On this day: February 3

Events on February 3

• 1047 Emperor Henry III declared Drogo of Hauteville to be count of all Apulian and Calabrian Normans. Wikipedia
• 1266 Mudéjar revolt: King James I of Aragon entered the formerly Muslim-held city of Murcia following its surrender three days earlier. Wikipedia
• 1451 Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire. Wikipedia
• 1509 The Portuguese navy defeats a joint fleet of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Republic of Ragusa at the Battle of Diu in Diu, India. Wikipedia
• 1813 Argentine War of Independence: José de San Martín and the Mounted Grenadiers Regiment defeated Spanish royalist forces in the Battle of San Lorenzo. Wikipedia
• 1852 The Argentine Confederation was defeated in the Platine War by an alliance consisting of Brazil, Uruguay and the Argentine provinces of Entre Ríos and Corrientes. Wikipedia
• 1862 Moldavia and Wallachia formally united, creating the Romanian United Principalities. Wikipedia
• 1870 Reconstruction era: The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, formally prohibiting race-based disenfranchisement in the United States. Wikipedia
• 1930 The Communist Party of Indochina, the Communist Party of Annam and the Communist League of Indochina merged to form the Communist Party of Vietnam. Wikipedia
• 1933 Adolf Hitler announced that the conquest of Lebensraum in Eastern Europe, and its "ruthless Germanisation", were the geopolitical objectives of Reich foreign policy. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: Free French and British forces began the Battle of Keren to capture the strategic town of Keren in Italian East Africa. Wikipedia
• 1945 World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan. Wikipedia
• 1953 Hundreds of native creoles known as Forros were massacred on São Tomé Island by the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners. Wikipedia
• 1958 Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community. Wikipedia
• 1959 American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in a plane crash shortly after takeoff from Mason City Municipal Airport in Iowa. Wikipedia
• 1966 The Soviet Union's Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon, and the first spacecraft to take pictures from the surface of the Moon. Wikipedia
• 1972 The deadliest blizzard in history began in Iran and continued for a week leaving more than 4,000 people dead. Wikipedia
• 1984 Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger. Wikipedia
• 1986 Steve Jobs purchased Pixar from Lucasfilm and launched it as an independent computer-animation studio. Wikipedia
• 1989 A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954. Wikipedia
• 1995 In mission STS-63, astronaut Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle. Wikipedia
• 1998 Despite a large international movement advocating the commutation of her sentence to life imprisonment, Karla Faye Tucker became the first woman to be executed in the United States since 1984. Wikipedia
• 2006 Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen: 23 convicts, including several militants associated with al-Qaeda, escaped from a prison administered by the Political Security Organization in Sanaa, Yemen. Wikipedia
• 2010 An edition of L'Homme qui marche I, a bronze sculpture by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, was sold for £65 million, setting the record for the most expensive sculpture sold at auction. Wikipedia
• 2014 Russia's first school shooting took place when a student opened fire at School No. 263 in Moscow, resulting in the deaths of a teacher and a police officer. Wikipedia
• 2023 A freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, releasing hazardous materials into the surrounding area. Wikipedia

Born on February 3

• 1795 Antonio José de Sucre, Venezuelan general and politician, 2nd President of Bolivia (died 1830) Wikipedia
• 1809 Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1847) Wikipedia
• 1821 Elizabeth Blackwell, American physician and educator (died 1910) Wikipedia
• 1830 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1903) Wikipedia
• 1874 Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright, (died 1946) Wikipedia
• 1887 Georg Trakl, Austrian pharmacist and poet (died 1914) Wikipedia
• 1889 Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish director and screenwriter (died 1968) Wikipedia
• 1889 Risto Ryti, Finnish lawyer, politician and the Governor of the Bank of Finland; 5th President of Finland (died 1956) Wikipedia
• 1894 Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (died 1978) Wikipedia
• 1898 Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect, designed the Finlandia Hall and Aalto Theatre (died 1976) Wikipedia
• 1907 James A. Michener, American author and philanthropist (died 1997) Wikipedia
• 1909 Simone Weil, French mystic and philosopher (died 1943) Wikipedia
• 1939 Michael Cimino, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2016) Wikipedia
• 1947 Paul Auster, American novelist, essayist, and poet (died 2024) Wikipedia
• 1948 Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, East Timorese Roman Catholic bishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1948 Henning Mankell, Swedish author and playwright (died 2015) Wikipedia
• 1960 Joachim Löw, German footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1976 Isla Fisher, Omani-Australian actress Wikipedia
• 1977 Daddy Yankee, Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and record producer Wikipedia
• 1978 Joan Capdevila, Spanish footballer Wikipedia
• 1978 Amal Clooney, British-Lebanese barrister and activist Wikipedia
• 1984 Elizabeth Holmes, American fraudster, founder of Theranos Wikipedia

Died on February 3

• 6 Ping, emperor of the Han Dynasty (born 9 BC) Wikipedia
• 1014 Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark and England (born 960) Wikipedia
• 1399 John of Gaunt, Belgian-English politician, Lord High Steward (born 1340) Wikipedia
• 1451 Murad II, Ottoman sultan (born 1404) Wikipedia
• 1468 Johannes Gutenberg, German publisher, invented the printing press (born 1398) Wikipedia
• 1862 Jean-Baptiste Biot, French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician (born 1774) Wikipedia
• 1924 Woodrow Wilson, American historian, academic, and politician, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1856) Wikipedia
• 1956 Émile Borel, French mathematician and academic (born 1871) Wikipedia
• 1959 The Day the Music Died Wikipedia
• 1975 Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer-songwriter and actress (born 1904) Wikipedia
• 1989 John Cassavetes, American actor, director, and screenwriter (born 1929) Wikipedia
• 2005 Ernst Mayr, German-American biologist and ornithologist (born 1904) Wikipedia
• 2011 Maria Schneider, French actress (born 1952) Wikipedia
• 2016 Joe Alaskey, American actor (born 1952) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Aaron the Illustrious (Syriac Orthodox Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Ansgar Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Berlinda of Meerbeke Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blaise Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Celsa and Nona Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Claudine Thévenet Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Dom Justo Takayama (Philippines and Japan) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Hadelin Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Margaret of England Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Werburgh Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: February 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Day of the Virgin of Suyapa (Honduras) Wikipedia
• Earliest day on which Shrove Tuesday can fall, while March 9 is the latest; celebrated on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday (Christianity) Wikipedia
• Four Chaplains Day (United States, also considered a Feast Day by the Episcopal Church) Wikipedia
• Communist Party of Vietnam Foundation Anniversary (Vietnam) Wikipedia
• Day of Finnish architecture and design, birthday of Alvar Aalto (Finland) Wikipedia
• Heroes' Day (Mozambique) Wikipedia
• Martyrs' Day (São Tomé and Príncipe) Wikipedia
• Setsubun (Japan) Wikipedia
• Veterans' Day (Thailand) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “February 3” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/February 3” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “February 3” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for February 3 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.