12 Esfand 1402

Events

• 1859 (167 years ago) The two-day Great Slave Auction, once thought to be the largest such auction in United States history, begins.
• 1933 (93 years ago) The film King Kong premieres in Radio City Music Hall and RKO Roxy in New York City.
• 1955 (71 years ago) Norodom Sihanouk, king of Cambodia, abdicates the throne in favor of his father, Norodom Suramarit.
• 1977 (49 years ago) Libya becomes the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya as the General People's Congress adopts the "Declaration on the Establishment of the Authority of the People".
• 1992 (34 years ago) Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, San Marino, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, all of which (except San Marino) were former Soviet republics, join the United Nations.
• 2004 (22 years ago) War in Iraq: Al-Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
• 2017 (9 years ago) The elements Moscovium, Tennessine, and Oganesson are officially added to the periodic table at a conference in Moscow, Russia.
• 2026 The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah launches several projectiles into northern Israel as a response to the assassination of Ali Khamenei, formally initiating the 2026 Lebanon War.

Births

• 480 (1546 years ago) Benedict of Nursia, Italian Christian saint (died 543 or 547)
• 1459 (567 years ago) Pope Adrian VI,
• 1810 (216 years ago) Pope Leo XIII,
• 1824 (202 years ago) Bedřich Smetana, Czech pianist and composer (died 1884)
• 1876 (150 years ago) Pope Pius XII,
• 1931 (95 years ago) Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian lawyer and politician, the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2022)
• 1937 (89 years ago) Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algerian soldier and politician, 5th President of Algeria (died 2021)
• 1968 (58 years ago) Daniel Craig, English actor and producer

Deaths

• 274 (1752 years ago) Mani, Persian prophet and founder of Manichaeism (born 216)
• 1791 (235 years ago) John Wesley, English cleric and theologian (born 1703)
• 1835 (191 years ago) Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (born 1768)
• 1855 (171 years ago) Nicholas I, Russian emperor (born 1796)
• 1895 (131 years ago) Berthe Morisot, French painter (born 1841)
• 1930 (96 years ago) D. H. Lawrence, English novelist, poet, playwright, and critic (born 1885)
• 1939 (87 years ago) Howard Carter, English archaeologist and historian (born 1874)
• 1982 (44 years ago) Philip K. Dick, American philosopher and author (born 1928)

All 373 events, births and deaths of March 2