March 2 in History

The siege of Rome took place on 2 March 537 – 12 March 538 AD and it was the city's first siege during the Gothic War (535–554) between the defending Byzantine Empire's forces under the leadership of General Belisarius against a numerically superior Ostrogothic (Goths) force under King Vitiges. The siege was the first major encounter between the forces of the two opponents, and played a decisive role in the subsequent development of the war. Belisarius prepared the fortification of Rome for the upcoming siege and organized the city's defense with about 5,000 troops, installed artillery on the walls, and recruited citizens to assist in manning the walls. The Goths established fortified camps around Rome and attempted to cut its water supply. They soon launched an assault against Rome on multiple fronts using siege towers, battering rams, and ladders, but the defenders repulsed the Gothic attacks. The failure of the Gothic assault turned the siege into a prolonged struggle of attrition. Gothic forces captured the port of Portus and attempted to further isolate Rome. The food shortages and disease increasingly affected the population, who placed pressure on Belisarius to act. Byzantine reinforcements eventually reached the city, enabling Belisarius to make extensive use of cavalry, including mounted archers, in sorties against the besiegers. After an unsuccessful attempt to defeat the Goths in open battle, Belisarius largely relied on the city's fortifications, cavalry hit-and-run tactics to effectively besiege the besiegers. A temporary armistice gave the Byzantines time to strengthen their defenses and increase pressure against the Goths, who also had food shortages issues. The siege ended in March 538 after Byzantine forces under John the Sanguinary captured Ariminum (modern-day Rimini), a strategic city near the Gothic capital of Ravenna. Vitiges abandoned the siege on 12 March and withdrew north with his army to capture Ariminum.

Louis V (c. 966 or 967 – 22 May 987), also known as Louis the Lazy (French: Louis le Fainéant), was a king of West Francia from 979 (co-reigning first with his father Lothair until 986) to his early death in 987. During his reign, the nobility essentially ruled the country. Dying childless, Louis V was the last Carolingian monarch in West Francia.

The Siege of Nicaea, or Siege of Iznik (Ottoman Turkish: فتحِ ازنيق, romanized: Feth-i İznik), by the forces of Orhan I from 1328 to 1331, resulted in the conquest of the key Byzantine city of Nicaea (nowadays İznik) by the Ottomans. It played an important role in the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.

Gjergj Kastrioti (also known as Skanderbeg; c. 1405 – 17 January 1468) was an Albanian nobleman and military leader who led the League of Lezhë in the Ottoman-Albanian Wars until his death. Skanderbeg is considered to be a major figure of medieval Albanian history and today is the national hero of Albania. A member of the noble Kastrioti family, Skanderbeg was sent as a hostage to the Ottoman court. He graduated from the Enderun School and entered the service of the Ottoman sultan Murad II (r. 1421–1451) for the next twenty years. His rise through the ranks culminated in his appointment as sanjakbey of the Sanjak of Dibra in 1440. During the Battle of Nish in 1443, he deserted the Ottomans and became the ruler of Krujë and nearby areas extending from Petrelë to Modrič. In March 1444, he established the League of Lezhë, with support from local noblemen, and unified the Albanian principalities. In 1451, through the Treaty of Gaeta, Skanderbeg recognized de jure the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Naples over Albania, ensuring a protective alliance, although he remained a de facto independent ruler. In 1460–61, he supported Ferdinand I of Naples (r. 1458–1494) in his wars and led an Italian expedition against John II of Anjou (r. 1453–1470). In 1463, he was earmarked to be the chief commander of the crusading forces of Pope Pius II, but the Pope died while the armies were still gathering and the greater European crusade never took place. Together with Venetians, he fought against the Ottomans during the First Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–1479) until his death. Skanderbeg ranks high in the military history of that time as the most persistent—and ever-victorious—opponent of the Ottoman Empire during its heyday. The central folk hero of the Albanians, Skanderbeg became a central figure in the Albanian National Awakening of the 19th century. He is honored in modern Albania and is commemorated with many monuments and cultural works. Skanderbeg's military skills presented a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion, and many in Western Europe considered him to be a model of Christian resistance against the Ottomans.

George of Kunštát and Poděbrady (23 April 1420 – 22 March 1471), also known as Poděbrad or Podiebrad (Czech: Jiří z Poděbrad; German: Georg von Podiebrad), was the sixteenth King of Bohemia, who ruled in 1458–1471. He was a leader of the Hussites, but moderate and tolerant toward the Catholic faith. His rule was marked by great efforts to preserve peace and tolerance between the Hussites and Catholics in the religiously divided Crown of Bohemia – hence his contemporary nicknames: "King of two peoples" (Czech: král dvojího lidu) and "Friend of peace" (přítel míru). During the 19th century, in period of the so-called Czech National Revival, he began to be praised (even somewhat idealized) as the last Czech national monarch (in terms of ethnic awareness), a great diplomat and a courageous fighter against the domination of the Catholic Church. In modern times he is remembered mainly for his idea and attempt to establish common European Christian institutions, which is now seen as an early historical vision of European unity.

