📜 This Day in History

February 3

• 1047Emperor Henry III declared Drogo of Hauteville to be count of all Apulian and Calabrian Normans.
• 1862Moldavia and Wallachia formally united, creating the Romanian United Principalities.
• 1933Adolf Hitler announced that the conquest of Lebensraum in Eastern Europe, and its "ruthless Germanisation", were the geopolitical objectives of Reich foreign policy.
• 1972The deadliest blizzard in history began in Iran and continued for a week leaving more than 4,000 people dead.
• 1998Despite a large international movement advocating the commutation of her sentence to life imprisonment, Karla Faye Tucker became the first woman to be executed in the United States since 1984.
• 2023A freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, releasing hazardous materials into the surrounding area.

Born on this day

• 1809Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1847)
• 1874Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright, (died 1946)
• 1898Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect, designed the Finlandia Hall and Aalto Theatre (died 1976)
• 1909Simone Weil, French mystic and philosopher (died 1943)