operator algebras, e.g. Håkan Hedenmalm's factorization theorem for Bergman spaces.

03/02/1904

Pretty Boy Floyd, American gangster (died 1934)

Charles Arthur Floyd, nicknamed Pretty Boy Floyd, was an American bank robber whose crimes across the Midwestern and South Central United States received widespread press coverage in the 1930s. Floyd developed a positive reputation among some members of the public, in part because he reportedly destroyed mortgage documents during robberies, allegedly relieving debtors of their obligations.

03/02/1903

Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish soldier, pilot, and politician (died 1973)

Air Commodore Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton and 11th Duke of Brandon, was a Scottish aristocrat, politician and aviator. He was the first man to fly over Mount Everest. A member of the Unionist Party, he sat in the House of Commons and later in the House of Lords.

03/02/1900

Mabel Mercer, English-American singer (died 1984)

Mabel Mercer was an English-born cabaret singer who performed in the United States, Britain, and Europe with the greats in jazz and cabaret. She was a featured performer at Chez Bricktop in Paris, owned by the hostess Ada "Bricktop" Smith, and performed in such clubs as Le Ruban Bleu, Tony's, the RSVP, the Carlyle, the St. Regis Hotel, and eventually her own room, the Byline Club. Among those who frequently attended Mercer's shows was Frank Sinatra, who made no secret of his emulating her phrasing and story-telling techniques.

03/02/1899

Café Filho, Brazilian journalist, lawyer, and politician, 18th President of Brazil (died 1970)

João Fernandes Campos Café Filho was a Brazilian politician who served as the 18th president of Brazil, taking office upon the suicide of President Getúlio Vargas. He was the first Protestant to occupy the position.

03/02/1898

Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect, designed the Finlandia Hall and Aalto Theatre (died 1976)

Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware, as well as sculptures and paintings. He never regarded himself as an artist, seeing painting and sculpture as "branches of the tree whose trunk is architecture." Aalto's early career ran in parallel with the rapid economic growth and industrialization of Finland during the first half of the 20th century. Many of his clients were industrialists, among them the Ahlström-Gullichsen family, who became his patrons. The span of his career, from the 1920s to the 1970s, is reflected in the styles of his work, ranging from Nordic Classicism of the early work, to a rational International Style Modernism during the 1930s to a more organic modernist style from the 1940s onwards.

03/02/1894

Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (died 1978)

Norman Percevel Rockwell was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, the Four Freedoms series, Saying Grace, and The Problem We All Live With. He is also noted for his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), during which he produced covers for their publication Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations. These works include popular images that reflect the Scout Oath and Scout Law such as The Scoutmaster, A Scout Is Reverent, and A Guiding Hand.

03/02/1893

Gaston Julia, Algerian-French mathematician and academic (died 1978)

Gaston Maurice Julia was a French mathematician who devised the formula for the Julia set. His works were popularized by Benoit Mandelbrot; the Julia and Mandelbrot fractals are closely related. He founded, independently with Pierre Fatou, the modern theory of holomorphic dynamics.

03/02/1892

Juan Negrín, Spanish physician and politician, 67th Prime Minister of Spain (died 1956)

Juan Negrín López was a Spanish physician and politician who served as prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic. He was a leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and of the left-leaning Popular Front government during the Spanish Civil War. He also served as minister of finance and minister of defence. He was the last Republican prime minister of Spain (1937–1939), leading the government forces defeated by the Nationalists under General Francisco Franco. He went into exile in Paris, France, where he served as prime minister of the Spanish Republican government in exile until 1945, when he was replaced by José Giral. He died in exile on 12 November 1956.

03/02/1889

Artur Adson, Estonian poet, playwright, and critic (died 1977)

Artur Adson was an Estonian poet, writer and theatre critic.

Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish director and screenwriter (died 1968)

Carl Theodor Dreyer, commonly known as Carl Th. Dreyer, was a Danish film director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers in history, his movies are noted for emotional austerity and slow, stately pacing, frequent themes of social intolerance, the inseparability of fate and death, and the power of evil in earthly life.

Risto Ryti, Finnish lawyer, politician and the Governor of the Bank of Finland; 5th President of Finland (died 1956)

Risto Heikki Ryti was a Finnish politician who served as the president of Finland from 1940 to 1944. Ryti started his career as a politician in the field of economics and as a political background figure during the interwar period. He made a wide range of international contacts in the world of banking and within the framework of the League of Nations. Ryti served as prime minister during the Winter War and the Interim Peace, and as president during the Continuation War.

03/02/1887

Georg Trakl, Austrian pharmacist and poet (died 1914)

Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet and the brother of the pianist Grete Trakl. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists. He is perhaps best known for his poem "Grodek", which he wrote shortly before he died of a cocaine overdose at the age of 27.

03/02/1878

Gordon Coates, New Zealand soldier and politician, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (died 1943)

Joseph Gordon Coates served as the 21st prime minister of New Zealand from 1925 to 1928. He was the third successive Reform prime minister since 1912.

Grigory Petrovsky, Ukrainian Soviet revolutionary and politician (died 1958)

Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky was a Ukrainian Soviet politician and Old Bolshevik. He participated in signing the Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Petrovsky was the head of state of Soviet Ukraine from 1919 until 1938, and one of the officials responsible for implementing Stalin's policy of collectivization.

03/02/1874

Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright, (died 1946)

Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse, would meet.

03/02/1872

Lou Criger, American baseball player and manager (died 1934)

Louis Criger was an American professional baseball catcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1896 to 1912 for the Cleveland Spiders, St. Louis Perfectos / Cardinals, Boston Americans / Red Sox, St. Louis Browns and New York Highlanders. Listed at 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) and 165 pounds (75 kg), he batted and threw right-handed.

03/02/1867

Charles Henry Turner, American biologist, educator and zoologist (died 1923)

Charles Henry Turner was an American zoologist, entomologist, educator, and comparative psychologist, known for his studies on the behavior of insects, particularly bees and ants. Born in Cincinnati, Turner was the first African American to receive a graduate degree at the University of Cincinnati and the first African American to earn a PhD from the University of Chicago (1907). He spent most of his career as a high school teacher at Sumner High School in St. Louis. Turner was one of the first scientists to systematically examine the question of whether animals display complex cognition, studying arthropods such as spiders and bees. He also examined differences in behavior between individuals within a species, a precursor to the study of animal personality.

03/02/1862

James Clark McReynolds, American lawyer and judge (died 1946)

James Clark McReynolds was an American lawyer and judge from Tennessee who served as United States Attorney General under President Woodrow Wilson and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He served on the Court from 1914 to his retirement in 1941. McReynolds is best known today for his sustained opposition to the domestic programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and for his abrasive and dislikeable personality, which his contemporaries mostly viewed negatively and included documented elements of overt antisemitism and racism.

03/02/1859

Hugo Junkers, German engineer, designed the Junkers J 1 (died 1935)

Hugo Junkers was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG, was one of the mainstays of the German aircraft industry in the years between World War I and World War II. His multi-engined, all-metal passenger and freight planes helped establish airlines in Germany and around the world.

03/02/1857

Giuseppe Moretti, Italian sculptor, designed the Vulcan statue (died 1935)

Giuseppe Moretti was an Italian émigré sculptor who became known in the United States for his public monuments in bronze and marble. Notable among his works is Vulcan in Birmingham, Alabama, which is the largest cast iron statue in the world. On a personal level, Moretti was "known for his eclectic personality and for always wearing a green tie," but professionally, is claimed to be "the first man to use aluminum in art." Moretti enjoyed some celebrity in his lifetime, and was a friend of famed Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. It is even reported that the singer repeatedly praised Moretti's voice.

03/02/1843

William Cornelius Van Horne, American-Canadian businessman (died 1915)

Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, was an American businessman, industrialist and railroad magnate who spent most of his career in Canada. He is famous for overseeing the construction of the first Canadian transcontinental railway, a project that was completed in 1885, in under half the projected time. He succeeded Lord Mount Stephen as president of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1888. Van Horne was responsible for launching the sea transport division of the CPR, which inaugurated regular service between Vancouver and Hong Kong in 1891. He also presided over the expansion of the CPR into the luxury hotel business in the 1890s. Van Horne was also a prominent member of the syndicate that created the Cuba Railroad Company in 1900. He lived at the Van Horne Mansion in Montreal's Golden Square Mile.

03/02/1842

Sidney Lanier, American composer and poet (died 1881)

Sidney Clopton Lanier was an American musician, poet and author. He served in the Confederate States Army as a private, worked on a blockade-running ship for which he was imprisoned, taught, worked at a hotel where he gave musical performances, was a church organist, and worked as a lawyer. As a poet he sometimes used dialects. Many of his poems are written in heightened, but often archaic, American English. He became a flautist and sold poems to publications. He eventually became a professor of literature at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and is known for his adaptation of musical meter to poetry. Many schools, other structures and two lakes are named for him, and he became hailed in the South as the "poet of the Confederacy". A 1972 US postage stamp honored him as an "American poet".