The Burgundian Wars (1474–1477) were a conflict between the Burgundian State and the Old Swiss Confederacy and its allies. Open war broke out in 1474, and the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was defeated three times on the battlefield in the following years and was killed at the Battle of Nancy in 1477. The Duchy of Burgundy and several other Burgundian lands then became part of France, and the Burgundian Netherlands and Franche-Comté were inherited by Charles's daughter, Mary of Burgundy, and eventually passed to the House of Habsburg upon her death because of her marriage to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor.

The College of Arms (or Heralds' College) is the heraldic authority for England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and some Commonwealth realms. It has no jurisdiction in Scotland, as the heraldic authority for Scotland is the Court of the Lord Lyon. The College is a royal corporation consisting of professional officers of arms who act on behalf of the Crown in matters of heraldry, including the granting of new coats of arms; genealogical research; and the recording of pedigrees. The College is also responsible for matters relating to the flying of flags on land, and maintains the official registers of flags and other national symbols. It is also involved in the planning of ceremonial occasions such as coronations, state funerals, the annual Garter Service, and the State Opening of Parliament. The officers of arms accompany the monarch on many of these occasions. King Richard III of England founded the College by royal charter in 1484. The College has been located in the City of London since its foundation, and has been at its present site on Queen Victoria Street since 1555. There are thirteen officers or heralds, who are appointed by the monarch: three Kings of Arms, six Heralds of Arms, and four Pursuivants of Arms. There are also seven officers extraordinary, who take part in ceremonial occasions but are not part of the College. The entire corporation is overseen by the Earl Marshal, a hereditary office always held by the Duke of Norfolk.

Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese mariner, explorer and nobleman. His discovery of the first direct maritime route between Europe and India via the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean from Malindi in Kenya to Kozhikode was to open up European exploration of, and commerce with, India, and is considered a landmark event and a turning point in world history.

The Great Fire of Meireki (明暦の大火, Meireki no taika), also known as the Great Furisode Fire, destroyed 60–70% of Edo (now Tokyo), then de facto capital city of Japan, on 2 March 1657, the third year of the Meireki Era. The fire lasted for three days and, in combination with a severe blizzard that quickly followed, is estimated to have killed over 100,000 people.

The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence or simply the American Revolution, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and, commanded by George Washington, defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation. In 1763, after the British Empire gained dominance in North America following its victory over the French in the Seven Years' War, tensions and disputes began escalating between the British and the Thirteen Colonies, especially following passage of the Stamp and Townshend Acts. The British Army responded by seeking to occupy Boston militarily, leading to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. In mid-1774, with tensions escalating even further between the British Army and the colonies, the British Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts, an attempt to disarm Americans, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War. In June 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to incorporate colonial-based Patriot militias into a central military, the Continental Army, and unanimously appointed Washington its commander-in-chief. Two months later, in August 1775, George III declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress formalized the war, passing the Lee Resolution on July 2, and, two days later, unanimously adopting the Declaration of Independence, on July 4. In March 1776, in an early win for the newly-formed Continental Army under Washington's command, following a successful siege of Boston, the Continental Army successfully drove the British Army out of Boston. British commander in chief William Howe responded by launching the New York and New Jersey campaign, which resulted in Howe's capture of New York City in November. Washington responded by clandestinely crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton. In the summer of 1777, as Howe was poised to capture Philadelphia, the Continental Congress fled to Baltimore. In October 1777, a separate northern British force under the command of John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga in an American victory that proved crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable possibility. France signed a commercial agreement with the revolutionaries, followed by a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition undertook a scorched earth campaign against British-allied factions of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also Iroquois). Native American raids on the American frontier, however, continued to be a problem. Also, in 1779, Spain allied with France against Great Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez, though Spain did not formally ally with the Americans. Howe's replacement Henry Clinton intended to take the war against the Americans into the Southern Colonies. Despite some initial success, British General Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American army in Yorktown, Virginia, in September and October 1781. The French navy cut off Cornwallis's escape and he was forced to surrender in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but fighting largely ceased in North America. In the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States, bringing the American Revolutionary War to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Great Britain's conflicts with France and Spain, and forced Great Britain to cede Tobago, Senegal, and small territories in India to France, and Menorca, West Florida, and East Florida to Spain.

Claude Chappe (French: [klod ʃap]; 25 December 1763 – 23 January 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore system that eventually spanned all of France. His system consisted of a series of towers, each within line of sight of others, each supporting a wooden mast with two crossarms on pivots that could be placed in various positions. The operator in a tower moved the arms to a sequence of positions, spelling out text messages in semaphore code. The operator in the next tower read the message through a telescope, then passed it on to the next tower. This was the first practical telecommunications system of the industrial age, and was used until the 1850s when electric telegraph systems replaced it.

Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and the Middle East during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe.

The Bank of England (BoE) is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one of the bankers for the government of the United Kingdom, it is the world's second oldest central bank, after Sweden's (1668). It is considered to be one of the world's "Big Four" central banks.

The United States Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a bicameral legislature, including a lower body, the U.S. House of Representatives, and an upper body, the U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The Argentine War of Independence was a set of military events from 1810 to 1825 which resulted in the consolidation of Argentina as an independent country from Spanish rule. The historiographical term encompasses battles and military feats such as the Crossing of the Andes. Formal independence was declared in 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán.

In the history of Sri Lanka, the Kandyan Convention (Sinhala: උඩරට ගිවිසුම, romanized: Udarata Giwisuma) was a treaty signed on 2 March 1815 between the British governor of Ceylon, Sir Robert Brownrigg, and the chiefs of the Kandyan Kingdom, British Ceylon, whereas, according to the Sinhala version of the Convention, the signatories were the chiefs of Sihale (note 1), for the deposition of King Sri Vikrama Rajasinha and ceding of the kingdom's territory to the British Crown. It was signed in the Magul Maduwa (Royal Audience Hall) of the Royal Palace of Kandy.

Alexander II (29 April 1818 – 13 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 2 March 1855 until his assassination on 13 March 1881. He is also known as Alexander the Liberator because of his historic Edict of Emancipation, which officially abolished Russian serfdom in 1861. Crowned on 7 September 1856, he succeeded his father Nicholas I and was succeeded by his son Alexander III. In addition to emancipating serfs across the Russian Empire, Alexander's reign brought several other liberal reforms, such as improving the judicial system, relaxing media censorship, eliminating some legal restrictions on Jews, abolishing corporal punishment, promoting local self-government, strengthening the Imperial Russian Army and the Imperial Russian Navy, modernizing and expanding schools and universities, and diversifying the Russian economy. However, many of these reforms were met with intense backlash and cut back or reversed entirely, and Alexander eventually shifted towards a considerably more conservative political stance following an assassination attempt against him in 1866. The foreign policy of Alexander was relatively pacifist, especially in comparison to his father's, although he did continue the Russian Empire's expansionist campaigns into the Far East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. As a consequence of the Great Game and the Crimean War, Alexander was particularly opposed to and wary of the United Kingdom. He was also notably supportive of the United States; Alexander backed the Union during the American Civil War and even sent Russian warships to New York Harbor and San Francisco Bay to deter attacks by the Confederate Navy. In 1867, he sold Alaska to the United States, owing partly to his concern that it would be nearly impossible to prevent the Russian Empire's North American colonies, which bordered British Columbia and the North-Western Territory, from falling into British hands in the event of another war. Seeking peace and stability in the European continent, he moved away from bellicose France upon the fall of Napoleon III in 1870 and subsequently joined Germany and Austria-Hungary in the League of the Three Emperors in 1873. Under Alexander's leadership, the Russian Empire engaged in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, resulting in the independence of Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia from the Ottoman Empire. His expansionism on the Far Eastern front led to the Amur Annexation, and he also approved Russian military plans on the Caucasian front that culminated in the Circassian genocide. While he was disappointed by the results of the Congress of Berlin in 1878, he abided by that agreement. Among his greatest domestic challenges was a Polish uprising in January 1863, to which he responded by stripping Poland's separate constitution and directly incorporating the kingdom into the Russian Empire. In the period preceding his assassination in 1881, Alexander had been proposing additional parliamentary reforms to counter the rise of nascent revolutionary and anarchistic movements in the region.

The Great Slave Auction (also called the Weeping Time) was an auction of enslaved Americans of African descent held at Ten Broeck Race Course, near Savannah, Georgia, United States, on March 2 and 3, 1859. Slaveholder and absentee plantation owner Pierce Mease Butler authorized the sale of approximately 436 men, women, children, and infants to be sold over the course of two days. The sale's proceeds went to satisfy Butler's significant debt, much from gambling. The auction was considered the largest single sale of slaves in U.S. history until the 2022 discovery of an even larger auction of over 600 slaves in Charleston, South Carolina.

