WHAT HAPPENED ON 3. FEBRUARY
Want to find out what all happened on 3. February

Governor of Kentucky William Goebel dies of wound sustained in an assassination attempt three days earlier in Frankfort, Kentucky. (3. February 1900)

The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax. (3. February 1913)

Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada burn down. (3. February 1916)

World War I: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany a day after the latter announced a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. (3. February 1917)

The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,633 meters) long. (3. February 1918)

The Hawke's Bay earthquake, New Zealand's worst natural disaster, kills 258. (3. February 1931)

The USAT Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survived. The Chapel of the Four Chaplains, dedicated by President Harry Truman, is one of many memorials established to commemorate the Four Chaplains story. (3. February 1943)

World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison. (3. February 1944)

World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 to 3,000 and dehouses another 120,000. (3. February 1945)

World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan. (3. February 1945)

The lowest temperature in North America is recorded in Snag, Yukon. (3. February 1947)

Senegalese political party Democratic Rally merges into the Senegalese Party of Socialist Action (PSAS). (3. February 1957)

Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community. (3. February 1958)

Deaths of rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. (3. February 1959)

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of "a wind of change", an increasing national consciousness blowing through colonial Africa, signalling that his Government is likely to support decolonisation. (3. February 1960)

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. (3. February 1961)

A protest by agricultural workers in Baixa de Cassanje, Portuguese Angola, turns into a revolt, opening the Angolan War of Independence, the first of the Portuguese Colonial Wars. (3. February 1961)

The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon. (3. February 1966)

Ronald Ryan, the last person to be executed in Australia, is hanged in Pentridge Prison, Melbourne. (3. February 1967)

In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is appointed Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress. (3. February 1969)