03/02/1840

Allan McLean, Scottish-Australian politician, 19th Premier of Victoria (died 1911)

Allan McLean was an Australian politician who served as the 19th Premier of Victoria, in office from 1899 to 1900. He was later elected to federal parliament, where he served as a government minister under George Reid.

03/02/1830

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1903)

Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, known as Lord Salisbury, was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a total of over thirteen years. He was also Foreign Secretary before and during most of his tenure. He avoided international alignments or alliances, maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation".

03/02/1826

Walter Bagehot, English journalist and businessman (died 1877)

Walter Bagehot was an English journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the National Review in 1855, and for his works The English Constitution and Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873).

03/02/1824

Ranald MacDonald, American explorer and educator (died 1894)

Ranald MacDonald was the first native English speaker to teach the English language in Japan. His students included Einosuke Moriyama, one of the chief interpreters in the negotiations between Commodore Perry and the Tokugawa Shogunate.

03/02/1821

Elizabeth Blackwell, American physician and educator (died 1910)

Elizabeth Blackwell was an English-American physician, notable as the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Kingdom. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social reformer, and was a pioneer in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made a significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.

03/02/1817

Achille Ernest Oscar Joseph Delesse, French geologist and mineralogist (died 1881)

Achille Ernest Oscar Joseph Delesse was a French geologist and mineralogist. He is credited for inventing the Delesse principle in stereology.

Émile Prudent, French pianist and composer (died 1864)

Émile Racine Gauthier Prudent was a French pianist and composer. His works number about seventy, and include a piano trio, a concerto-symphony, many character pieces, sets of variations, transcriptions and etudes, in addition to his celebrated fantasies on operatic airs. As a teacher, he was very successful and produced several distinguished pupils.

03/02/1816

Ram Singh Kuka, Indian credited with starting the Non-cooperation movement

Namdhari Guru Ram Singh is known to the Namdhari sect of Sikhism as the, whilst for mainstream Sikhs such as Damdami Taksal and Nihangs, he is regarded as a 'Saint' and not a Guru. He is credited as being the first Indian to use non-cooperation and boycott of British goods and services as a political tool. He was exiled to Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar) by the British colonial government of India on 18 January 1872. In 2016, the Government of India officially decided to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Satguru Ram Singh. The Punjab Government organizes state-level functions on his birth anniversary and has declares a holiday on this occasion. His portrait is displayed at the Indian Parliament and at the Railway Station, Ludhiana.

03/02/1815

Edward James Roye, 5th President of Liberia (died 1872)

Edward James Roye was a Liberian merchant and politician who served as the fifth president of Liberia from 1870 until his overthrow in the 1871 Liberian coup d'état and subsequent death. He had previously served as the fourth Chief Justice of Liberia from 1865 until 1868. He was the first member of Liberia's True Whig Party to serve as president.

03/02/1811

Horace Greeley, American journalist and politician (died 1872)

Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor and publisher who was the founder and editor of the New-York Tribune. Long active in politics, he served briefly as a congressman from New York and was the unsuccessful candidate of the new Liberal Republican Party in the 1872 presidential election against incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant.

03/02/1809

Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1847)

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, simply known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic era. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the String Octet, the overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian and Scottish Symphonies, the oratorios St. Paul and Elijah, the Hebrides Overture, the mature Violin Concerto, and the melody used in the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions.

03/02/1807

Joseph E. Johnston, American general and politician (died 1891)

Joseph Eggleston Johnston was an American military officer and politician who served in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War and in the Seminole Wars. After Virginia declared secession from the United States in 1861, he entered the Confederate States Army as one of its most senior general officers during the American Civil War.

03/02/1795

Antonio José de Sucre, Venezuelan general and politician, 2nd President of Bolivia (died 1830)

Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá, known as the "Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho", was a Venezuelan general and politician who served as the president of Bolivia from 1825 to 1828. A close friend and associate of Simón Bolívar, he was one of the primary leaders of South America's struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire.

03/02/1790

Gideon Mantell, English scientist (died 1852)

Gideon Algernon Mantell MRCS FRS was an English obstetrician, geologist and palaeontologist. His attempts to reconstruct the structure and life of Iguanodon began the scientific study of dinosaurs: in 1822 he was responsible for the discovery of the first fossil teeth, and later much of the skeleton, of Iguanodon. Mantell's work on the Cretaceous of southern England was also important.

03/02/1780

Mihail G. Boiagi, Aromanian grammarian and professor (died uncertain)

Mihail George Boiagi was an Aromanian grammarian and professor in the Habsburg monarchy and the Austrian Empire. He was born on 3 February 1780 in Buda, today Budapest in Hungary. Boiagi was one of the first grammarians from the Balkans and a professor in a school in Vienna, where he taught Greek. He had origins from Moscopole, today in Albania. Boiagi was one of the main figures of the Aromanian diaspora in Austria and Hungary, the capitals of which, Vienna and Budapest respectively, became gathering centers for members of this community in the 19th century. Boiagi introduced the Aromanian historian Dimitrie Cozacovici to the Aromanian community of Austria and Hungary after Cozacovici's migration from Metsovo, today in Greece, to Buda.

03/02/1777

John Cheyne, Scottish physician and author (died 1836)

John Cheyne FRSE FKQCPI was a British physician, surgeon, Professor of Medicine in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and author of monographs on a number of medical topics. He was one of the people to identify Cheyne–Stokes respiration.

03/02/1763

Caroline von Wolzogen, German author (died 1847)

Caroline von Wolzogen was a German writer in the Weimar Classicism circle. Her best-known works are a novel, Agnes von Lilien, and a biography of Friedrich Schiller, her brother-in-law.

03/02/1757

Joseph Forlenze, Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon (died 1833)

Joseph-Nicolas-Blaise Forlenze, was an Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon, considered one of the most important ophthalmologists between the 18th and the 19th century. He was mostly known in France under the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, for his cataract surgery.

03/02/1747

Samuel Osgood, American soldier and politician, 1st United States Postmaster General (died 1813)

Samuel Osgood was an American merchant and statesman born in Andover, Massachusetts, currently a part of North Andover, Massachusetts. His family home still stands at 440 Osgood Street in North Andover and his home in New York City, the Samuel Osgood House, served as the country's first Presidential mansion. He served in the Massachusetts and New York State legislatures, represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress and was the fourth Postmaster General of the United States, serving during George Washington's first term.

03/02/1736

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Austrian composer and theorist (died 1809)

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist, widely regarded as one of the leading figures in counterpoint and composition theory during the Classical period. He was a prolific composer of church music, orchestral works, and keyboard pieces, though he is best remembered for his influence as a teacher.

03/02/1721

Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, Prussian general (died 1773)

Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Seydlitz was a Prussian officer, lieutenant general, and among the most renowned of the Prussian cavalry generals. He commanded one of the first hussar squadrons of Frederick the Great's army and is credited with the development of the Prussian cavalry to its efficient level of performance in the Seven Years' War. His cavalryman father retired and then died while Seydlitz was still young. Subsequently, he was mentored by Frederick William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Seydlitz's acclaimed horsemanship and recklessness combined to make him a stand-out subaltern, and he emerged as a remarkable Rittmeister in the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748) during the First and Second Silesian Wars.

03/02/1689

Blas de Lezo, Spanish admiral (died 1741)

Admiral Blas de Lezo y Olavarrieta was a Spanish Navy officer best known for his victory at the 1741 Battle of Cartagena de Indias, where forces under his command defeated a large British invasion force under Admiral Edward Vernon.

03/02/1677

Jan Santini Aichel, Czech architect, designed the Karlova Koruna Chateau (died 1723)

Jan Blažej Santini Aichel was a Czech architect of Italian descent. His major works are representative of the unique Baroque Gothic style.

03/02/1504

Scipione Rebiba, Italian cardinal (died 1577)

Scipione Rebiba was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church, a protégé of Gian Pietro Carafa, who became Pope Paul IV. He held a variety of positions in the Church hierarchy, including some of the most senior. He introduced the Inquisition to Naples in the 1550s and became a cardinal in 1555. He is mostly known today for having been the earliest bishop to whom most Latin Catholic bishops – including the current pope Leo XIV – can trace their apostolic succession, as it is currently unknown who consecrated Rebiba.

03/02/1478

Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (died 1521)

Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham KG KB, was an English nobleman. He was the son of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine Woodville, and nephew of Elizabeth Woodville and King Edward IV. Thus, Edward Stafford was a first cousin once removed of King Henry VIII. He frequently attended the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. He was convicted of treason and executed on 17 May 1521.

03/02/1428

Helena Palaiologina, Queen of Cyprus (died 1458) [citation needed]

Helena Palaiologina was a Byzantine princess of the Palaiologos family, who became Queen of Cyprus and Armenia, titular Queen consort of Jerusalem, and Princess of Antioch through her marriage to King John II of Cyprus and Armenia. She was the mother of Queen Charlotte of Cyprus.

