Events Pre-1600 2 BC – Caesar Augustus is granted the title pater patriae by the Roman Senate. 62 – An earthquake with an estimated intensity between IX or X on the Mercalli scale occurs in Pompeii, Italy. 756 – An Lushan proclaims himself Emperor of China, founding the short-lived state of Yan. 1265 – Pope Clement IV is elected as the 183rd Bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. 1576 – Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours and rejoins the Protestant forces in the French Wars of Religion.Trevor N. Dupuy, Curt Johnson and David L. Bongard, Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, (Castle Books, 1995), p. 326 1597 – A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.
1601–1900 1783 – In Calabria, a sequence of strong earthquakes begins. 1810 – Peninsular War: Siege of Cádiz begins. 1818 – Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway. 1852 – The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public. 1859 – Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Prince of Moldavia, is also elected as prince of Wallachia, joining the two principalities as a personal union called the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered in the birth of the modern Romanian state. 1869 – The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, called the "Welcome Stranger", is found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia. 1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.
1901–present 1901 – J. P. Morgan incorporates U.S. Steel in the state of New Jersey, although the company would not start doing business until February 25 and the assets of Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel Company, Elbert H. Gary's Federal Steel Company, and William Henry Moore's National Steel Company were not acquired until April 1. 1905 – In Mexico, the General Hospital of Mexico is inaugurated, initially with four basic specialties. 1907 – Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world's first synthetic plastic. 1913 – Greek military aviators Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis perform the first naval air mission in history, with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane. 1913 – Claudio Monteverdi's last opera L'incoronazione di Poppea was performed theatrically for the first time in more than 250 years. 1917 – The current constitution of Mexico is adopted, establishing a federal republic with powers separated into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches. 1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson's veto. 1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane; this is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military. 1918 – is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk. 1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith launch United Artists. 1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal. 1933 – Mutiny on Royal Netherlands Navy warship HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën off the coast of Sumatra, Dutch East Indies. 1941 – World War II: Allied forces begin the Battle of Keren to capture Keren, Eritrea. 1945 – World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila. 1958 – Gamal Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president of the United Arab Republic. 1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered. 1962 – French President Charles de Gaulle calls for Algeria to be granted independence. 1963 – The European Court of Justice's ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the most important, if not the most important, decisions in the development of European Union law. 1967 – Cultural Revolution: The Shanghai People's Commune is formally proclaimed, with Yao Wenyuan and Zhang Chunqiao being appointed as its leaders. 1971 – Astronauts land on the Moon in the Apollo 14 mission. 1975 – Riots break out in Lima, Peru after the police forces go on strike the day before. The uprising (locally known as the Limazo) is bloodily suppressed by the military dictatorship. 1981 – Operation Soap: The Metropolitan Toronto Police Force raids four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, arresting just under 300, triggering mass protest and rallies. 1985 – Ugo Vetere, then the mayor of Rome, and Chedli Klibi, then the mayor of Carthage, meet in Tunis to sign a treaty of friendship officially ending the Third Punic War which lasted 2,131 years. 1988 – Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges. 1994 – Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 1994 – Markale massacres, more than 60 people are killed and some 200 wounded as a mortar shell explodes in a downtown marketplace in Sarajevo. 1997 – The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families. 2000 – Russian forces massacre at least 60 civilians in the Novye Aldi suburb of Grozny, Chechnya. 2004 – Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front capture the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion. 2008 – A major tornado outbreak across the Southern United States kills 57. 2016 – New Zealand politician Steven Joyce is hit by a flung rubber dildo in a Waitangi Day protest. 2016 – Cybercriminals initiate the Bangladesh Bank robbery, using the SWIFT network to fraudulently transfer $101 million from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York account of Bangladesh Bank. 2019 – Pope Francis becomes the first Pope in history to visit and perform papal mass in the Arabian Peninsula during his visit to Abu Dhabi. 2020 – United States President Donald Trump is acquitted by the United States Senate in his first impeachment trial. 2020 – Pegasus Airlines Flight 2193 overshoots the runway at Sabiha Gökçen International Airport and crashes, killing three people and injuring 179.
