By: HISTORY.com Editors

1941

Operation Typhoon is launched

Published: November 16, 2009Last Updated: January 30, 2025

On October 2, 1941, the Germans begin Operation Typhoon, their surge to Moscow, led by the 1st Army Group and Gen. Fedor von Bock. Russian peasants in the path of Hitler’s army employ a “scorched-earth” policy.

Hitler’s forces had invaded the Soviet Union in June, and early on it had become one relentless push inside Russian territory. The first setback came in August, when the Red Army’s tanks drove the Germans back from the Yelnya salient. Hitler confided to General Bock at the time: “Had I known they had as many tanks as that, I’d have thought twice before invading.” But there was no turning back for Hitler—he believed he was destined to succeed where others had failed, and capture Moscow.

Although some German generals had warned Hitler against launching Operation Typhoon as the harsh Russian winter was just beginning, remembering the fate that befell Napoleon—who got bogged down in horrendous conditions, losing serious numbers of men and horses—Bock urged him on. This encouragement, coupled with the fact that the Germany army had taken the city of Kiev in late September, caused Hitler to declare, “The enemy is broken and will never be in a position to rise again.” So for 10 days, starting October 2, the 1st Army Group drove east, drawing closer to the Soviet capital each day. But the Russians also remembered Napoleon and began destroying everything as they fled their villages, fields, and farms. Harvested crops were burned, livestock were driven away, and buildings were blown up, leaving nothing of value behind to support exhausted troops. Hitler’s army inherited nothing but ruins.

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Timeline

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Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on October 2nd

1780

Benedict Arnold accomplice hanged

Thirty-year-old British Major John Andre is hanged as a spy by U.S. military forces in Tappan, New York, on October 2, 1780. Andre, an accomplice of Benedict Arnold, had been captured by Patriots John Paulding, David Williams and Isaac Van Wart on September 23 after they found incriminating papers in his boot. The papers revealed […]

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1835

First shots of the Texas Revolution fired in the Battle of Gonzales

On October 2, 1835, the growing tensions between Mexico and Texas erupt into violence when Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, sparking the Texan war for independence. Texas—or Tejas as the Mexicans called it—had been a part of the Spanish empire since the 17th century. However, even as late as the 1820s, […]

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1919

Woodrow Wilson suffers a stroke

President Woodrow Wilson, who had just cut short a tour of the country to promote the formation of the League of Nations, suffers a stroke on October 2, 1919. The tour’s intense schedule—8,000 miles in 22 days—cost Wilson his health. He suffered constant headaches during the tour, finally collapsing from exhaustion in Pueblo, Colorado, in late […]

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1944

General Eisenhower warns of the risk of “shell shock”

On October 2, 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower distributes to his combat units a report by the U.S. Surgeon General that reveals the hazards of prolonged exposure to combat. “[T]he danger of being killed or maimed imposes a strain so great that it causes men to break down. One look at the shrunken, apathetic faces […]

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1944

Warsaw Uprising ends

The Warsaw Uprising ends on October 2, 1944, with the surrender of the surviving Polish rebels to German forces. Two months earlier, the approach of the Red Army to Warsaw prompted Polish resistance forces to launch a rebellion against the Nazi occupation. The rebels, who supported the democratic Polish government-in-exile in London, hoped to gain […]

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1958

Guinea gains its independence, exploits Cold War tensions

The former French colony of Guinea declares its independence on October 2, 1958, with Sekou Toure as the new nation’s first leader. Guinea was the sole French West African colony to opt for complete independence, rather than membership in the French Community, and soon thereafter France withdrew all aid to the new republic. It soon […]

1959

“The Twilight Zone” premieres on TV

On October 2, 1959, Rod Serling's iconic sci-fi series “The Twilight Zone” premieres on CBS to rave reviews.

1965

Gatorade first tested in a college football game

On October 2, 1965, during a football game between the University of Florida Gators and the Louisiana State University Tigers, UF players test the newly concocted sports drink soon called Gatorade.

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1967

Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first Black Supreme Court justice

Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1940s and ’50s, Marshall was the architect and executor of the legal strategy that ended the era of official racial segregation. The […]

1985

Hollywood icon Rock Hudson dies of AIDS

Actor Rock Hudson, 59, becomes the first major U.S. celebrity to die of complications from AIDS on October 2, 1985.

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2006

Gunman kills five students at Amish school

On October 2, 2006, Charles Roberts enters the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, where he fatally shoots five female students and wounds five more before turning his gun on himself and dying by suicide. Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old milk truck driver from a nearby town, entered the one-room schoolhouse […]

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2020

President Trump announces he and the first lady tested positive for COVID-19

Amid a resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump announces that he and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19 in an early-morning tweet on October 2, 2020. Coming a week after a White House gathering celebrating his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and 48 hours after his […]

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