03/02/1393

Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, English nobleman and military commander (died 1455)

Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland was an English nobleman and military commander in the lead up to the Wars of the Roses. He was the son of Henry "Hotspur" Percy, and the grandson of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. His father and grandfather were killed in different rebellions against Henry IV in 1403 and 1408, respectively, and the young Henry spent his minority in exile in Scotland. Only after the death of Henry IV in 1413 was he reconciled with the Crown, and in 1414 he was created Earl of Northumberland.

03/02/1338

Joanna of Bourbon (died 1378)

Joanna of Bourbon was Queen of France by marriage to King Charles V. She acted as his political adviser and was appointed potential regent in case of a minor regency.

Lives Remembered on 2nd February

On 2nd February, 92 remarkable people passed away — from 6 to 2025. Remember the lives and legacies of those we lost on this day.

03/02/2025

Harry Jayawardena, Sri Lankan industrialist (born 1942)

Deshamanya Don Harold Stassen Jayawardena, known as Harry Jayawardena, was a Sri Lankan industrialist. He was the chairman of Melstacorp PLC and was the Honorary Consul General for Denmark in Sri Lanka. Forbes listed him as one of the richest people in Sri Lanka. His daughter Stasshani Jayawardena was appointed as the chairperson of Aitken Space after his death.

Kandiah Balendra, Sri Lankan corporate leader and executive (born 1940)

Deshamanya Kandiah "Ken" Balendra was a Sri Lankan corporate leader and executive, who held many corporate positions in Sri Lanka and the region. He served as the first Sri Lankan chairman of John Keells Holdings Ltd., the largest conglomerate in the island. He was the chairman of Brandix Lanka Ltd. and the South Asia Regional Fund of the Commonwealth Development Corporation.

03/02/2020

George Steiner, French-American philosopher, author, and critic (born 1929)

Francis George Steiner, FBA was a French and American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, as well as the impact of the Holocaust. A 2001 article in The Guardian described Steiner as a "polyglot and polymath".

03/02/2019

Julie Adams, American actress (born 1926)

Julie Adams was an American actress, billed as Julia Adams in her early career, primarily known for her numerous television guest roles. She starred in a number of films in the 1950s, including Bend of the River (1952), opposite James Stewart; and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Adams also had an extensive television career including roles as Paula Denning on the 1980s soap opera Capitol, and Eve Simpson on Murder, She Wrote.

Kristoff St. John, American actor (born 1966)

Kristoff St. John was an American actor best known for playing Neil Winters on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless from 1991 until his death in 2019. Playing the role of Neil earned him two Daytime Emmy Awards from eleven nominations, and ten NAACP Image Awards. He was also known for his role as Adam Marshall in the NBC soap opera Generations, for which he received two Daytime Emmy Award nominations; and his role as a young Alex Haley on the ABC miniseries Roots: The Next Generations.

03/02/2017

Dritëro Agolli, Albanian poet, writer and politician (born 1931)

Dritëro Agolli was an Albanian poet, writer and politician. He studied in Leningrad in the Soviet Union, and wrote primarily poetry, but also short stories, essays, plays, and novels. He was head of the League of Writers and Artists of Albania from 1973 until 1992. He was a leading figure in the Albanian Communist nomenklatura.

03/02/2016

Joe Alaskey, American actor (born 1952)

Joseph Francis Alaskey III was an American actor and comedian. He was one of Mel Blanc's successors at the Warner Bros. Animation studio until his death. He alternated with Jeff Bergman, Greg Burson, Jim Cummings, Bob Bergen, Maurice LaMarche and Billy West in voicing Warner Bros. cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, Speedy Gonzales, Taz, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, among many others. He also voiced Plucky Duck on Tiny Toon Adventures from 1990 to 1995. Alaskey was the second actor to voice Grandpa Lou Pickles on Nickelodeon's Rugrats. He would later reprise his role in the spin-off series All Grown Up!.

Balram Jakhar, Indian lawyer and politician, 23rd Governor of Madhya Pradesh (born 1923)

Balram Jakhar was an Indian politician, who served as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and Governor of Madhya Pradesh. He was also the longest serving Speaker of the Lok Sabha, whose tenure lasted 9 years and 329 days. Jakhar was among the popular faces of Jat politics in Rajasthan during 1980s. He served as the Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare from 1991 to 1996 in Government of India. He was a member of Indian National Congress.

József Kasza, Serbian politician and economist (born 1945)

József Kasza was a Serbian politician, economist, and banker. An ethnic Hungarian, he led the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians from 1995 to 2007.

03/02/2015

Martin Gilbert, English historian, author, and academic (born 1936)

Sir Martin John Gilbert was a British historian and honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He was the author of 88 books, including works on Winston Churchill, the 20th century, and Jewish history including the Holocaust. He was a member of the Chilcot Inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War.

Mary Healy, American actress and singer (born 1918)

Mary Sarah Healy was an American actress, singer, and variety entertainer.

Charlie Sifford, American golfer (born 1922)

Charles Luther Sifford was an American professional golfer. Early in his career, he won a number of All-Negro events, winning the United Golf Association's National Negro Open six times. Later in his career, he was permitted to play on the PGA Tour, winning two events, the 1967 Greater Hartford Open and the 1969 Los Angeles Open. His huge influence was later acknowledged by Tiger Woods: without Sifford, "I probably wouldn't be here. My dad would have never picked up the game. Who knows if the clause would still exist or not? But he broke it down."

Nasim Hasan Shah, Pakistani lawyer and judge, 12th Chief Justice of Pakistan (born 1929)

Nasim Hasan Shah was a Pakistani jurist and served as Chief Justice of Pakistan. He is best known for his role in the verdict against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, which resulted in the death penalty.

03/02/2013

Cardiss Collins, American politician (born 1931)

Cardiss Hortense Collins was an American politician from Illinois who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the fourth African-American woman in Congress and the first to represent the Midwest. Collins was elected to Congress in the June 5, 1973 special election to replace her husband, George, who had died in the December 8, 1972 United Airlines Flight 553 plane crash a month after being elected to a second term. The seat had been renumbered and combined from the 6th district to the 7th, and had been redrawn to include the Loop. She had previously worked as an accountant in various state government positions.

Oscar Feltsman, Ukrainian-Russian composer and producer (born 1921)

Oscar Borisovich Feltsman was a Ukrainian-born composer.

James Muri, American soldier and pilot (born 1918)

James Perry Muri was an American World War II pilot. His United States Army Air Forces squadron helped protect Midway Island during the war by attacking a Japanese aircraft carrier task force.

Jam Mohammad Yousaf, Pakistani politician, Chief Minister of Balochistan (born 1954)

Jam Mir Mohammad Yousaf Aliani was the 12th Jam of Lasbela, and a former Chief Minister of the Balochistan province of Pakistan.

03/02/2012

Toh Chin Chye, Singaporean academic and politician, 1st Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore (born 1921)

Toh Chin Chye was a Singaporean statesman and academic. He was a founding member of the People's Action Party (PAP), the dominant political party in Singapore since independence. Toh played a significant role in Singapore's early political development and was instrumental in shaping the country's post-independence governance. Toh is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of modern Singapore.

Ben Gazzara, American actor and director (born 1930)

Biagio Anthony "Ben" Gazzara was an American actor and director of film, stage, and television. He received numerous accolades including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Drama Desk Award, in addition to nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and three Tony Awards.

Terence Hildner, American general (born 1962)

Brigadier General Terence John Hildner was a United States Army General Officer who served as commander of the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) from 2010 until his death in 2012. He is the second highest-ranking American officer to die while serving in the war in Afghanistan.

Raj Kanwar, Indian director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1961)

Raj Kanwar was an Indian film director, writer, and producer of Hindi films based in Mumbai, India. He is known for directing Deewana (1992), Jeet (1996) and Farz (2001).

Zalman King, American actor, director, and producer (born 1942)

Zalman King was an American film director, writer, actor and producer. His films are known for incorporating sexuality, and are often categorized as erotica.

Andrzej Szczeklik, Polish physician and academic (born 1938)

Andrzej Szczeklik was a Polish immunologist working at the Jagiellonian University School of Medicine in Kraków. Having received numerous distinctions for his research, Szczeklik was also well known as a writer.

03/02/2011

Maria Schneider, French actress (born 1952)

Maria-Hélène Schneider, known professionally as Maria Schneider, was a French actress.

03/02/2010

Dick McGuire, American basketball player and coach (born 1926)

Richard Joseph McGuire was an American professional basketball player and coach. McGuire was one of the premier guards of the 1950s, playing 11 seasons in the NBA (1949–60), eight with the New York Knicks and three with the Detroit Pistons. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. His number 15 jersey was retired by the Knicks in 1992.

Frances Reid, American actress (born 1914)

Frances Reid was an American dramatic actress. Reid acted on television for nearly all of the second half of the 20th century. Her career continued into the early 2000s.

