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“We may afirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.”
~ Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel
Wikiquote (Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) a German philosopher, and a major figure in German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.)
March 2nd, 537
Roman Empire:
537 - Siege of Rome; The Ostrogoth army under king Vitiges begin the siege of the capital. Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate, he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off.
Wikipedia Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
March 2nd, 871
Viking invasions of England:
Battle of Marton; Æthelred of Wessex defeats al Danish invasion army.
Wikipedia Painting: British archaeologists looking for evidence of prehistoric activity in the English county of Dorset discovered instead a mass grave holding 54 male skeletons. Smithsonian, Hurstwic.org.
March 2nd, 986
Louis V of France becomes King of the Franks in Wassy, France, marking the start of the French Wars of Religion.
Wikipedia Painting: Louis V of France becomes King of the Franks (King of Western Francia).
March 2nd, 1476
Burgundian Wars: Battle of Grandson; in Canton of Neuchâtel - The Old Swiss Confederacy: hands Charles the Bold Duke of Burgundy, a major defeat.
Wikipedia Painting: Charles I of Burgundy (Charles the Bold), portrait by Peter Paul Rubens ● Charles' flight after the battle of Grandson, as imagined by Eugène Burnand.
March 2nd, 1498
Vasco da Gama's fleet visits the island of Mozambique Island.
Wikipedia Painting: Nineteenth century depiction of Vasco da Gama / Vasco da Gama's ship with gods above by Ernesto Casanova (1880)
February 27th, 1776
American Revolutionary War:
1776 - Battle of the Rice Boats; The Patriot militia units arrest the Royal Governor of Georgia James Wright and attempt to prevent capture of supply ships.
Wikipedia Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
Grand Union - Stars and Stripes Flag
March 2nd, 1791
French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1791 - Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar;
Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806;
Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet;
Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani);
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo;
Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807;
Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars;
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen;
Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford;
Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).
March 2nd, 1797
Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.
Wikipedia Photo: Bank of England
March 2nd, 1807
The United States Congress passes the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.
Wikipedia Painting: The Slave Ship, J. M. W. Turner's representation of the mass-murder of slaves, inspired by the Zong Massacre.
March 2nd, 1808
Scotland:
1808 - The inaugural meeting of the Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is held in Edinburgh.
Wikipedia Photo: Edinburgh credit Allan Baxter, Getty Images ● Edinburgh-Castle, credit Rainer Jenss, National Geographic ● Scotland’s northwest coast, Hebrides Islands, credit Jim Richardson, National Geographic ● Water and rock. Motion and tranquility. Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland, credit Tatana Vacovska, National Geographic ● Scottish Sheep, credit Marc Lanciaux, National Geographic ● Rocks lead out to Milarrochy Bay in Loch Lomond, the largest lake in Great Britain, credit James Barrett, Alamy.
March 2nd, 1811
Argentine War of Independence:
1811 - Battle of San Nicolás; On the River Plate: A royalist fleet defeats a small flotilla of revolutionary ships.
Wikipedia Photo: Buenos Aires, capital and largest city of Argentina; ● Perito Moreno Glacier Patagonia Argentina ● Iguazu Falls (Iguazu River forms the boundary between Argentina and Brazil).
Crossing of the Andes ● Battle of Salta ● 22 May 1810 Open Cabildo ● Battle of San Lorenzo ● Battle of Suipacha ● 1813 Assembly ● Shooting of Liniers ● Jujuy Exodus.
March 2nd, 1825
Capture of the El Mosquito: Caribbean pirate Roberto Cofresí one of the last successful pirate is defeated in combat and captured by authorities.
Wikipedia Photo: Caribbean pirate Roberto Cofresí was the most renowned pirate in Puerto Rico
March 2nd, 1836
Republic of Texas:
1836 - Texas Revolution: delegates from 57 Declaration of independence of Texas from Mexico.
Wikipedia Image: Republic of Texas; Historical Maps of Texas 1842, credit University of Texas.edu.
March 2nd, 1855
1855 - Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.
1861 - Emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia: Tsar Alexander II signs the emancipation reform into law, abolishing Russian serfdom.
Wikipedia Painting: Coronation of Tsar Alexander II (by Mihály Zichy of the coronation of Emperor Alexander II and the Empress Maria Alexandrovna, which took place on 26 August/7 September 1856 at the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin - the painting depicts the moment of the coronation in which the Emperor crowns his Empress)
March 2nd, 1865
New Zealand land wars: East Cape War; The Volkner Incident in New Zealand.
Wikipedia Image: Rewi Manga Maniapoto (died 1894) was a Waikato chief who led Maori forces during the British Invasion of Waikato during the New Zealand Wars; Satellite image of New Zealand, NASA's Visible Earth; Bay of Islands.
March 2nd, 1867
Post (Reconstruction Era) American Civil War:
1867 - The United States Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
March 2nd, 1877
United States presidential election, 1876: Just two days before inauguration, the United States Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
Wikipedia Image: United States presidential election, 1876; Between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden ● Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Hayes / Wheeler, Blue denotes those won by Tilden / Hendricks. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
March 2nd, 1901
Spanish–American War: The United States Congress passes the Platt Amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition of the withdrawal of American troops.
Wikipedi Image: Satellite image Cuba, credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA / GSFC; A Catalan satirical drawing published in La Campana de Gràcia (1896), criticizing U.S. behavior regarding Cuba; W. A. Rogers. "The Battle of Desmayo - The Cuban Balaklava" In: Harper's Pictorial History of the War with Spain. Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1899. NYPL, United States History, Local History and Genealogy Division.
March 2nd, 1917
Jones-Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United_States citizenship.
