What Happened On This Day – February 3
1998 20 people die in the Cavalese cable car disaster
The wings of a low-flying U.S. military aircraft cut the aerial tramway's cables, causing the cabin to plunge 80 meters.
1989 Paraguay's dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, is overthrown
Stroessner had come to power in 1954 with a military coup.
1972 The deadliest snowstorm in history kills 4000
The Iran Blizzard lasted a week and left whole villages without survivors.
1969 Yasser Arafat becomes leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
Even after his death in 2011, Arafat remained a highly controversial figure, many Arabs praising him as a freedom fighter while many Israelis denouncing him as a terrorist.
1966 Luna 9 touches down on the Moon
The unmanned Soviet spacecraft was the first to achieve a soft landing there.
Births On This Day – February 3
1935 Johnny "Guitar" Watson
American singer, guitarist
1927 Kenneth Anger
American actor, director, author
1874 Gertrude Stein
American poet, art collector
1830 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1809 Felix Mendelssohn
German pianist, composer, conductor
Deaths On This Day – February 3
1985 Frank Oppenheimer
American physicist
1961 Anna May Wong
American actress
1924 Woodrow Wilson
American politician, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate
1820 Gia Long
Vietnamese Emperor
1468 Johannes Gutenberg
German publisher, invented the Printing press