Also on this day
Lead Story
1887
On this day in 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, it gets scared and runs back into its burrow,...
American Revolution
1781
On this day in 1781, American General Nathanael Greene receives two bags of specie (coin as opposed to paper currency) from Elizabeth Maxwell Steele at her tavern in Salisbury, North Carolina–an incident later memorialized in a painting by Alonzo Chappel.
General Greene spent the night of February 1 until midnight awaiting...
Automotive
1991
The 24 Hours of Daytona endurance auto race begins on February 2, 1991; when it ends the following day, driver Hurley Haywood will collect his fifth win, the most victories of any driver in the event’s history.
The 24 Hours of Daytona (now known as the Rolex 24 at Daytona), along...
Civil War
1803
On this day in 1803, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston is born in Washington, Kentucky. Johnston was considered one of the best Confederate commanders until he was killed at the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, the first major engagement in the West.
Johnston grew up in Kentucky and received an appointment to...
Cold War
1949
In response to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s proposal that President Harry S. Truman travel to Russia for a conference, Secretary of State Dean Acheson brusquely rejects the idea as a “political maneuver.” This rather curious exchange was further evidence of the diplomatic sparring between the United States and the...
Crime
1922
Police discover the body of film director William Desmond Taylor in his Los Angeles bungalow. Lieutenant Tom Ziegler responded to a call about a “natural death” at the Alvarado Street home of Taylor. Whenhe arrived they found actors, actresses, and studio executives rummaging through the director’s belongings.He also found Taylor...
Disaster
1847
On this day in 1847, the first woman of a group of pioneers commonly known as the Donner Party dies during the group’s journey through a Sierra Nevada mountain pass. The disastrous trip west ended up killing 42 people and turned many of the survivors into cannibals.
A total of 87...
General Interest
1943
On this day, the last German troops in the Soviet city of Stalingrad surrender to the Red Army, ending one of the pivotal battles of World War II.On June 22, 1941, despite the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Nazi Germany launched a massive invasion against the USSR. Aided...
1971
One week after toppling the regime of Ugandan leader Milton Obote, Major General Idi Amin declares himself president of Uganda and chief of the armed forces. Amin, head of the Ugandan army and air force since 1966, seized power while Obote was out of the country.
Ruling directly, Amin soon revealed...
1980
On February 2, 1980, details of ABSCAM, an FBI operation to uncover political corruption in the government, are released to the public. Thirty-one public officials were targeted for investigation, including Representative John Murphy of New York, five other representatives, and Harrison Williams, a senator from New Jersey. In the operation,...
Hollywood
1996
On this day in 1996, the dancer, actor and choreographer Gene Kelly dies at the age of 83, at his home in Beverly Hills, California.
Born in Pittsburgh in 1912, Kelly graduated with a degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh during the Great Depression. With jobs scarce, he worked...
2014
On this day in 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman, considered one of the most talented and versatile actors of his generation, dies of an accidental drug overdose at age 46 in New York City. During his career, the prolific performer appeared in more than 50 movies, including “Capote,” “Doubt” and “The...
Literary
1882
Novelist James Joyce is born this day in Dublin, Ireland, the eldest of 10 children. His father, a cheerful ne’er-do-well, will eventually go bankrupt.
Joyce attended Catholic school and University College in Dublin. A brilliant scholar, he learned Dano-Norwegian in order to read the plays of Henrik Ibsen in the original....
Music
1979
To the New York City Police Department and Medical Examiner's Office, he was John Simon Ritchie, a 22-year-old Englishman under indictment for murder but now dead of a heroin overdose in a Greenwich Village apartment. To the rest of the world, he was Sid Vicious, former bassist for the notorious...
Old West
1812
Staking a tenuous claim to the riches of the Far West, Russians establish Fort Ross on the coast north of San Francisco.
As a growing empire with a long Pacific coastline, Russia was in many ways well positioned to play a leading role in the settlement and development of the West....
Presidential
1848
On this day in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican-American War in favor of the United States. The Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo added an additional 525,000 square miles to United States territory, including the area that would become the states of Texas, California, Nevada, Utah,...
Sports
1876
On February 2, 1876, the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which comes to be more commonly known as the National League (NL), is formed. The American League (AL) was established in 1901 and in 1903, the first World Series was held.
The first official game of baseball in the United...
Vietnam War
1962
The first U.S. Air Force plane is lost in South Vietnam. The C-123 aircraft crashed while spraying defoliant on a Viet Cong ambush site.
The aircraft was part of Operation Ranch Hand, a technological area-denial technique designed to expose the roads and trails used by the Viet Cong. U.S. personnel dumped...
1970
Antiwar protestors take legal action in an attempt to prove that the Dow Chemical Company is still making napalm. Dow had claimed that it had stopped making napalm. Members of the antiwar movement filed suit against the Dow Chemical Company in a Washington, D.C., court. The plaintiffs were...
World War II
1942
On this day, Vidkun Quisling, a collaborator with the German occupiers of Norway, is established as prime minister of a puppet government.
On April 9, 1940, German warships entered major Norwegian ports, from Narvik to Oslo, deployed thousands of German troops, and occupied Norway. German forces were able to slip through...
1943
On this day, the last of the German forces fighting at Stalingrad surrender, despite Hitler’s earlier declaration that “Surrender is out of the question. The troops will defend themselves to the last!”
The Battle of Stalingrad began in the summer of 1942, as German forces assaulted the city, a major industrial...