Historical Events
- 1451 Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire
- 1509 The Battle of Diu, naval battle at port of Diu, India between Portugal and the Ottoman Empire, establishes Portuguese trading control
- 1870 US state of Iowa ratifies the 15th Amendment of the United States Constitution allowing suffrage for all races and colors
- 1928 Paleoanthropologist Davidson Black reports his findings on the ancient human fossils found at Zhoukoudian, China in the journal Nature and declares them to be a new species he names 'Sinanthropus pekinensis' (now known as 'Homo erectus')
- 1931 New Zealand's worst natural disaster, the Hawke's bay earthquake, kills 256 and injures thousands, devastating Napier and the Hawke's Bay region
- 1966 1st soft landing on Moon (Soviet Luna 9)
- More Historical Events
Feb 3 in Film & TV
- 1960 "La Dolce Vita" directed by Federico Fellini and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg has its film premiere in Italy
Feb 3 in Music
- 1959 "The Day the Music Died" plane crash kills musicians Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, J. P. Richardson (aka The Big Bopper), and the pilot. near Clear Lake, Iowa
Feb 3 in Sport
- 1876 Albert Spalding invests $800 to start sporting goods company, manufacturing first official baseball, tennis ball, basketball, golf ball and football
Ferdinand Magellan
Felix Mendelssohn
Elizabeth Blackwell
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil
Pretty Boy Floyd
Elizabeth Holmes
Would You Believe?
Arkansas legislature passes motion to pray for soul of journalist H. L. Mencken, after he calls the state the "apex of moronia"
On February 3, 1931
Famous Weddings
- 1112 Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona and Douce I of Provence marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.
- 1547 Russian Tsar Ivan IV [Ivan the Terrible] (17) marries Anastasia Romanova (17)
- 1910 Author James Weldon Johnson (38) weds civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson (24) at her family's home
Famous Divorces
- 1999 American actress Angelina Jolie (23) divorces actor Jonny Lee Miller (26) after 3 years of marriage
More Weddings & Divorces
Johannes Gutenberg
Theodore Dwight Weld
Woodrow Wilson
Buddy Holly
Louise Brough
Tony TrabertArticles, Photos and Quiz
America’s First Woman Doctor
Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree and the first woman on the British medical register, was born on this day.
February 3, 1821
Hawke's Bay Earthquake
The Hastings post office damaged after the 1931 earthquake
February 3, 1931
Weekly Quiz for February 3 - 9
In 1870 the US ratified the 15th amendment to the constitution, what did it then do? From which university did Mark Zuckerberg launch Facebook in 2004?