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877, and was the Commanding General of the Union Army, leading it to victory in the American Civil War in 1865. Grant was born in Ohio and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1843. He served with distinction in the Mexican–American War, but returned to civilian life impoverished in 1854. In 1861, shortly after the Civil War began, Grant joined the Union Army. He rose to prominence after securing victories in the western theater in 1862. In 1863, he led the Vicksburg campaign that gave Union forces control of the Mississippi River and dealt a major strategic blow to the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general and command of all Union armies after his victory at Chattanooga. Grant fought Robert E. Lee through the Overland Campaign, which ended when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson promoted Grant to General of the Army. Grant broke with Johnson over Reconstruction policies. A war hero, drawn in by his sense of duty, Grant was unanimously nominated by the Republican Party and elected president in 1868. As president, Grant stabilized the post-war economy, supported Reconstruction and the Fifteenth Amendment, and prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan. An effective civil rights executive, Grant signed a bill to create the United States Department of Justice and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans. In 1871, he created the first Civil Service Commission. Grant was re-elected in the 1872 presidential election, but was inundated by executive scandals during his second term. His response to the Panic of 1873 was ineffective in halting the Long Depression, which contributed to the Democrats winning the House majority in 1874. Grant's Native American policy was to assimilate Indians into Anglo-American culture. In his foreign policy, the Alabama Claims against Britain were peacefully resolved, but the Senate rejected his proposal to annex Santo Domingo. During the disputed 1876 presidential election, he facilitated the approval by Congress of a compromise. Leaving office in 1877, Grant undertook a world tour, becoming the first president to circumnavigate the world. In 1880, he was unsuccessful in obtaining the Republican nomination for a third term. In 1885, dying of throat cancer, Grant wrote his memoirs, which were posthumously published and became a major critical and financial success. At his death, he was the most popular American and was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. Due to the pseudohistorical and negationist mythology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy spread by Confederate sympathizers around the turn of the 20th century, historical assessments and rankings of Grant's presidency suffered considerably before they began recovering in the 21st century.

The Reconstruction Acts, or the Military Reconstruction Acts, sometimes referred to collectively as the Reconstruction Act of 1867, were four landmark U.S. federal statutes enacted by the 39th and 40th United States Congresses over the vetoes of President Andrew Johnson from March 2, 1867 to March 11, 1868, establishing martial law in the Southern United States and the requirements for the readmission of those states which had declared secession at the start of the American Civil War. The requirements of the Reconstruction Acts were considerably more stringent than the requirements imposed by Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson between 1863 and 1867 and marked the end of that period of "presidential" reconstruction and the beginning of "congressional" or "radical" reconstruction.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes ( ; October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th president of the United States, serving from 1877 to 1881. He served as Cincinnati's city solicitor from 1858 to 1861 and was known as a staunch abolitionist who defended refugee slaves in court proceedings. At the start of the Civil War, Hayes left a fledgling political career to join the Union army. He was wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain in 1862. Hayes earned a reputation for bravery in combat, rising in the ranks to serve as brevet major general. After the war, he was a prominent member of the "Half-Breed" faction of the Republican Party. Hayes served in Congress from 1865 to 1867 and was elected governor of Ohio, serving two consecutive terms from 1868 to 1872 and half of a third two-year term from 1876 to 1877 before his swearing-in as president. Hayes won the Republican nomination in the 1876 United States presidential election. In the disputed general election, he defeated Democratic nominee Samuel J. Tilden while losing the popular vote. Neither candidate initially secured enough electoral votes to win, but Hayes prevailed after a Congressional Commission awarded him 20 contested electoral votes in the alleged Compromise of 1877. The electoral dispute was reportedly settled in an agreement between Southern Democrats and Whiggish Republican businessmen whereby Hayes would be president but end both federal support for Reconstruction and the military occupation of the former Confederacy, though the existence of such a deal remains heavily disputed. Hayes's administration was influenced by his belief in meritocratic government and equal treatment without regard to wealth, social standing, or race. One of the defining events of his presidency was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which Hayes resolved by calling in the U.S. Army against the railroad workers. It remains the deadliest conflict between workers and strikebreakers in American history. As president, Hayes implemented modest civil service reforms that laid the groundwork for further reform in the 1880s and 1890s. He vetoed the Bland–Allison Act of 1878, which put silver money into circulation and raised nominal prices, but Congress overrode his veto. Hayes also arbitrated a territorial dispute between Argentina and Paraguay after the Paraguayan War and appointed John Marshall Harlan to the U.S. Supreme Court. His policy toward western Native Americans anticipated the assimilationist program of the Dawes Act of 1887. At the end of his term, Hayes kept his pledge not to run for reelection and retired to his home in Ohio. Historians and scholars generally rank Hayes as an average to below-average president.

Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days, which was longer than those of any of her predecessors, constituted the Victorian era, a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.