03/02/2009

Sheng-yen, Chinese monk and scholar, founded the Dharma Drum Mountain (born 1930)

Sheng Yen, born Zhang Baokang, was a Taiwanese Buddhist monk, religious scholar, and writer. He was one of the mainstream teachers of Chan Buddhism. He was a 57th generational dharma heir of Linji Yixuan in the Linji school and a third-generation dharma heir of Hsu Yun. In the Caodong lineage, Sheng Yen was a 52nd-generation Dharma heir of Dongshan Liangjie (807-869), and a direct Dharma heir of Dongchu (1908–1977).

03/02/2006

Al Lewis, American actor and activist (born 1923)

Al Lewis was an American actor and activist, best known for his role as Grandpa on the television series The Munsters from 1964 to 1966 and its film versions. He previously also co-starred with The Munsters' Fred Gwynne in the television show Car 54, Where Are You? from 1961–1963. Later in life, he was a restaurant owner, political candidate, and radio broadcaster.

03/02/2005

Zurab Zhvania, Georgian biologist and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Georgia (born 1963)

Zurab Zhvania was a Georgian politician, who served as Prime Minister of Georgia and Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia.

Ernst Mayr, German-American biologist and ornithologist (born 1904)

Ernst Walter Mayr was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.

03/02/2004

Mrs. Ngô Bá Thành, Vietnamese lawyer, politician, and activist (born 1931)

Mrs. or Madame Ngo Ba Thanh was the professional name of Phạm Thị Thanh Vân, a Vietnamese lawyer, politician, and anti-war and women's rights activist. Born in the northern part of French Indochina, she married at 18 and completed her legal studies at the University of Paris, Columbia University, and the University of Barcelona. Returning to South Vietnam in 1963 during the Vietnam War, she first worked as the chief legal advisor to Ngo Dinh Diem's administration. After his assassination, she became a professor of law at Saigon University and was active in the feminist and peace movements.

03/02/1999

Gwen Guthrie, American singer-songwriter and pianist (born 1950)

Gwendolyn Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter and pianist who also sang backing vocals for Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Peter Tosh, The Limit and Madonna, among others, and who wrote songs made famous by Ben E. King, Angela Bofill and Roberta Flack. Guthrie is well known for her 1986 anthem "Ain't Nothin' Goin' On but the Rent," and for her 1986 cover of the song "(They Long to Be) Close to You."

03/02/1996

Audrey Meadows, American actress and banker (born 1922)

Audrey Meadows was an American actress who portrayed the deadpan housewife Alice Kramden on the 1950s American television comedy The Honeymooners. She was the younger sister of actress Jayne Meadows.

03/02/1993

Françoys Bernier, Canadian pianist and conductor (born 1927)

Françoys Joseph Arthur Maurice Bernier was a Canadian pianist, conductor, radio producer, arts administrator, and music educator. He served as the music director of the Montreal Festivals from 1956 to 1960 and was an active conductor and a producer for CBC Radio during the 1950s and early 1960s. He was the General Director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec from 1960 to 1966 and then the orchestra's Music Director from 1966 to 1968. He was also active as a teacher of conducting at a number of universities, notably serving as the first director of the Music Department at the University of Ottawa.

03/02/1991

Nancy Kulp, American actress (born 1921)

Nancy Jane Kulp was an American character actor, writer and comedian widely known as Miss Jane Hathaway on the CBS television series The Beverly Hillbillies.

03/02/1989

John Cassavetes, American actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1929)

John Nicholas Cassavetes was an American filmmaker and actor. He began as an actor in film and television before helping to pioneer modern American independent cinema as a writer and director, often self-financing, producing, and distributing his own films. He received nominations for three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and an Emmy Award.

Lionel Newman, American pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1916)

Lionel Newman was an American conductor, pianist, and film and television composer. He won the Academy Award for Best Score of a Musical Picture for Hello Dolly! with Lennie Hayton in 1969. He is the brother of Alfred Newman and Emil Newman, uncle of composers Randy Newman, David Newman, Thomas Newman, Maria Newman, and grandfather of Joey Newman. His 11 nominations contribute to the Newmans being the most nominated Academy Award extended family, with a collective 92 nominations in various music categories.

03/02/1985

Frank Oppenheimer, American physicist and academic (born 1912)

Frank Friedman Oppenheimer was an American particle physicist, cattle rancher, professor of physics at the University of Colorado, and the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

03/02/1975

William D. Coolidge, American physicist and engineer (born 1873)

William David Coolidge was an American physicist and engineer, who made major contributions to X-ray machines. He was the director of the General Electric Research Laboratory and a vice-president of the corporation. He was also famous for the development of "ductile tungsten", which is important for the incandescent light bulb.

Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer-songwriter and actress (born 1904)

Fatima Ibrahim es-Sayyid el-Beltagi, known by her stage name Umm Kulthum, was an Egyptian singer and film actress. She was given the honorific title Kawkab el-Sharq. Immensely popular throughout the Middle East and beyond, Umm Kulthum is a national icon in her native Egypt; she has been dubbed "The Voice of Egypt" and "Egypt's Fourth Pyramid". In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Umm Kulthum at number 61 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

03/02/1969

C. N. Annadurai, Indian journalist and politician, 7th Chief Minister of Madras State (born 1909)

Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai, also known as Perarignar Anna, was an Indian politician who was the founder and first general-secretary of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). He served as the fourth and last chief minister of Madras State from 1967 until 1969, and then as the first chief minister of Tamil Nadu for 20 days before his death in office. He was the first member of a Dravidian party to hold either post.

Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambican activist and academic (born 1920)

Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane was a Mozambican revolutionary and anthropologist who was the founder of the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO). He was the FRELIMO's first leader until his assassination in 1969 in Tanzania. An anthropologist by profession, Mondlane also worked as a history and sociology professor at Syracuse University before returning to Mozambique in 1963.

03/02/1967

Joe Meek, English songwriter and producer (born 1929)

Robert George "Joe" Meek was an English record producer and songwriter considered one of the most influential sound engineers of all time, being one of the first to develop ideas such as the recording studio as an instrument, and becoming one of the first producers to be recognised for his individual identity as an artist. Meek pioneered space age and experimental pop music, and assisted in the development of recording practices like overdubbing, sampling and reverberation.

03/02/1963

Benjamin R. Jacobs, American biochemist (born 1879)

Benjamin Ricardo Jacobs was born at the American Consulate in Lima, Peru, to Rosa Mulet Jacobs of Valparaíso, Chile, a French-Chilean, and Washington Michael Jacobs of South Carolina in the United States. Originally christened on April 5, 1879 as Ricardo Benjamin Jacobs, he later changed his name, once by reversing the order of his first and middle name, and then in some records by anglicizing the name Ricardo to Richard. His mother was the accomplished and well-educated daughter of a noted French merchant in Valparaíso. At the time of his birth, his father was the American vice-consul to Peru. A businessman with many interests in the United States, including mining, his father also was engaged in mining in several countries in South America and he published the Imprenta Americana and a semi-weekly newspaper, El Tumbes.

03/02/1961

William Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil, Scottish-Australian captain and politician, 14th Governor-General of Australia (born 1893)

William Shepherd Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil, was a British politician. He was a long-serving cabinet minister before serving as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1951 to 1959. He was then appointed as the 14th governor-general of Australia, in office from 1960 until his death in 1961.

Anna May Wong, American actress (born 1905)

Wong Liu Tsong, known professionally as Anna May Wong, was an American actress, considered the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, as well as the first Chinese American actress to gain international recognition. Her varied career spanned vaudeville, silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio.

03/02/1960

Fred Buscaglione, Italian singer and actor (born 1921)

Ferdinando "Fred" Buscaglione was an Italian singer and actor who became very popular in the late 1950s. His public persona – the character he played both in his songs and his movies – was of a humorous mobster with a penchant for whisky and women.

03/02/1959

The Day the Music Died

Jiles Perry Richardson Jr., better known by his stage name The Big Bopper, was an American musician and disc jockey. His best-known compositions include "Chantilly Lace", "Running Bear", and "White Lightning", the last of which became George Jones's first number-one hit in 1959.

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 musical family in Lubbock, Texas, during the Great Depression, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his two siblings.

The Day the Music Died

Richard Steven Valenzuela, better known by his stage name Ritchie Valens, was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens died in a plane crash just eight months after his breakthrough.

03/02/1956

Émile Borel, French mathematician and academic (born 1871)

Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel was a French mathematician and politician. As a mathematician, he was known for his founding work in the areas of measure theory and probability.

Johnny Claes, English-Belgian race car driver and trumpet player (born 1916)

Octave John Claes was a British-born racing driver who competed for Belgium. Before his fame as a racing driver, Claes was also a jazz trumpeter and successful bandleader in Britain.

03/02/1955

Vasily Blokhin, Russian general (born 1895)

Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin was a Soviet secret police official who served as the chief executioner of the NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolay Yezhov and Lavrentiy Beria.

