March 2nd in history

March 2nd
Texas Independence Day

also on this day in:
1776 Americans begin shelling British troops in Boston
1793 Sam Houston's birthday (1st President of Texas)
1807 Congress bans slave trade effective January 1, 1808
1825 1st grand opera in US sung in English, New York NY
1836 Republic of Texas declares independence from Mexico
1858 Frederick Cook, New Orleans, patents a cotton-bale metallic tie
1861 US Congress creates Dakota & Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska & Utah territories
1863 Congress authorizes track width of 4'8½" for Union Pacific RR
1877 Rutherford B Hayes (R) declared President despite Samuel J Tilden (D) winning the popular vote, but is 1 electoral vote shy of victory
1901 Hawaii's 1st telegraph company opens
1907 General Louis Botha named premier of Transvaal ( we all know where that is, right? it was one of the founding provinces of the Union of South Africa, with its regional capital in Pretoria, from 1910 until 1994. The province no longer exists, and its territory now forms the provinces of Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga and part of the North West Province. )
1909 Mel Ott's birthday - 1st National League baseball player to hit 500 homeruns!
1917 Jones Act: Puerto Rico territory created, US citizenship granted 1917 Desi Arnaz born in Cuba - I Love Lucy fame
1919 1st congress of Communist International opens at the Kremlin
1923 Time magazine debuts 1925 Nationwide road numbering system & US shield marker adopted
1927 Babe Ruth becomes highest paid baseball player ($70,000 per year)
1931 Mikhail S. Gorbachev born - Soviet Secretary General 1985-1991
1938 Landslides & floods cause over 200 deaths (Los Angeles CA)
1939 Massachusetts Legislature votes to ratify the Bill of Rights; 147 years late! 1943 George Benson born - jazz/blues guitarist
1946 Ho Chi Minh elected President of North Vietnam
1949 1st automatic street light (New Milford CT)
1949 Lucky Lady II (USAF B-50 Superfortress), completes 1st nonstop round-the-world flight at Fort Worth TX, covering 23,452 miles in 94 hours
1950 Silly Putty invented
1958 Ian Woosnam born - Welsh golfer
1962 JFK announces US will resume above ground nuclear testing
1962 Wilt Chamberlain scores incredible 100 points in an NBA game
1962 Jon Bon Jovi born - rocker
1969 1st test flight of the supersonic Concorde
1969 Phil Esposito becomes 1st NHL Player to score 100 points in a season
1972 Pioneer 10 launched for Jupiter flyby ( which it passed by on December 3, 1973. The last, very weak signal from Pioneer 10 was received on January 23, 2003, when it was 7.5 billion miles (12 billion kilometres) from Earth.
1983 Final episode of MASH; 125,000,000 viewers
1984 Iran offensive against Iraq fails

Don't know how long I'll keep this daily history lesson going, but it's kind of fun! and you might want to check out the next post again - I've updated the info on the saguaro after a question from a reader!