The United States Steel Corporation is a Japanese-owned American steel company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that maintains production facilities at several additional locations in the U.S. and Central Europe. The company produces and sells steel products, including flat-rolled and tubular products for customers in industries across automotive, construction, consumer, electrical, industrial equipment, distribution, and energy. Operations also include iron ore and coke production facilities. In 2025, U.S. Steel was acquired by Nippon Steel in a deal arranged with the United States government. U.S. Steel ranked eighth among global steel producers in 2008 and 24th by 2022, remaining the second-largest in the U.S. behind Nucor. Renamed USX Corporation in 1986, it reverted to U.S. Steel in 2001 after spinning off its energy assets, including Marathon Oil. In December 2023, Nippon Steel announced a $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, retaining its name and Pittsburgh headquarters. The deal faced opposition from the United Steelworkers, the Trump presidential campaign, and the Biden administration, which formally blocked it in January 2025. U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel sued the administration, claiming the block was unlawful. The acquisition was finalized on June 18, 2025, making U.S. Steel a subsidiary of Nippon Steel North America, with an oversight role for the federal government of the United States through a golden share.

The Platt Amendment was United States legislation enacted as part of the Army Appropriations Act of 1901 that defined the relationship between the United States and Cuba following the Spanish–American War. It stipulated seven conditions for the withdrawal of United States troops remaining in Cuba at the end of the Spanish–American War, and an eighth condition that Cuba sign a treaty accepting these seven conditions. It helped to define the terms of Cuba–United States relations. On June 12, 1901, the Cuban Constitutional Assembly approved the Platt Amendment, which had been proposed by the United States of America. The document came with a withdrawal of U.S troops from Cuba after the Spanish-American War. It amended its constitution to contain, word for word, the seven applicable demands of the Platt Amendment. On May 22, 1903, Cuba entered into a treaty with the United States to make the same required seven pledges: the Cuban–American Treaty of Relations of 1903. Two of the seven pledges were to allow the United States to intervene unilaterally in Cuban affairs, and a pledge to lease land to the United States for naval bases on the island. The Cuban–American Treaty of Relations of 1934 replaced the 1903 Treaty of Relations, and dropped three of the seven pledges. The 1903 Treaty of Relations was used as justification for the Second Occupation of Cuba from 1906 to 1909. On September 29, 1906, Secretary of War and future U.S. president William Howard Taft initiated the Second Occupation of Cuba when he established the Provisional Government of Cuba under the terms of the treaty in Article three, declaring himself Provisional Governor of Cuba. On October 23, 1906, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 518, ratifying the order. On May 29, 1934, the United States and Cuba signed the 1934 Treaty of Relations that in its first article overrides the 1903 Treaty of Relations.

The Martha Washington Hotel (later known as Hotel Thirty Thirty, Hotel Lola, King & Grove New York, and The Redbury New York) is a building at 30 East 30th Street (later 29 East 29th Street) in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1903 and operated as a women-only hotel for 95 years, the 13-story structure was designed by Robert W. Gibson in the Renaissance Revival style for the Women's Hotel Company. The hotel's namesake, Martha Washington, was the first First Lady of the United States. It is a designated city landmark. The facade is largely made of brick and stone and contains classical design elements such as brackets, dentils, ornate lintels, quoins, and rustication. On 29th and 30th Streets, the facade is divided vertically into seven bays and horizontally into a two-story base and ten-story upper section, with a recessed top floor. The lower two stories originally contained amenity areas for guests, including a lobby, dining rooms, reception rooms, and ballroom. Generally, men were only permitted to enter the ground-level spaces and some of the second-story spaces. The upper stories originally contained 200 short-term guest rooms and 400 long-term residences, which were downsized to 250 hotel rooms by the 2020s. The Woman's Hotel Company was established in 1897 and sought to identify a site and raise money over the following four years. Construction began in mid-1901, and the Martha Washington Hotel opened on March 1, 1903, as a hotel and a long-term residence. Though there was initially high demand for the rooms, the hotel struggled, leading its owners to lease it out in 1907. The Manger family operated the Martha Washington from 1920 to 1948, and the Sillins Hotel Corporation operated the hotel from 1950 to 1997. The hotel was converted to a mixed-sex tourist hotel in 1998 and, after a renovation, was renamed the Thirty Thirty in 2000. The hotel was further renovated in 2011, 2014, 2016, and 2019, undergoing several name and ownership changes during that decade. As The Redbury New York, it saw decreased patronage during the COVID-19 pandemic and became a temporary shelter for migrants in 2023.