03/02/1952

Harold L. Ickes, American journalist and politician, 32nd United States Secretary of the Interior (born 1874)

Harold LeClair Ickes was an American administrator, politician and lawyer. He served as United States Secretary of the Interior for nearly 13 years from 1933 to 1946, the longest tenure of anyone to hold the office, and the second longest-serving Cabinet member in U.S. history after James Wilson. Ickes and Labor Secretary Frances Perkins were the only original members of the Roosevelt Cabinet who remained in office for his entire presidency.

03/02/1947

Marc Mitscher, American admiral and pilot (born 1887)

Marc Andrew "Pete" Mitscher was a pioneer in naval aviation who became an admiral in the United States Navy, and served as commander of the Fast Carrier Task Force in the Pacific during World War II.

03/02/1945

Roland Freisler, German lawyer and judge (born 1893)

Karl Roland Freisler was a German jurist, judge, and politician who served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1935 to 1942 and as president of the People's Court from 1942 to 1945. As a prominent ideologist of Nazism, he influenced as a jurist the Nazification of the German legal system. He was appointed president of the People's Court in 1942, overseeing the prosecution of political crimes as a judge. Freisler became known for his aggressive personality, his humiliation of defendants, and his frequent use of the death penalty in sentencing.

03/02/1944

Yvette Guilbert, French singer and actress (born 1865)

Yvette Guilbert was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque.

03/02/1935

Hugo Junkers, German engineer, designed the Junkers J 1 (born 1859)

Hugo Junkers was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG, was one of the mainstays of the German aircraft industry in the years between World War I and World War II. His multi-engined, all-metal passenger and freight planes helped establish airlines in Germany and around the world.

03/02/1929

Agner Krarup Erlang, Danish mathematician and engineer (born 1878)

Agner Krarup Erlang was a Danish mathematician, statistician and engineer, who invented the fields of traffic engineering and queueing theory.

03/02/1924

Woodrow Wilson, American historian, academic, and politician, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1856)

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only Democrat to serve as president during the Progressive Era, when Republicans dominated the presidency and legislative branches. As president, Wilson made significant economic reforms and led the United States through World War I. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism.

03/02/1922

Christiaan de Wet, South African general and politician, State President of the Orange Free State (born 1854)

Christiaan Rudolf de Wet was a Boer general, rebel leader and politician.

John Butler Yeats, Irish painter and illustrator (born 1839)

John Butler Yeats RHA was an Irish artist and the father of W. B. Yeats, Lily Yeats, Elizabeth Corbett "Lollie" Yeats and Jack Butler Yeats. The National Gallery of Ireland holds a number of his portraits in oil and works on paper, including one of his portraits of his son William, painted in 1900.

03/02/1899

Geert Adriaans Boomgaard, Dutch supercentenarian (born 1788)

Geert Adriaans Boomgaard was a Dutch supercentenarian and is generally accepted by scholars as the first validated case on record.

03/02/1873

Isaac Baker Brown, English gynecologist and surgeon (born 1811)

Isaac Baker Brown was a prominent 19th-century English gynaecologist and obstetrical surgeon. He had a reputation as a specialist in the diseases of women and advocated certain surgical procedures, including clitoridectomies, as cures for epilepsy and hysteria. In 1867, his career ended when he was accused of performing these procedures without consent of the patients. He was subsequently expelled from the Obstetrical Society of London.

03/02/1866

François-Xavier Garneau, Canadian poet, author, and historian (born 1809)

François-Xavier Garneau was a nineteenth-century French Canadian notary, poet, civil servant and liberal who wrote a three-volume history of the French Canadian nation entitled Histoire du Canada between 1845 and 1848.

03/02/1862

Jean-Baptiste Biot, French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician (born 1774)

Jean-Baptiste Biot was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, made an early balloon flight, and studied the polarization of light.

03/02/1832

George Crabbe, English surgeon and poet (born 1754)

George Crabbe was an English poet and clergyman. He is best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life and people.

03/02/1820

Gia Long, Vietnamese emperor (born 1762)

Gia Long, born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (阮福暎) or Nguyễn Ánh (阮暎), was the founding emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last dynasty of Vietnam, which would rule the unified territories that constitute modern-day Vietnam until 1945.

03/02/1813

Juan Bautista Cabral, Argentinian sergeant (born 1789)

Juan Bautista Cabral was an Argentine soldier, of Zambo origin, of the Regiment of Mounted Grenadiers who died in the Battle of San Lorenzo, while he was aiding then Colonel Don José de San Martín, whose horse had fallen to enemy fire. The action of Cabral in this first military confrontation of the Argentine War of Independence gave him lasting fame and a prominent place among Argentine patriots.

03/02/1802

Pedro Rodríguez, Spanish statesman and economist (born 1723)

Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes y Pérez Sorriba, 1st Count of Campomanes, was a Spanish statesman, economist, and writer who was Minister of the Treasury in 1760. He was an adherent of the position that the state held supremacy over the Catholic Church in Spain, often called Erastianism or Caesaropapism. Campomanes was part of the government of Charles III. A staunch anti-Jesuit, one of the biggest foes of the Society of Jesus, Campomanes was the main driving force behind their expulsion from the Spanish Empire.

03/02/1737

Tommaso Ceva, Italian mathematician and academic (born 1648)

Tommaso Ceva was an Italian Jesuit mathematician from Milan. He was the brother of Giovanni Ceva. His work aided in spreading a knowledge of Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation.

03/02/1619

Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham, English politician, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (born 1564)

Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham (22 November 1564 – 24 January 1618 /3 February 1618, lord of the Manor of Cobham, Kent, was an English peer who was implicated in the Main Plot against the rule of James I of England.

03/02/1618

Philip II, duke of Pomerania (born 1573)

Philip II, Duke of Pomerania-Stettin was from 1606 to 1618 the reigning duke of Pomerania-Stettin and is considered to be among of the most artistic of the Pomeranian dukes. He married Sophia of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg (1579-1618) in 1607. The marriage remained childless.

03/02/1566

George Cassander, Flemish theologian and author (born 1513)

George Cassander was a Flemish Catholic theologian and humanist.

03/02/1537

Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare (born 1513)

Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare, also known as Silken Thomas, was a leading figure in 16th-century Irish history.

03/02/1475

John IV, Count of Nassau-Siegen, German count (born 1410)

Count John IV of Nassau-Siegen, German: Johann IV. Graf von Nassau-Siegen, official titles: Graf zu Nassau, Vianden und Diez, Herr zu Breda, was since 1442 Count of Nassau-Siegen, of Vianden and of half Diez, and Lord of Breda and of the Lek. He descended from the Ottonian Line of the House of Nassau.

03/02/1468

Johannes Gutenberg, German publisher, invented the printing press (born 1398)

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German inventor and craftsman who invented the movable-type printing press. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg's invention of the printing press enabled a much faster rate of printing. The printing press later spread across the world, and led to an information revolution and the unprecedented mass-spread of literature throughout Europe. It had a profound impact on the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, and humanist movements.

03/02/1451

Murad II, Ottoman sultan (born 1404)

Murad II was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1421 to 1444 and from 1446 to 1451.

03/02/1428

Ashikaga Yoshimochi, Japanese shōgun (born 1386)

Ashikaga Yoshimochi was a Japanese samurai, daimyo and the fourth shōgun of the Ashikaga shogunate who reigned from 1394 to 1423 during the Muromachi period of Japan. Yoshimochi was the son of the third shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, and the elder brother of the sixth shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshinori.

03/02/1399

John of Gaunt, Belgian-English politician, Lord High Steward (born 1340)

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, was an English prince, military leader and statesman. He was the fourth son of King Edward III, and the father of King Henry IV. Because of Gaunt's royal origin, advantageous marriages and some generous land grants, he was one of the richest men of his era and an influential figure during the reigns of both his father and his nephew, Richard II. As Duke of Lancaster, he is the founder of the royal House of Lancaster, whose members would ascend the throne after his death. His birthplace, Ghent in Flanders, then known in English as Gaunt, was the origin of his name.

03/02/1252

Sviatoslav III, Russian Grand Prince (born 1196)

Sviatoslav III Vsevolodovich of Vladimir was the Prince of Novgorod and Grand Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal (1246–1248).

03/02/1161

Inge I, king of Norway (born 1135)

Inge Haraldsson was king of Norway from 1136 to 1161. Inge’s reign fell within the start of the period known in Norwegian history as the civil war era, and he was never the sole ruler of the country. He is often known as Inge the Hunchback, because of his physical disability. However, this epithet does not appear in medieval sources.

