February 3: What Happened on This Day in History (High_school Level)?

(Page last edited 10/12/2017)

1. 1488 - Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.
2. 1637 - Tulip mania collapses in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands) as sellers could no longer find buyers for their bulb contracts.
3. 1690 - The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in America.
4. 1809 - The Illinois Territory is created.
5. 1870 - The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
6. 1913 - The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
7. 1961 - The United States Air Forces begins Operation Looking Glass, and over the next 30 years, a "Doomsday Plane" is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States' bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC's command post.
8. 1966 - The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
9. 1984 - John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth.
10. 1995 - Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
11. Famous Birthdays: Joseph Forlenze (Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon), Giuseppe Moretti (Italian sculptor, designed the Vulcan statue), Norman Rockwell (American painter and illustrator), Simone Weil (French mystic and philosopher), Henry Heimlich (American physician)

For famous birthdays and other daily events in history, visit our Daily Dose Activities.

Click Here for Yesterday in History: February 2

Click Here for Tomorrow in History: February 4

For more history resources on Internet 4 Classrooms, visit our Social Studies and History index. For Pre K-8th Grade Level History and Social Studies Resources, visit our Grade Level Index.