The Jones–Shafroth Act (Pub. L. 64–368, 39 Stat. 951, enacted March 2, 1917), officially called An Act to provide a civil government for Porto Rico, and for other purposes and later the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1917, or unofficially the Organic Act of Puerto Rico, is an organic act of the 64th United States Congress that was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on March 2, 1917. The Act expanded the civil administration of the insular government of Puerto Rico, which was established under the federal jurisdiction of the United States as the local governance of an unincorporated territory through the Foraker Act of 1900. It served as the primary organic law for the government of Puerto Rico and its relation with the United States until it was superseded by the Constitution of Puerto Rico in 1952 as per the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950 and its Pub. L. 82–447 joint resolution. Bearing the names of its sponsors, Representative William Atkinson Jones, (D-Virginia), chairman of the House Committee on Insular Affairs, and Senator John Shafroth, (D-Colorado), chairman of the Committee on Pacific Islands and Puerto Rico, the Jones–Shafroth Act, which operated as a de facto constitution, established a bill of rights based on the United States Bill of Rights and granted statutory birthright United States citizenship to anyone born in the archipelago and island on or after April 11, 1899. The Act expanded the executive and legislative branches of the insular government of Puerto Rico. It created the executive departments of Justice, Education, Finance, Interior, Labor and Agriculture, and Health, with their heads, the first two appointed by the President of the United States, and the rest appointed by the Governor, who was also appointed by the President, forming an executive council to the Governor. It formed a legislative 19-member Senate elected by the residents of Puerto Rico, and increased the membership and term length of the House of Representatives to 39 popularly elected members serving four-year terms. It also increased to four years the term length of the Resident Commissioner, a non-voting member to the United States House of Representatives elected by the residents of Puerto Rico. Additionally, it exempted Puerto Rican bonds from federal, state, and local taxes regardless of where the bondholder resides. The Jones–Shafroth Act provided an advance in local self-government for Puerto Rico. By creating the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, composed of a popularly elected Senate and House of Representatives, it gave the residents of Puerto Rico control over the legislative branch. However, the President and the United States Congress possessed authorization to veto and annul any law enacted by the Legislative Assembly. While the President retained control of the executive and judicial branches through his authority to appoint the Governor, Attorney General, Commissioner of Education, and Justices of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, an opportunity for participation in the formulation of executive policies was provided to the residents of Puerto Rico by authorizing the Governor to appoint four of six heads of executive departments with the advice and consent of the popularly elected Senate.

The Communist International (abbreviated as Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Marxist political international that advocated world communism and existed from 1919 to 1943. Emerging from the collapse of the Second International during World War I, it was founded at a congress in Moscow convened by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP), which aimed to create a new international body committed to revolutionary socialism and the overthrow of capitalism worldwide. Initially, the Comintern operated with the expectation of imminent proletarian revolutions in post-war Europe, particularly in the former German Empire, which were seen as crucial for the survival and success of the Russian Revolution. Its early years were characterized by attempts to foment and coordinate revolutionary uprisings and the establishment of disciplined communist parties across the globe, often demanding strict adherence to the "Twenty-one Conditions" for admission. As these revolutionary hopes faded by the early 1920s, the Comintern's policies shifted, notably with the adoption of the "united workers' front" tactic, aiming to win over the working masses from reformist socialist parties. Throughout the 1920s, the Comintern underwent a process of "Bolshevization", increasing the centralization of its structure and the dominance of the RCP within its ranks. This process intensified with the rise to power of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. The "Third Period" (1928–1933) saw the Comintern adopt an ultra-sectarian line and denounce social democratic parties as "social fascism". From 1934, the Comintern shifted to the Popular Front policy, advocating broad alliances with socialist and even liberal parties against fascism. This was formally adopted at its Seventh World Congress in 1935. The Comintern played a significant role in organizing support for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, including the formation of the International Brigades. However, this period also coincided with the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, during which many Comintern officials and foreign communists residing in Moscow were arrested and executed. With the signing of the Nazi–Soviet Pact in August 1939, the Comintern again changed its line, denouncing the war between Nazi Germany and the Western powers as an "imperialist war" and abandoning its anti-fascist stance until the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. As a gesture to its Allies in World War II, Stalin unilaterally dissolved the Comintern on 15 May 1943. While its formal structures were dismantled, mechanisms of Soviet control over the international communist movement persisted and were later partially revived through the Cominform (1947–1956).

Pehr Evind Svinhufvud af Qvalstad served as the president of Finland from 1931 to 1937. Before 1917, as a lawyer, judge, and politician in the Grand Duchy of Finland, Svinhufvud played a major role in the movement for Finnish independence, and he presented the Declaration of Independence to the Parliament on 15 December [O.S. 4 December] 1917.

King Kong is a 1933 American pre-Code adventure horror monster film directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, with special effects by Willis H. O'Brien and music by Max Steiner. Produced and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, King Kong is the first film in the self-titled franchise, combining live-action sequences with stop-motion animation using rear-screen projection. The idea for the film came when Cooper decided to create a motion picture about a giant gorilla struggling against modern civilization. The film stars Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Bruce Cabot. The story follows said gorilla dubbed Kong who feels affection for a beautiful young woman offered to him as a sacrifice. King Kong premiered in New York City on March 2, 1933, to many rave reviews, with praise for its stop-motion animation and musical score. During its initial run, the film earned a profit of $650,000, which increased to $2,847,000 by the time of its re-release in 1952. Various scenes were deleted by censors, but they were restored in 1970. Later, in 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2010, the film was ranked by Rotten Tomatoes as the greatest horror film of all time and the fifty-sixth greatest film of all time. Various new editions of the film have also been released. A sequel, entitled Son of Kong, was made the same year as the original film, and several more films have been made, including two remakes in 1976 and 2005. The film's novelization, published prior to its release, entered the public domain through a failure to include a copyright notice, making the characters and story public domain; the film's copyright is set to expire in 2029 in the US. Analysis of the film has included such topics as racial stereotypes, Ann's relationship with the other characters, and the struggle between nature and civilization.

