1377 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva (anti-pope Clemens VII) starts term
1690 – First paper money in America issued (colony of Massachusetts)
1740 – Charles de Bourbon, King of Naples, invites Jews to return to Sicily
1825 – Dutch North Sea coast floods
1882 – Circus owner PT Barnum buys his world famous elephant Jumbo
1894 – First US steel sailing vessel, Dirigo, launched, Bath, Me
1913 – 16th Amendment, federal income tax, ratified
1913 – Tristan Tzar publishes Dada-manifest in Zurich Switzerland
1917 – US liner Housatonic sunk by German submarine and diplomatic relations severed
1919 – League of Nations first meeting in Paris
1950 – Nuclear physicist Klaus Fuchs arrested on spying charges
1959 – American Airlines Electra crashes in the East River, killing 65
American Airlines Flight 320, was a Lockheed L-188A Electra en route from Chicago Midway International Airport to LaGuardia Airport on February 3, 1959. It crashed into the East River on approach; 65 of the 73 on board died. It was the first crash for the Electra, which had been introduced only recently by American Airlines. It would not be the last, however, as a series of fatal accidents over the next year would cause the aircraft to have a loss of confidence by the flying public, including two mysterious in-flight wing failures which resulted in speed restrictions and a near grounding by the FAA.
1961 – Sixth largest snowfall in NYC history (17.4″ (44.2cm))
1966 – First operational weather satellite, ESSA-1 launched US
1966 – First soft landing on Moon (Soviet Luna 9)
1973 – President Nixon signs Endangered Species Act into law
2007 – A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339.
Birthdays
1811 – Horace Greeley, editor (“Go west, young man”)
1894 – Norman Rockwell, artist/illustrator (Saturday Evening Post covers)
Deaths
1922 – John Butler Yeats, Northern Irish artist (b. 1839)
1924 – Woodrow Wilson, 28th president (1913-21), dies at his home in Washington at 67
