Events on February 2 39
Year 506
Alaric II, eighth king of the Visigoths promulgates the Breviary of Alaric (Breviarium Alaricianum or Lex Romana Visigothorum), a collection of "Roman law".
Year 880
Battle of Lüneburg Heath: King Louis III is defeated by the Norse Great Heathen Army at Lüneburg Heath in Saxony.
Year 962
Translatio imperii: Pope John XII crowns Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor in nearly 40 years.
Year 1141
The Battle of Lincoln, at which Stephen, King of England is defeated and captured by the allies of Empress Matilda.
Year 1207
Terra Mariana, eventually comprising present-day Latvia and Estonia, is established.
Year 1461
Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Mortimer's Cross is fought in Herefordshire, England.
Year 1709
Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring Daniel Defoe's adventure book Robinson Crusoe.
Year 1868
Pro-Imperial forces captured Osaka Castle from the Tokugawa shogunate and burned it to the ground.
Year 1876
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed.
Year 1899
The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia's capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.
Year 1925
Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.
Year 1935
Leonarde Keeler administers polygraph tests to two murder suspects, the first time polygraph evidence was admitted in U.S. courts.
Year 1942
The Osvald Group is responsible for the first, active event of anti-Nazi resistance in Norway, to protest the inauguration of Vidkun Quisling.
Year 1943
World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end when Soviet troops accept the surrender of the last German troops in the city.
Year 1966
Pakistan suggests a six-point agenda with Kashmir after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.
Year 1971
The international Ramsar Convention for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands is signed in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran.
Year 1980
Reports surface that the FBI is targeting allegedly corrupt Congressmen in the Abscam operation.
Year 1987
After the 1986 People Power Revolution, the Philippines enacts a new constitution.
Year 1990
Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress and promises to release Nelson Mandela.
Year 2000
First digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realized by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments.
Year 2004
Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men's singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.
Year 2005
The Government of Canada introduces the Civil Marriage Act. This legislation would become law on July 20, 2005, legalizing same-sex marriage.
Year 2012
The ferry MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Papua New Guinea near the Finschhafen District, with an estimated 146-165 dead.