A cardinal is a senior member of the clergy of the Catholic Church. As titular members of the clergy of the Diocese of Rome, they serve as advisors to the pope, who is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. Cardinals are chosen and formally created by the pope, and typically hold the title for life. Collectively, they constitute the College of Cardinals. The most solemn responsibility of the cardinals is to elect a new pope in a conclave when the Holy See is vacant. With a few historical exceptions, popes are elected from among the College of Cardinals.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea took place in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) during World War II when aircraft of the U.S. Fifth Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) attacked a Japanese convoy carrying troops to Lae, New Guinea, as part of Operation 81. Most of the Japanese task force was destroyed, and Japanese troop losses were heavy.

Captain in the U.S. Army (USA), U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), U.S. Air Force (USAF), and U.S. Space Force (USSF) is a company-grade officer rank, with the pay grade of O-3. It ranks above first lieutenant and below major. It is equivalent to the rank of lieutenant in the Navy/Coast Guard officer rank system and is different from the higher Navy/Coast Guard rank of captain. The insignia for the rank consists of two silver bars, with slight stylized differences between the Army/Air Force version and the Marine Corps version.

Norodom Sihanouk was King, Chief of State and Prime Minister of Cambodia. He is known as Samdech Euv or by his nickname The Pink Prince. During his lifetime, Cambodia was under various regimes, from French colonial rule, a Japanese puppet state (1945), an independent kingdom (1953–1970), a military republic (1970–1975), the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979), a Vietnamese-backed communist regime (1979–1989), a transitional communist regime (1989–1993) to eventually another kingdom.

Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also referred to as Burma, is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. It is bordered by India and Bangladesh to the northwest, China to the northeast, Laos and Thailand to the east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the south and southwest. The country's capital city is Naypyidaw, while its largest city is Yangon.

Wilton Norman Chamberlain was an American professional basketball player. Standing 7 feet 1 inch (2.16 m) tall, he played center in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 14 seasons. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, and was elected to the NBA's 35th, 50th, and 75th anniversary teams. Chamberlain is widely considered to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is a part of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and is one of the six armed forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the Air Force was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.

Toulouse is a city in Southern France, the prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, 150 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea, 230 km (143 mi) from the Atlantic Ocean and 680 km (420 mi) from Paris. It is the fourth-largest city in France after Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, with 514,819 inhabitants within its municipal boundaries (2023); its metropolitan area has a population of 1,529,112 inhabitants (2023). Toulouse is the central city of one of the 22 metropolitan councils of France. Between the 2014 and 2020 censuses, its metropolitan area was the third fastest growing among metropolitan areas larger than 500,000 inhabitants in France.

Rhodesia, officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970 onwards, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia was the de facto successor to the self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia following its unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom in 1965. Throughout this fourteen-year period, Rhodesia faced internal conflict and political unrest. Following the Lancaster House Agreement in 1979 and general elections held under a universal suffrage in 1980, the territory finally gained de jure independence and international recognition as the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Pioneer 10 is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. It was the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt and the first of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. The mission was managed by NASA Ames Research Center in California, and the spacecraft was built by TRW Inc.

Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest. With an area of almost 1.8 million km2 (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the fourth-largest country in Africa and the Arab world, and the 16th-largest in the world. The country claims 32,000 square kilometres of southeastern Algeria, south of the Libyan town of Ghat. The capital and largest city is Tripoli, located in the northwest and containing over a million of Libya's seven million people.

Czechoslovakia was a country in Central Europe. The country was bordered by Austria and Hungary to the south, Germany to the west and northwest, Poland to the northeast, and Ukraine to the southeast. Czechoslovakia had a hilly and mostly mountainous landscape that covered an area of 127,906 square kilometers (49,385 sq mi) with a mostly temperate continental and oceanic climate. The capital and largest city was Prague; other major cities and urban areas include Brno, Ostrava, Plzeň, Liberec, Bratislava and Košice.

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. was an English comic actor, filmmaker, singer, film editor and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from his childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977.

The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and is capable of holding uncompressed stereo audio. First released in Japan in October 1982, the CD was the second optical disc format to reach the market, following the larger LaserDisc (LD). In later years, the technology was adapted for computer data storage as CD-ROM and subsequently expanded into various writable and multimedia formats. By 2007, over 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.