03/02/1116

Coloman, king of Hungary

Coloman the Learned, also the Book-Lover or the Bookish, was King of Hungary from 1095 and King of Croatia from 1097 until his death. Because Coloman and his younger brother Álmos were underage when their father Géza I died, their uncle Ladislaus I ascended the throne in 1077. Ladislaus prepared Coloman—who was "half-blind and humpbacked", according to late medieval Hungarian chronicles—for a church career, and Coloman was eventually appointed bishop of Eger or Várad in the early 1090s. The dying King Ladislaus preferred Álmos to Coloman when nominating his heir in early 1095. Coloman fled from Hungary but returned around 19 July 1095 when his uncle died. He was crowned in early 1096; the circumstances of his accession to the throne are unknown. He granted the Hungarian Duchy—one-third of the Kingdom of Hungary—to Álmos.

03/02/1014

Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark and England (born 960)

Swein Forkbeard was King of Denmark from 986, King of England for five weeks from December 1013, and King of Norway from 999/1000, all until his death in 1014. He was the father of King Harald II of Denmark, King Cnut the Great, and Queen Estrid Svendsdatter.

03/02/0994

William IV, duke of Aquitaine (born 937)

William IV, called Fierebras, was the Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou from 963 to his retirement in 990.

03/02/0938

Zhou Ben, Chinese general (born 862)

Zhou Ben, formally Prince Gonglie of Xiping (西平恭烈王), was a general of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period state Wu and (briefly) Wu's successor state Southern Tang.

03/02/0929

Guy, margrave of Tuscany

Guy was the son of Adalbert II of Tuscany with Bertha, daughter of Lothair II of Lotharingia.

03/02/0865

Ansgar, Frankish archbishop (born 801)

Ansgar, also known as Anskar, Saint Ansgar, Saint Anschar or Oscar, was Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen in the northern part of the Kingdom of the East Franks. Ansgar became known as the "Apostle of the North" because of his travels and the See of Hamburg received the missionary mandate to bring Christianity to Northern Europe.

03/02/0699

Werburgh, English nun and saint

Werburgh was an Anglo-Saxon princess who became the patron saint of the city of Chester in Cheshire. Her feast day is 3 February.

03/02/0639

K'inich Yo'nal Ahk I, ruler of Piedras Negras

Kʼinich Yoʼnal Ahk I, also known as Ruler 1, was an ajaw of Piedras Negras, an ancient Maya settlement in Guatemala. He ruled during the Late Classic Period, from 603–639 AD. It has been proposed that he began a new dynasty at Piedras Negras, following years of ineffective kings. As to how Kʼinich Yoʼnal Ahk I came to power, a consensus has not yet been reached, although it is known that he waged several successful wars against Palenque and Sak Tzʼiʼ. He was succeeded by his son, Itzam Kʼan Ahk I, in 639 AD and left behind several monuments, including stelae at Piedras Negras and a large mortuary temple now known as Pyramid R-5.

03/02/0456

Sihyaj Chan K'awiil II, ruler of Tikal

Sihyaj Chan Kʼawiil II, also known as Storm Sky and Manikin Cleft Sky, was an ajaw of the Maya city of Tikal. He took the throne on 26 November 411 and reigned until his death. He was a son of his predecessor Yax Nuun Ahiin I and Lady Kʼinich, and a grandson of Spearthrower Owl. Stela 31, erected during his reign, describes the death of his grandfather in 439; other monuments associated with Sihyaj Chan Kʼawiil II are Stelae 1 and possibly Stelae 28. Tikal Temple 33 was Sihyaj Chan Kʼawiil II's funerary pyramid and his tomb was located beneath it.

03/02/0006

Ping, emperor of the Han Dynasty (born 9 BC)

The 0s began on January 1, AD 1 and ended on December 31, AD 9, covering the first nine years of the Common Era.

Celebrations & Special Days Worldwide on 2nd February

Christian feast day: Aaron the Illustrious (Syriac Orthodox Church)

The Martyrology of Rabban Sliba is a book containing the names and feast days of a number of martyrs of the Syriac Orthodox Church.

Christian feast day: Ansgar

Ansgar, also known as Anskar, Saint Ansgar, Saint Anschar or Oscar, was Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen in the northern part of the Kingdom of the East Franks. Ansgar became known as the "Apostle of the North" because of his travels and the See of Hamburg received the missionary mandate to bring Christianity to Northern Europe.

Christian feast day: Berlinda of Meerbeke

Berlinda was a Benedictine nun of noble descent. Her feast day is 3 February.

Christian feast day: Blaise

Blaise of Sebaste was a physician and bishop of Sebastea in historical Lesser Armenia who is venerated as a Christian saint and martyr. He is counted as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

Christian feast day: Celsa and Nona

Berlinda was a Benedictine nun of noble descent. Her feast day is 3 February.

Christian feast day: Claudine Thévenet

Claudine Thévenet, RJM, religious name Marie of Saint Ignatius, was a French Catholic religious sister and the founder of the Religious of Jesus and Mary.

Christian feast day: Dom Justo Takayama (Philippines and Japan)

Justo Takayama Ukon (ジュスト高山右近), born Takayama Hikogorō (高山彦五郎) and also known as Dom Justo Takayama was a Japanese Catholic daimyō and samurai during the Sengoku period that saw rampant anti-Catholic sentiment.

Christian feast day: Hadelin

Saint Hadelin, born in Guyenne, was one of the scholarly monks who preached Christianity and started conversion work in what is now Belgium, along with Saint Remaclus.

Christian feast day: Margaret of England

Saint Margaret of England was born in Hungary to an Englishwoman who was related to Thomas Becket, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury.

Christian feast day: Werburgh

Werburgh was an Anglo-Saxon princess who became the patron saint of the city of Chester in Cheshire. Her feast day is 3 February.

Christian feast day: February 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

February 2 - Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar - February 4

Day of the Virgin of Suyapa (Honduras)

Public holidays in Honduras are primarily centered on Christianity and the commemoration of significant events in Honduran history. Each celebration is very important to many families across this country. They are often celebrated with extended family members and friends. On a few of the most important holidays, such as Independence Day and holy week, parades and processions are held from early morning to late in the afternoon or evening.

Earliest day on which Shrove Tuesday can fall, while March 9 is the latest; celebrated on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday (Christianity)

Shrove Tuesday is the final day of Shrovetide, which marks the end of the pre-Lenten season. Lent begins the following day with Ash Wednesday. Shrove Tuesday is observed in many Christian countries through participating in confession, the ritual burning of the previous year's Holy Week palms, finalizing one's Lenten sacrifice, as well as eating pancakes and other sweets.

Four Chaplains Day (United States, also considered a Feast Day by the Episcopal Church)

The Four Chaplains, also referred to as the Immortal Chaplains or the Dorchester Chaplains, were four chaplains who died rescuing civilian and military personnel as the American troop ship SS Dorchester sank on February 3, 1943, in what has been referred to as one of the worst sea disasters of World War II.

Communist Party of Vietnam Foundation Anniversary (Vietnam)

Public holidays in Vietnam are days when workers get the day off work. Prior to 2007, Vietnamese workers observed 8 days of public holiday a year, among the lowest in the region. On 28 March 2007 the government added the traditional holiday commemorating the mythical Hùng kings to its list of public holidays, increasing the number of days to 10. From 2019, Vietnamese workers have 13 public holidays a year. As in most other nations, if a holiday falls during the weekend, it is observed on the following Monday.

Day of Finnish architecture and design, birthday of Alvar Aalto (Finland)

Flag flying days in Finland are days of the year when the national flag is flown nationwide, either by law or by custom. The flag of Finland is generally flown only on special occasions to celebrate or honour someone or something. On certain days of the year, the state officially flies the flag, and recommends all private citizens to do so as well; these flag flying days are listed below. Any citizen has a right to fly the flag on their own property if they deem it appropriate, for example, in celebration of birthdays or weddings in the family. Midsummer's Day is additionally celebrated as Flag Day in Finland.

Heroes' Day (Mozambique)

Martyrs' Day (São Tomé and Príncipe)

This is a list of holidays in São Tomé and Príncipe.

Setsubun (Japan)

Setsubun is the day before the beginning of spring in the old calendar in Japan. The name literally means 'seasonal division', referring to the day just before the first day of spring in the traditional calendar, known as Setsubun; though previously referring to a wider range of possible dates, Setsubun is now typically held on February 3, with the day after – the first day of spring in the old calendar – known as Risshun . Both Setsubun and Risshun are celebrated yearly as part of the Spring Festival in Japan. Setsubun was accompanied by a number of rituals and traditions held at various levels to drive away the previous year's bad fortunes and evil spirits for the year to come.

Veterans' Day (Thailand)

Public holidays in Thailand are regulated by the government, and most are observed by both the public and private sectors. There are usually nineteen public holidays in a year, but more may be declared by the cabinet. Other observances, both official and non-official, local and international, are observed to varying degrees throughout the country.

What Happened on 2nd February?

53 significant events took place on Wednesday, 2nd February — stretching from 1047 to 2026. Explore the moments that shaped history on this day.

03/02/2026

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 months. Nigerian sources labelled the event the Kwara massacre.

03/02/2023

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.

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. Several railcars burned for more than two days and emergency crews also conducted controlled burns of several railcars, which released hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air. Residents within a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) radius were evacuated. Agencies from Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia assisted in the emergency response.

