On this day: 2 March

Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoth army under king Vitiges begins the siege of the capital. Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate; he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off.

Fall of Nicaea to the Ottoman Turks after a siege.

The League of Lezhë, an alliance of regional chieftains, was established in Venetian Albania with Skanderbeg as their commander.

George of Poděbrady is chosen as the king of Bohemia.

Burgundian Wars: The Old Swiss Confederacy hands Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, a major defeat in the Battle of Grandson in Canton of Neuchâtel.

Vasco da Gama's fleet visits the Island of Mozambique.

French inventor Claude Chappe and his brothers first demonstrated the semaphore telegraph, a system to convey information by means of visual signals, using towers with pivoting crossarms.

Napoleon Bonaparte is appointed to command the Army of Italy.

The U.S. Congress passes the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.

Argentine War of Independence: A royalist fleet defeats a small flotilla of revolutionary ships in the Battle of San Nicolás on the River Plate.

Texas Revolution: At a convention of delegates in Washington-on-the-Brazos, the Mexican state of Texas adopted a declaration of independence, establishing the Republic of Texas.

Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.

The Great Slave Auction, the largest single sale of slaves in U.S. history, with more than 400 people sold, began in Georgia.

Ulysses S. Grant is promoted to lieutenant general, giving him command of all Union Armies.

The U.S. Congress passes the first Reconstruction Act.

The Electoral Commission awarded twenty disputed electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes, thus assuring his victory in the 1876 U.S. presidential election.

U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation and once the world's largest producer of steel, was founded by financier J. P. Morgan.

The U.S. Congress passes the Platt Amendment limiting the autonomy of Cuba, as a condition of the withdrawal of American troops.

In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.

The enactment of the Jones–Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.

Communist, revolutionary-socialist, and syndicalist delegates met in Moscow to establish the Communist International.

Finnish president P. E. Svinhufvud gives a radio speech, which four days later finally ends the Mäntsälä Rebellion and the far-right Lapua Movement that started it.

The film King Kong premieres in Radio City Music Hall and RKO Roxy in New York City.

The Steel Workers Organizing Committee, the precursor of the United Steel Workers of America, had a major success when it signed a collective-bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel.

Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope and takes the name Pius XII.

World War II: First German military units enter Bulgaria after it joins the Axis Pact.

World War II: Australian and U.S. air forces attacked and destroyed a large Japanese naval convoy in the Bismarck Sea, north of Papua New Guinea.

Norodom Sihanouk, king of Cambodia, abdicates the throne in favor of his father, Norodom Suramarit.

Playing for the Philadelphia Warriors, American basketball player Wilt Chamberlain (pictured) scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks, which remains an NBA record.

Led by General Ne Win, the Burmese military seized power in a coup d'état.

The Sound of Music (poster pictured) was released in American theatres; it became the highest-grossing film until 1971.

The Rhodesian monarchy was abolished by the government of Rhodesia, which declared the internationally unrecognised country to be a republic.

The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.

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".

As a cosmonaut on Soyuz 28, Czechoslovak military pilot Vladimír Remek (pictured) became the first person from outside the Soviet Union or the United States to go into space.

Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.

Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.

Nelson Mandela is elected deputy president of the African National Congress.

Battle at Rumaila oil field brings an end to the 1991 Gulf War.

Establishment of Kuwait Democratic Forum, center-left political organization in Kuwait.

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.

Start of the war in Transnistria.

Researchers at Fermilab in Illinois announced the discovery of the top quark, the most massive of all observed elementary particles.

Space Shuttle Endeavour launches from the Kennedy Space Center on STS-67, carrying the ASTRO-2 spacelab observatory.

Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.

The Oscar selfie, considered to be one of the most influential photographs of all time, was taken at the 86th Academy Awards ceremony.

A naming ceremony for the chemical elements moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson took place at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Russian forces captured the city of Kherson, the only regional capital to be taken during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.