Wikipedia Photo: Puerto Rico; Old San Juan aerial view ● Garita at fort San Felipe del Morro ● Culebra Island, Puerto Rico.
● El Yunque National Forest, is a forest located in northeastern Puerto Rico (It is the only tropical rain forest in the United States National Forest System); Lizard on a Leaf, by Brian Stinga, National Geographics; Puerto Rican Parrots, rare birds in the forest.
March 2nd, 1919
Russian Revolution:
1919 - The first Communist International meets in Moscow.
Wikipedia Image: The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union.
March 2nd, 1933
King Kong (1933 film) opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall.
Wikipedia Image: ● Original theatrical poster ● The stop-motion animated King Kong, battling an airplane on top of the Empire State Building ● Charles R. Knight's Tyrannosaurus in the American Museum of Natural History, on which the large theropod of the film was based ● King Kong views Ann on the limb of a tree
March 2nd, 1941
World War II:
1941 - First German military units enter Bulgaria after it joined the Axis Pact.
1943 - Battle of the Bismarck Sea; United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ship.
Post World War II:
1946 - Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.
1949 - Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
March 2nd, 1949
The first automatic street light is installed in New Milford, Connecticut.
Wikipedia Image: Automated street lights.
March 2nd, 1962
Burmese coup d'état: In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win seizes power in a coup d'état.
Wikipedia Photo: Burma: ● Topographic map and location of Burma ● Temples at Mrauk U ● Pagodas and temples in present-day Pagan (Bagan), the capital of the Pagan Kingdom ● Stilt houses at Lake Inle, Burma ● Mae La camp or Burmese refugees, Tak, Thailand
March 2nd, 1962
Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring NBA regular season records in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.
Wikipedia Photo: Wilt Chamberlain.
March 2nd, 1965
Vietnam War:
1965 - Operation Rolling Thunder; United States Air Force and South Vietnamese Air Force begin sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
Wikipedia Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, credit Free Republic;
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.
March 2nd, 1969
Toulouse, France: the first test flight of the Anglo - French Concorde is conducted.
Wikipedia Photo: Concorde, one of the wonders of the modern technical world, the first commercially successful airliner capable of speeds in excess of Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound) credit Heritage Concorde
March 2nd, 1969
Chinese and Soviet forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.
Wikipedia Image: Russia Satellite Map. ● China physical relief topography map.
March 2nd, 1972
Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.
Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune (the furthest planet from the Sun at the time), credit NASA
March 2nd, 1983
Compact disc (CD) players and discs are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. (They had been available only in Japan before then.)
Wikipedia Photo: Compact_Disc, The readable surface of a Compact Disc includes a spiral track wound tightly enough to cause light to diffract into a full visible spectrum
Sony launches the first consumer compact disc (CD) player - CDP-101.
March 2nd, 1991
Gulf War - Iraq War:
1991 - Battle at Rumaila Oil Field brings an end to the 1991 Gulf War.
2004 - Al Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
Wikipedia Photo: USAF F-15Es, F-16s, and a USAF F-15 flying over burning Kuwaiti oil wells; Iraqi Army T-72 main battle tanks. The T-72 tank was a common Iraqi battle tank used in the Gulf War; F-15Es parked during Operation Desert Shield; The oil fires caused were a result of the scorched earth policy of Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait; Aerial view of destroyed Iraqi T-72 tank, BMP-1 and Type 63 armored personnel carriers and trucks on Highway 8 in March 1991.
March 2nd, 1993
Storm of the Century (1993): begins to form over the North Atlantic Ocean.
Wikipedia Image: Land Hurricane: United States NOAA Satellite; Huge wave slams the lighthouse on Grand Marais Harbor credit, Minnesota.publicradio.org.
March 2nd, 1995
Researchers at Fermilab announce the discovery of the "Top quark".
Wikipedia Image: The top quark, also known as the t quark (symbol: t) or truth quark, is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. credit Observation of the Top Quark (d0.fnal.gov)
March 2nd, 1998
National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA's Galileo spacecraft: Data sent, indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
Wikipedia Photo: Galileo Spacecraft was the first Planet Jupiter Obiter, NASA.
March 2nd, 2002
War in Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda; begins in eastern Afghanistan (ending on March 19 after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 Western troop fatalities).
Wikipedia Photo: Afghanistan, Boston Globe, The Big Picture.
March 2nd, 2004
Gulf War - Iraq War:
2004 - Ashoura Massacre; Al-Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
Wikipedia Photo: USAF F-15Es, F-16s, and a USAF F-15 flying over burning Kuwaiti oil wells; Iraqi Army T-72 main battle tanks. The T-72 tank was a common Iraqi battle tank used in the Gulf War; F-15Es parked during Operation Desert Shield; The oil fires caused were a result of the scorched earth policy of Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait; Aerial view of destroyed Iraqi T-72 tank, BMP-1 and Type 63 armored personnel carriers and trucks on Highway 8 in March 1991.
March 2nd, 2012
Tornadoes:
2012 - March 2–3, 2012 tornado outbreak: A tornado outbreak occurred over a large section of the Southern United States and into the Ohio Valley region, resulting in 40 tornado-related fatalities.
Wikipedia Photo: Weather Front System; Tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma; North Dakota Tornado; F3 Category Tornado Swirls Across A South Dakota Prairie by Carsten Peter; A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida, by Fred K. Smith, National Geographics, Extream Instability.
March 2nd, 2017
Periodic table: The elements Moscovium, Tennessine and Oganesson were officially added to the periodic table at a conference in Moscow, Russia.
Wikipedia Image: Periodic table: The elements Moscovium, Tennessine and Oganesson were officially added to the periodic table.