Bugulma Airport is an airport in Tatarstan, Russia located 12 km north of Bugulma. It is a small airport with several hangars, servicing small prop transports. The 2000 m runway was constructed in 2000–2001. Foreign pilots need permission and a Russian Navigator, since Bugulma is a Russian language only airport.

The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, aiming to foster economic integration among its member states. It was subsequently renamed the European Community (EC) upon becoming integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed European Union (EU) in 1993. In the popular language, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately used in the wider sense of the plural European Communities, in spite of the latter designation covering all the three constituent entities of the first pillar. The EEC was also known as the European Common Market (ECM) in the English-speaking countries, and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it was officially renamed as such in 1993. In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist and its institutions were directly absorbed by the EU. This made the Union the formal successor institution of the Community.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.

The Transnistrian War was an armed conflict that broke out on 2 November 1990 in Dubăsari between pro-separatist forces, including the Transnistrian Republican Guard, militia and neo-Cossack units, which were supported by elements of the Russian 14th Army, and pro-government forces, including Moldovan troops and police.

Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south. Yerevan is the capital, largest city and financial center.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is a national laboratory for high-energy particle physics, located in Batavia, Illinois, United States, near Chicago. It is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and operated by the University of Chicago through the subordinate Fermi Forward Discovery Group LLC.

Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASA's Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational Shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, in May 2011. STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorization of STS-135 by the United States Congress, Atlantis became the last shuttle to fly.

Galileo was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989, by Space Shuttle Atlantis, during STS-34. Galileo arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit an outer planet.

The war in Afghanistan was a prolonged armed conflict lasting from 2001 to 2021. It began with an invasion by a United States–led coalition under the name Operation Enduring Freedom in response to the September 11 attacks (9/11) carried out by the Taliban-allied and Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda. The Taliban were expelled from major population centers by American-led forces supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, thus toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate. In 2004, the U.S.-backed Islamic Republic was established, but by then, the Taliban, led by founder Mullah Omar, had reorganized and begun an insurgency against the Afghan government and coalition forces. The conflict ended as the 2021 Taliban offensive reestablished the Islamic Emirate. It was the longest war in United States military history, surpassing the Vietnam War by six months.

The Iraq War, also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United States–led coalition, which resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein. During the US occupation of Iraq, the conflict persisted as an insurgency that arose against coalition forces and the newly established Iraqi government. US forces were officially withdrawn in 2011. In 2014, the US became re-engaged in Iraq, leading a new coalition under Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, as the conflict evolved into the ongoing Islamic State insurgency.

Monterrey is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. The city anchors the Monterrey metropolitan area, Mexico's second largest metropolitan area with a population of 5,347,000 as of 2026, and is often considered the richest city in Latin America. According to the 2020 census, Monterrey proper has a population of 1,142,194. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, Monterrey is a major business and industrial hub in Mexico and the Americas.

On March 2 and 3, 2012, a large and deadly tornado outbreak occurred over a large section of the Southern United States into the Ohio Valley region, spawning up to 70 tornadoes in its wake. A moderate risk of severe weather was issued for March 2 a day in advance for a large area from near Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Dayton, Ohio as an intense storm system tracked across the region in a very high shear environment, and intense tornadoes were possible. On the morning of March 2, it was upgraded and a high risk of severe weather was issued for Middle Tennessee and central Kentucky, later extended into Central and Southern Indiana and southern Ohio. The Storm Prediction Center mentioned the potential for significant tornadoes. Multiple PDS tornado watches were issued shortly thereafter.

The Oscar selfie is the popular name of a selfie taken by actor Bradley Cooper at the 86th Academy Awards in 2014, featuring a variety of celebrities. The host of the ceremony, Ellen DeGeneres, urged viewers of the ceremony to make a tweet with the picture the most re-tweeted tweet in history, which was accomplished before the broadcast was over at over 2 million retweets. The virality of the tweet caused Twitter to temporarily crash and be offline. The photo was taken with a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and was estimated to have been worth up to $1 billion in advertising for Samsung, which donated $1 to charity for each retweet, to a maximum of $3 million. The picture also sparked controversy over copyright laws in the United States in regards to user-generated content on social media after DeGeneres granted the license to the Associated Press, despite Cooper having taken the photo. It also inspired the "sealfie", a trend by Canadian Inuit protesting DeGeneres's donations to groups opposed to seal hunting. In subsequent years, it has been named one of the most influential and important pictures of all time.

The Battle of Kherson took place on 1 March 2022 on the southern front of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Russian forces captured the city on 1 March 2022 after brief combat with local territorial defense fighters, and then began a military occupation of the city.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party with an active paramilitary wing whose military and security activities have been prohibited by the Lebanese government since March 2026, amid the 2026 Lebanon war. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. Its armed strength was assessed to be equivalent to that of a medium-sized army in 2016.