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On this day in history - February 3

What Happened On This Day – February 3

  • 1998 20 people die in the Cavalese cable car disaster

    The wings of a low-flying U.S. military aircraft cut the aerial tramway's cables, causing the cabin to plunge 80 meters.

  • 1989 Paraguay's dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, is overthrown

    Stroessner had come to power in 1954 with a military coup.

  • 1972 The deadliest snowstorm in history kills 4000

    The Iran Blizzard lasted a week and left whole villages without survivors.

  • 1969 Yasser Arafat becomes leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

    Even after his death in 2011, Arafat remained a highly controversial figure, many Arabs praising him as a freedom fighter while many Israelis denouncing him as a terrorist.

  • 1966 Luna 9 touches down on the Moon

    The unmanned Soviet spacecraft was the first to achieve a soft landing there.

Illustration of stork, signifying birth

Births On This Day,
February 3

  • 1935 Johnny "Guitar" Watson

    American singer, guitarist

  • 1927 Kenneth Anger

    American actor, director, author

  • 1874 Gertrude Stein

    American poet, art collector

  • 1830 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

    English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

  • 1809 Felix Mendelssohn

    German pianist, composer, conductor

Illustration of tombstone, signifying death

Deaths On This Day,
February 3

  • 1985 Frank Oppenheimer

    American physicist

  • 1961 Anna May Wong

    American actress

  • 1924 Woodrow Wilson

    American politician, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate

  • 1820 Gia Long

    Vietnamese Emperor

  • 1468 Johannes Gutenberg

    German publisher, invented the Printing press