Births Pre-1600 976 – Sanjō, emperor of Japan (died 1017) 1321 – John II, marquess of Montferrat (died 1372) 1438 – Philip II, duke of Savoy (died 1497) 1505 – Aegidius Tschudi, Swiss statesman and historian (died 1572) 1519 – René of Châlon, prince of Orange (died 1544) 1525 – Juraj Drašković, Croatian Catholic cardinal (died 1587) 1533 – Andreas Dudith, Croatian-Hungarian nobleman and diplomat (died 1589) 1534 – Giovanni de' Bardi, Italian soldier, composer, and critic (died 1612) 1589 – Esteban Manuel de Villegas, Spanish poet and educator (died 1669) 1594 – Biagio Marini, Italian violinist and composer (died 1663)
1601–1900 1608 – Gaspar Schott, German mathematician and physicist (died 1666) 1626 – Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, French author (died 1696) 1650 – Anne Jules de Noailles, French general (died 1708) 1703 – Gilbert Tennent, Irish-American minister (died 1764) 1723 – John Witherspoon, Scottish-American minister and academic (died 1794) 1725 – James Otis Jr., American lawyer and politician (died 1783) 1744 – John Jeffries, American medical doctor, scientist, military surgeon, and inspiration for National Weatherperson's Day 1748 – Christian Gottlob Neefe, German composer and conductor (died 1798) 1788 – Robert Peel, English lieutenant and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1850) 1795 – Wilhelm Karl Ritter von Haidinger, Austrian mineralogist, geologist, and physicist (died 1871) 1804 – Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Finnish poet and hymn-writer (died 1877) 1808 – Carl Spitzweg, German painter and poet (died 1885) 1810 – Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist and composer (died 1880) 1827 – Peter Lalor, Irish-Australian activist and politician (died 1889) 1837 – Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist and publisher, founded Moody Church, Moody Bible Institute, and Moody Publishers (died 1899) 1840 – John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish businessman, co-founded Dunlop Rubber (died 1921) 1840 – Hiram Maxim, American engineer, invented the Maxim gun (died 1916) 1847 – Eduard Magnus Jakobson, Estonian missionary and engraver (died 1903) 1848 – Joris-Karl Huysmans, French author and critic (died 1907) 1848 – Ignacio Carrera Pinto, Chilean lieutenant (died 1882) 1852 – Terauchi Masatake, Japanese field marshal and politician, 9th Prime Minister of Japan (died 1919) 1866 – Domhnall Ua Buachalla, Irish politician, 3rd and last Governor-General of the Irish Free State (died 1963) 1870 – Charles Edmund Brock, British painter and book illustrator (died 1938) 1876 – Ernie McLea, Canadian ice hockey player (died 1931) 1878 – André Citroën, French engineer and businessman, founded Citroën (died 1935) 1880 – Gabriel Voisin, French pilot and engineer (died 1973) 1889 – Patsy Hendren, English cricketer and footballer (died 1962) 1889 – Ernest Tyldesley, English cricketer (died 1962) 1889 – Recep Peker, Turkish officer and politician (died 1950) 1891 – Renato Petronio, Italian rower (died 1976) 1892 – Elizabeth Ryan, American tennis player (died 1979) 1897 – Dirk Stikker, Dutch businessman and politician, 3rd Secretary General of NATO (died 1979) 1900 – Adlai Stevenson II, American soldier, politician, and diplomat, 5th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (died 1965)
1901–present 1903 – Koto Matsudaira, Japanese diplomat, ambassador to the United Nations (died 1994) 1903 – Joan Whitney Payson, American businesswoman and philanthropist (died 1975) 1906 – John Carradine, American actor (died 1988) 1907 – Birgit Dalland, Norwegian politician (died 2007) 1907 – Pierre Pflimlin, French politician, Prime Minister of France (died 2000) 1908 – Marie Baron, Dutch swimmer and diver (died 1948) 1908 – Peg Entwistle, Welsh-American actress (died 1932) 1908 – Eugen Weidmann, German criminal (died 1939) 1909 – Grażyna Bacewicz, Polish violinist and composer (died 1969) 1910 – Charles Philippe Leblond, French-Canadian biologist and academic (died 2007) 1910 – Francisco Varallo, Argentinian footballer (died 2010) 1911 – Jussi Björling, Swedish tenor (died 1960) 1914 – William S. Burroughs, American novelist, short story writer, and essayist (died 1997) 1914 – Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, English physiologist, biophysicist, and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1998) 1915 – Robert Hofstadter, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1990) 1917 – Edward J. Mortola, American academic and president of Pace University (died 2002) 1917 – Isuzu Yamada, Japanese actress (died 2012) 1919 – Red Buttons, American actor (died 2006) 1919 – Tim Holt, American actor (died 1973) 1919 – Andreas Papandreou, Greek economist and politician, Prime Minister of Greece (died 1996) 1921 – Ken Adam, German-born English production designer and art director (died 2016) 1923 – Claude King, American country music singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2013) 1923 – James E. Bowman, American physician and academic (died 2011) 1924 – Duraisamy Simon Lourdusamy, Indian cardinal (died 2014) 1927 – Robert Allen, American pianist and composer (died 2000) 1927 – Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten, Dutch captain and pilot (died 1977) 1928 – Hristu Cândroveanu, Romanian editor, literary critic and writer (died 2013) 1928 – Tage Danielsson, Swedish author, actor, and director (died 1985) 1928 – Andrew Greeley, American priest, sociologist, and author (died 2013) 1928 – P. J. Vatikiotis, Israeli-American historian and political scientist (died 1997) 1929 – Hal Blaine, American session drummer (died 2019) 1929 – Luc Ferrari, French pianist and composer (died 2005) 1929 – Fred Sinowatz, Austrian politician, 19th Chancellor of Austria (died 2008) 1932 – Cesare Maldini, Italian footballer and manager (died 2016)