03/02/2014

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 held his classmates as hostages, before opening fire on first responders who arrived at the scene, killing a policeman and severely wounding a patrolman. In the following negotiations led by the perpetrator's father, the teenager released the hostages and was detained.

03/02/2007

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 others. The bomb, estimated to be about one ton in weight, brought down at least 10 buildings and coffee shops and obliterated market stalls in a largely Shi‘ite enclave less than a half-mile from the Tigris River.

03/02/2005

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 mountainous terrain killing all 97 passengers and 8 crew on board.

03/02/1998

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.

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 Trento. Twenty people were killed when a United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler aircraft, flying too low and too fast, against regulations, cut a cable supporting a cable car of an aerial lift.

03/02/1995

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

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 a Space Shuttle mission.

03/02/1994

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 Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was carried over from the 1969 plan for the Space Transportation System (STS) of reusable spacecraft. Only the shuttle and supporting rockets were funded for development; a proposed nuclear lunar shuttle in the plan was canceled in 1972. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.

03/02/1989

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.

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 hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functioning properly.

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 regime of long-time leader Alfredo Stroessner. The bloody overthrow which saw numerous soldiers killed in street fighting was sparked by a power struggle in the highest echelons of the government. Rodríguez's takeover spelled the end of El Stronato, Stroessner's thirty-four year long rule—at the time the longest in Latin America—and led to an array of reforms which abolished numerous draconian laws and led to the liberalization of Paraguay.

03/02/1984

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.

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 from one woman to another resulting in a live birth. It was performed at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, reported in July 1983, and culminated in the announcement of the birth on February 3, 1984. In the procedure, an embryo that was just beginning to develop was transferred from the woman in whom it had been conceived by artificial insemination to another woman who gave birth to the infant 38 weeks later. The sperm used in the artificial insemination came from the husband of the woman who bore the baby.

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 Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was carried over from the 1969 plan for the Space Transportation System (STS) of reusable spacecraft. Only the shuttle and supporting rockets were funded for development; a proposed nuclear lunar shuttle in the plan was canceled in 1972. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.

03/02/1972

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.

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 days in February 1972, resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 people. Storms dumped more than 7.9 metres of snow across rural areas in northwestern, central and southern Iran. The blizzard came after four years of drought.

03/02/1971

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 1970s, Serpico was a plainclothes officer working in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan to expose vice racketeering. In 1967, he reported credible evidence of widespread corruption in the NYPD, to no effect. In 1970 he contributed to a front-page story in The New York Times on the department's corruption, which drew national attention to the problem. Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed a five-member panel to investigate accusations of corruption, which became the Knapp Commission.

03/02/1966

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.

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 third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian SFSR. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

03/02/1961

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.

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 one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the Air Force was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.

03/02/1960

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 Cabinet, and selects its ministers. Modern prime ministers hold office by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons, so they are invariably members of Parliament.

03/02/1959

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.

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 musical family in Lubbock, Texas, during the Great Depression, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his two siblings.

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 crashed into the East River during its approach to LaGuardia Airport, killing 65 of the 73 people on board. Weather conditions in the area were poor, and the aircraft descended through dense clouds and fog. As it approached the runway, it flew lower than the intended path and crashed into the icy river 4,900 feet (1,500 m) short of the runway. At the time of the crash, American Airlines had been flying the newly developed Lockheed Electra in commercial service for only about two weeks, and the accident was the first involving the aircraft type.

03/02/1958

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 Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The name is a syllabic abbreviation formed from the initial syllable of each country's name and was first used to name the customs agreement that initiated the union. It is now used more generally to refer to the geographic, economic, and cultural grouping of the three countries.

03/02/1953

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.

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 forros believed the government intended to force them to work as contract laborers, to which they objected. In response, the governor blamed the unrest on communists and ordered the military to round up such individuals and for civilians to protect themselves. This quickly turned into a bloodbath, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of forros. No communist conspiracy was ever proven.

03/02/1945

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.

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 Force between 1943 and 1945, and the French Air Force in 1940 and between 1944 and 1945 as part of the Allied campaign of strategic bombing of Germany. It was also attacked by aircraft of the Red Air Force in 1941 and particularly in 1945, as Soviet forces closed on the city. British bombers dropped 45,517 tons of bombs, while American aircraft dropped 22,090.3 tons. As the bombings continued, more and more people fled the city. By May 1945, 1.7 million people had fled.

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 Tydings–McDuffie Act to replace the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands and was designed as a transitional administration in preparation for full Philippine independence. Its foreign affairs remained managed by the United States.

03/02/1944

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

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 roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

03/02/1943

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 requirements. The ship was operated for WSA by its agent Atlantic, Gulf & West Indies Steamship Lines (Agwilines). The ship was in convoy SG 19 from New York to Greenland transiting the Labrador Sea when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat on February 3, 1943. The ship sank with loss of 674 of the 904 on board with one of the 230 survivors lost after rescue. The story of four Army chaplains, known as the "Four Chaplains" or the "Immortal Chaplains," who all gave away their life jackets to save others before they died, gained fame and led to many memorials.

03/02/1933

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

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, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations and was central to the perpetration of the genocide of about six million Jews in the Holocaust as well as the murders of millions of other victims.

03/02/1931

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 remains New Zealand's deadliest natural disaster. Centred 15 km north of Napier, it lasted for two and a half minutes and had a magnitude of 7.8 Ms. There were 525 aftershocks recorded in the following two weeks, with 597 being recorded by the end of February. The main shock could be felt in much of New Zealand, with reliable reports coming in from as far south as Timaru, on the east coast of the South Island.

03/02/1930

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 Republic of Vietnam (DRV), before becoming the sole ruling party when its state was known as the North Vietnam in 1954 after the First Indochina War and all of Vietnam in 1975 after the Vietnam War. Although it nominally exists alongside the Vietnam Fatherland Front, it maintains a unitary government and has centralized control over the state, military, and media. The supremacy of the CPV is guaranteed by Article 4 of the national constitution. The Vietnamese public generally refer to the CPV as simply "the Party" or "our Party".

03/02/1927

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 where the insurgents' command center was installed and fought the main challenges. The revolt, led by Adalberto Gastão de Sousa Dias, ended with the surrender and arrest of the rebels and resulted in about 80 deaths and 360 injuries in Porto and more than 70 deaths and 400 injuries in Lisbon. It was the first consequent attempt to overthrow the Military Dictatorship that was then consolidated in Portugal following the 28 May 1926 coup d'état, which occurred nine months earlier, initiating a set of insurrectionary movements that became known as the Reviralhism.

03/02/1918

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.

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 and S Shuttle lines of the Muni Metro system.

03/02/1917

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

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

03/02/1916

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

The Centre Block is the main building of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, containing the House of Commons and Senate chambers, as well as the offices of a number of members of parliament, senators, and senior administration for both legislative houses. It is also the location of several ceremonial spaces, such as the Hall of Honour, the Memorial Chamber, and Confederation Hall.

03/02/1913

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

The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population. It was passed by Congress in 1909 in response to the 1895 Supreme Court case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 3, 1913, and effectively overruled the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock.

03/02/1870

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

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government or any state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments.

03/02/1862

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

The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, commonly called United Principalities or Wallachia and Moldavia, was the personal union of the Principality of Moldavia and the Principality of Wallachia. The union was formed on 5 February [O.S. 24 January] 1859 when Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected as the Domnitor of both principalities. Their separate autonomous vassalage in the Ottoman Empire continued with the unification of both principalities. On 3 February [O.S. 22 January] 1862, Moldavia and Wallachia formally united to create the Romanian United Principalities or Romania the core of the Romanian nation state.

03/02/1830

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.

The London Protocol of 1830, also known as the Protocol of Independence in Greek historiography, was a treaty signed between France, Russia, and Great Britain on 3 February 1830. It was the first official international diplomatic act that recognized Greece as a fully sovereign and independent state, separate from the Ottoman Empire. The protocol afforded Greece the political, administrative, and commercial rights of an independent state, and defined the northern border of Greece from the mouth of the Achelous or Aspropotamos river to the mouth of the Spercheios river. As a result of the Greek War of Independence, which had broken out in 1821, the autonomy of Greece in one form or another had been recognized already since 1826, and a provisional Greek government under Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias existed, but the conditions of the Greek autonomy, its political status, and the borders of the new Greek state, were being debated between the Great Powers, the Greeks, and the Ottoman government.

03/02/1813

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

José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras, nicknamed "the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru", was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and central parts of South America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire who served as the Protector of Peru. Born in Yapeyú, Corrientes, in modern-day Argentina, he left the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata at the early age of seven to study in Málaga, Spain.

03/02/1809

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

The Territory of Illinois was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 1, 1809, until December 3, 1818, when the southern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Illinois. Its capital was the former French village of Kaskaskia on the Mississippi River. The northern half of the territory, modern Wisconsin and parts of modern Minnesota and Michigan became part of the Territory of Michigan in 1818.

