On March 2…

1807 – Congress passed an act to abolish the slave trade. 

1861 – Texas declared its independence and seceded from the union.

 

1866 – The Excelsior Needle Company of Wolcottville, Connecticut began making sewing machine needles.

1903 – The Martha Washington Hotel opened for business in New York City. The hotel featured 416 rooms and was the first hotel exclusively for women, although men could dine in the restaurant.

 

1904 – Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born in Springfield, MA.

 

1917 – President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act, which granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans.

1925 – State and federal highway officials developed a nationwide route-numbering system and adopted the familiar U.S. shield-shaped numbered marker.  For example, in the east, there is U.S. 1 that runs from New England to Florida and in the west, the corresponding highway, U.S. 101, from Tacoma, WA to San Diego, CA.

 

1927 – Babe Ruth signed a 3-year contract with the New York Yankees for a guarantee of $70,000 a year, thus becoming baseball’s highest paid player.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS7Iq_I0i6M

 

1929 – Congress passed the Jones Act, which banned the actual consumption of alcohol.

1940 – W2XBS broadcast the first televised intercollegiate track meet on TV from Madison Square Garden in New York City.

1944 – A freight train carrying more than 650 people stopped in a tunnel in the Apennine Mountains near Salerno, Italy.  Whether the engineers stopped it, or the train stalled is unknown, but with engines idling, more than 500 of the passengers on board suffocated to death.

 

1958 – British geologist Dr. Vivian Fuchs reached McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea, thus completing the first crossing of Antarctica by land.  As a part of the International Geophysical Year, the Commonwealth of Nations organized the expedition, which covered 2,158 miles.

 

1962 – Wilt ‘The Stilt’ Chamberlain scored 100 points and broke an NBA record as the Philadelphia Warriors beat the New York Knicks 169-147.

1972 – NASA launched Pioneer 10 to Jupiter.

 

1974 – U.S. postage stamps jumped from eight to ten cents for first-class mail.

1978 – Two men stole the body of Charlie Chaplin from a cemetery in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.  Police eventually arrested the men on May 17 and recovered Chaplin’s remains.

 

1987 – Government officials reported that the median price for a new home had topped $100,000 for the first time.  The new figure price of $110,700 was up from $94,600.