Today in History

February 2

1848 - Mexico signs the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

1876 - American baseball’s National League forms with team from eight cities.

1878 - Greece declares war on Turkey.

1913 - Grand Central Terminal opens in New York City.

1919 - Monarchy is proclaimed in Portugal.

1924 - Caliphate is abolished by Turkey’s National Assembly.

1943 - German troops surrender to Russians in Stalingrad.

1971 - Idi Ameen assumes power in Uganda, following a coup that ousted the sitting president Milton Obote.

1989 - South Africa’s last apartheid President P.W. Botha resigns.

1990 - South Africa lifts a 30year ban on the African National Congress.

1991 - An earthquake jolts Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing at least 109 people.

1992 - Serbian officials and a Serb leader agree to support a UN peace plan for Croatia.

1996 - Hollywood legend Gene Kelly, a dancer and entertainer, dies at 83.

1998 - A Cebu Pacific Air DC-9 aircraft crashes in southern Philippines, killing all 104 aboard.

1999 - A Russian built Antonov-12 transport plane crashes on the houses in Luanda, Angola, kills 28 people.

2002 - Crown Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands weds Argentine Maxima Zorreguieta in a civil ceremony.

2007 - Britain records its first outbreak of potentially lethal H5N1 bird flu in poultry.

2009 - Hillary Rodham Clinton is sworn in as US Secretary of State.

2013 - Suicide bombers attack a military check post in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan, killing 13 soldiers and 11 civilians.

2014 - Scottish Stephen Gallacher becomes the first golfer to defend the Omega Dubai Desert Classic title.

2015 - An Egyptian court sentences 183 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death on charges of killing 16 police officers.

2016 - The World Health Organisation declares an international emergency over the explosive spread of Zika virus.