03/02/1807

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

Lieutenant-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty was a British Army officer who served in a number of military campaigns in India, Africa and South America during the Napoleonic era.

03/02/1787

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

Benjamin Lincoln was an American army officer. He served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Lincoln was involved in three major surrenders during the war: his participation in the Battles of Saratoga contributed to the surrender of a British army under John Burgoyne, he oversaw the largest American surrender of the war at the 1780 siege of Charleston, and, as George Washington's second in command, he formally accepted the British surrender at Yorktown.

03/02/1783

Spain–United States relations are first established.

The Kingdom of Spain and the United States of America maintain bilateral international relations. The Spaniards were the first Europeans to establish a permanent settlement in what is now United States territory. The first settlement in modern-day United States territory was San Juan, Puerto Rico, founded in 1521 by Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. 35 years later, Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the city of St. Augustine, Spanish Florida, which became a small outpost that never grew very large. More permanent, much larger territories were established in New Mexico and California, with a few in Texas and Arizona, forming part of the colonial history of the United States. Although the Spanish elements in the history of the United States were mostly ignored by American historians in the decades after independence, the concept of the "Spanish borderlands" in the American Southwest was developed by American historians in the 20th century, which integrated Spain into U.S. history.

03/02/1781

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

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

03/02/1716

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

The 1716 Algiers earthquake was part of a seismic sequence which began in February and ended in May 1716. The largest and most destructive shock occurred on February 3 with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.0. The earthquakes with an epicenter thought to be in the Algiers region had a maximum European macroseismic scale (EMS-98) intensity of IX (Destructive), killing approximately 20,000 people. The earthquake was felt in Catania and Syracuse on the Italian island Sicily.

03/02/1706

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

The Battle of Fraustadt was fought on 2 February 1706 (O.S.) / 3 February 1706 / 13 February 1706 (N.S.) near Fraustadt, now Wschowa, Poland, during the Great Northern War. A Swedish army under Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld defeated a larger Saxon–Russian force commanded by Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg, consisting of troops from Saxony, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, German mercenaries, and the Tsardom of Russia.

03/02/1690

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

The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The lands of the settlement were in southern New England, with initial settlements on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart—the areas around Salem and Boston, north of the previously established Plymouth Colony. The territory nominally administered by the Massachusetts Bay Colony covered much of central New England, including portions of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.

03/02/1639

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

The House of Assembly of Barbados is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Barbados. It has 30 Members of Parliament (MPs), who are directly elected in single member constituencies using the simple-majority system for a term of five years. The House of Assembly sits roughly 40–45 days a year and is presided over by a Speaker. If the Speaker elected by the Assembly is not an MP currently in the House of Assembly, that Speaker becomes the 31st member of the Assembly, having a vote on motions that are tied.

03/02/1637

Tulip Mania collapses within the Dutch Republic.

Tulip mania was a period during the Dutch Golden Age when contract prices for some bulbs of the recently introduced and fashionable tulip reached extraordinarily high levels. The major acceleration started in 1634 and then dramatically collapsed in February 1637. It is generally considered to have been the first recorded speculative bubble or asset bubble in history. In many ways, the tulip mania was more of a then-unknown socio-economic phenomenon than a significant economic crisis. It had no critical influence on the prosperity of the Dutch Republic, which was one of the world's leading economic and financial powers in the 17th century, with the highest per capita income in the world from circa 1600 to 1720. The term tulip mania is now often used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble when asset prices deviate from intrinsic values.

03/02/1583

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.

The Battle of São Vicente was a minor naval engagement that took place off São Vicente, Portuguese Brazil on 3 February 1583 between three English ships, and three Spanish galleons. The English under Edward Fenton on an expedition having failed to enter the Pacific, then attempted to trade off Portuguese Brazil but were intercepted by a detached Spanish squadron under Commodore Andrés de Equino. After a moonlit battle briefly interrupted by a rainstorm the Spanish were defeated with one galleon sunk and another heavily damaged along with heavy losses. Fenton then attempted to resume trading but without success and thus returned to England.

03/02/1509

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.

The Portuguese Empire was the first, the longest and last European colonial empire, existing between 1415 and 1999. It ushered the European Age of Discovery, achieving a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa and various islands in Asia and Oceania. It was one of the most powerful empires of the early modern period, while at its greatest extent in 1820, covering 5.5 million square km, making it among the largest empires in history. Composed of colonies, factories, and later overseas territories, it was the longest-lived colonial empire in history, from the conquest of Ceuta in North Africa in 1415 to the handover of Macau to China in 1999.

03/02/1488

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.

Bartolomeu Dias was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In February 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships is in the open ocean, well to the west of the African coast. His discoveries were later used by Vasco da Gama to establish a sea route between Europe and Asia.

03/02/1451

Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire.

Sultan is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun سلطة sulṭah, meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who claimed almost full sovereignty without claiming the overall caliphate, or to refer to a powerful governor of a province within the caliphate. The adjectival form of the word is "sultanic", and the state and territories ruled by a sultan, as well as his office, are referred to as a sultanate.

03/02/1112

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

Ramon Berenguer III the Great was the count of Barcelona, Girona, and Ausona from 1086, Besalú from 1111, Cerdanya from 1117, and count of Provence in the Holy Roman Empire, from 1112, all until his death in Barcelona in 1131. As Ramon Berenguer I, he was Count of Provence in right of his wife.

03/02/1047

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

Drogo of Hauteville was the second Norman Count of Apulia. He led the Normans of Southern Italy after the death of his brother, William Iron Arm.

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Rei, Japanese rapper and singer

Scoot Henderson, American basketball player

Tre Mann, American basketball player

Rhys Williams, English footballer

Kanna Hashimoto, Japanese actress

Tyler Huntley, American football player

Isaiah Roby, American basketball player

Tao Tsuchiya, Japanese actress

Rougned Odor, Venezuelan baseball player

Adam Reach, English footballer

Olli Aitola, Finnish ice hockey player

James White, American football player

Sean Kingston, American-Jamaican singer-songwriter

Jia, Chinese singer and actress

Slobodan Rajković, Serbian footballer

Cho Kyu-hyun, South Korean singer

Elvana Gjata, Albanian singer

Mathieu Giroux, Canadian speed skater

Kanako Yanagihara, Japanese actress

Angela Fong, Canadian wrestler and actress

Andrei Kostitsyn, Belarusian ice hockey player

Elizabeth Holmes, American fraudster, founder of Theranos

Matthew Moy, American actor

Becky Bayless, American wrestler

Marie-Ève Drolet, Canadian speed skater

Bridget Regan, American actress

Joan Capdevila, Spanish footballer

Amal Clooney, British-Lebanese barrister and activist

Maitland Ward, American actress and model

Daddy Yankee, Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and record producer

Marek Židlický, Czech ice hockey player

Mathieu Dandenault, Canadian ice hockey player

Isla Fisher, Omani-Australian actress

Tim Heidecker, American actor, comedian, and musician

Eihi Shiina, Japanese fashion model and actress

Ayanna Pressley, American politician

Ilana Sod, Mexican journalist and producer

Elisa Donovan, American actress

Sarah Kane, English playwright (died 1999)

Hong Seok-cheon, South Korean actor

Óscar Córdoba, Colombian footballer

Warwick Davis, English actor, producer, and screenwriter

Beau Biden, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 44th Attorney General of Delaware (died 2015)

Retief Goosen, South African golfer

Vlade Divac, Serbian-American basketball player and sportscaster

Marwan Khoury, Lebanese singer, songwriter, and composer

František Kučera, Czech ice hockey player

Tim Flowers, English footballer and coach

Mixu Paatelainen, Finnish footballer and coach

Danny Morrison, New Zealand cricketer and sportscaster

Manuel Loff, Portuguese politician

Maura Tierney, American actress and producer

Indrek Tarand, Estonian historian, journalist, and politician

Vũ Đức Đam, Vietnamese politician

Raghuram Rajan, Indian economist and academic

Michele Greene, American actress, singer, and author

Marty Jannetty, American wrestler

Joachim Löw, German footballer and manager

Thomas Calabro, American actor

Lol Tolhurst, English musician and songwriter

Óscar Iván Zuluaga, Colombian economist and politician, 67th Colombian Minister of Finance

Joe F. Edwards, Jr., American commander, pilot, and astronaut

Greg Mankiw, American economist and academic

Eric Lander, American mathematician, geneticist, and academic

Nathan Lane, American actor and comedian

Lee Ranaldo, American musician and songwriter

Tiger Williams, Canadian ice hockey player and coach

Arsène Auguste, Haitian footballer (died 1993)

Eugenijus Riabovas, Lithuanian footballer and manager

Morgan Fairchild, American actress

Pamela Franklin, Japanese-English actress

Grant Goldman, Australian radio and television host (died 2020)

Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, East Timorese Roman Catholic bishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Henning Mankell, Swedish author and playwright (died 2015)