This is a list of selected March 2 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
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Images
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Claude Chappe
Wilt Chamberlain in 1959
King Kong film poster
João Bernardo Vieira
title=Vladimír Remek in 2007
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1865 – New Zealand land wars: Protestant missionary Carl Sylvius Völkner died at the hands of Hauhau militants in Opotiki for working as an agent for George Grey, Governor-General of New Zealand. | Völkner: date not in article; Incident: multiple issues |
| 1917 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones–Shafroth Act into law, granting United States citizenship to every citizen of Puerto Rico. | expansion, refimprove section |
| 1933 – The film King Kong premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. | refimprove, missing info |
| 1939 – Italian Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected as Pope and took the name Pius XII. | neutrality issues |
| 1962 – A military coup d'état led by General Ne Win seized power in Burma. | Coup: multiple issues; Ne Win: unreferenced/refimprove sections |
| 1970 – Rhodesia formally broke its links with the British crown and declared itself a republic. | refimprove section |
| 1992 – By virtue of gaining membership to the United Nations, Moldova gained international recognition as an independent nation. | refimprove |
| 2009 – President of Guinea-Bissau João Bernardo Vieira was assassinated in an attack by a group of soldiers on his private residence in Bissau. | refimprove section |
Eligible
- 1444 – The League of Lezhë, an alliance of the regional chieftains, was established in Venetian Albania with Skanderbeg as its commander.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot militia from Georgia and South Carolina attempted to resist the British action to seize and remove supply ships anchored at Savannah, Georgia.
- 1836 – Texas Revolution: At a convention of delegates in Washington-on-the-Brazos, the Mexican state of Texas adopted a declaration of independence, establishing the Republic of Texas.
- 1877 – The U.S. Electoral Commission awarded twenty disputed electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes, thus assuring his victory in the 1876 presidential election.
- 1919 – Communist, revolutionary socialist, and syndicalist delegates met in Moscow to establish the Communist International.
- 1937 – The Steel Workers Organizing Committee, precursor to the United Steel Workers of America, had a major success when it signed a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel.
- 1949 – The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II landed in Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and 1 minute.
- 1962 – American basketball player Wilt Chamberlain, then playing for the Philadelphia Warriors, scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks, still a record in the NBA today.
- 1965 – Vietnam War: The American and South Vietnamese air forces began Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam that eventually became the most intense air/ground battle waged during the Cold War period.
- 1978 – As a cosmonaut on Soyuz 28, Czechoslovak military pilot Vladimír Remek (pictured) became the first person from outside the Soviet Union or the United States to go into space.
- Born/died: Charles I, Count of Flanders (d. 1127) · William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (b. 1705) · Alexander Bullock (b. 1816) · Bedřich Smetana (b. 1824) · Susanna M. Salter (b. 1860) · Gisela Januszewska (d. 1943) · Dusty Springfield (d. 1999)
March 2: Clean Monday (Eastern Christianity, 2020)
Replica of one of Claude Chappe's semaphore towers
- 1484 – The College of Arms, one of the few remaining official heraldic authorities in Europe, was incorporated by royal charter in the City of London.
- 1791 – French inventor Claude Chappe and his brothers first demonstrated the semaphore telegraph, a system that conveys information by means of visual signals, using towers (replica pictured) with pivoting crossarms.
- 1901 – U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation and once the world's largest producer of steel, was founded by financier J. P. Morgan.
- 1943 – World War II: Australian and U.S. air forces attacked and destroyed a large Japanese naval convoy in the Bismarck Sea, north of Papua New Guinea.
- 1995 – Researchers at Fermilab in Illinois announced the discovery of the top quark, the most massive of all observed elementary particles.
Francesco Bianchini (d. 1729) · Louis-Gabriel Suchet (b. 1770) · Grete Hermann (b. 1901)