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Explore 2 February

Explore 2 February: the pope crowns Otto I emperor in Rome, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gives the United States half of Mexico, Soviet Russia recognises Estonia at Tartu and F. W. de Klerk announces the end of the ban on the ANC. Meet Talleyrand, James Joyce and Shakira, born on 2 February.

This day through time →8 verified events across 5 eras

⌛8Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙8Born
Today ✦4Lives
Remembered ☆1Sporting
Moments ♫1Culture
Stories ☉1Observances
The seal of Otto I as emperor, inscribed OTTO IMP AUG, from a 1913 catalogue of German imperial seals.
The seal of Otto I as emperor, inscribed OTTO IMP AUG, from a 1913 catalogue of German imperial seals.
Image creditOtto Posse · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
962

The pope crowns Otto I emperor in Rome

Otto I, king of the Germans, had beaten back the Magyar raiders at the Lechfeld in 955 and made himself master of northern Italy. When Pope John XII was threatened by the Italian king Berengar, he called on Otto for help.

Otto came to Rome and was crowned emperor by the pope on 2 February 962, reviving the western imperial title that Charlemagne had held. Days later the two agreed the Privilegium Ottonianum, setting out the rights of emperor and pope. The empire Otto founded, later called the Holy Roman Empire, lasted until 1806.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Otto I ↗
The US exchange copy of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in its velvet case with the seal (US National Archives).
The US exchange copy of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in its velvet case with the seal (US National Archives).
Image creditGovernments of USA and Mexico · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1848

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican-American War

The United States annexed Texas in 1845 and went to war with Mexico the next year over its border and its ambitions in California. American troops captured Mexico City in September 1847, and the Mexican government withdrew to the north.

The treaty was signed on 2 February 1848 at Guadalupe Hidalgo, just north of the capital. Mexico gave up about 55 per cent of its territory, including present-day California, Nevada and Utah and most of Arizona and New Mexico, and accepted the Rio Grande as the border of Texas, in return for 15 million dollars. The United States now stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US National Archives: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) ↗
Plaques in Estonian and Russian on the building at Vanemuise 35, Tartu, where the peace treaty was signed in 1920.
Plaques in Estonian and Russian on the building at Vanemuise 35, Tartu, where the peace treaty was signed in 1920.
Image creditAlma Pater · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.
1920

Soviet Russia recognises Estonia at Tartu

Estonia declared its independence in February 1918, as the Russian Empire collapsed, and then had to fight both the Red Army and German forces to survive. By the end of 1919 the Estonian War of Independence had been fought to a standstill.

On 2 February 1920, in the university city of Tartu, Estonia and Soviet Russia signed a peace treaty in which Russia recognised Estonia’s independence and renounced ‘for ever’ all claim to its people and territory. Estonia still marks the anniversary, and the treaty is at the heart of its argument that the Soviet occupation of 1940 was illegal.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia: Tartu Peace, 2 February 1920 ↗
F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela shake hands at the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 1992.
F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela shake hands at the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 1992.
Image creditCopyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org) · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
1990

F. W. de Klerk announces the end of the ban on the ANC

For three decades South Africa’s apartheid government had banned the African National Congress and other movements against white minority rule, and Nelson Mandela had been in prison since 1962. By the late 1980s the country was isolated by sanctions and torn by unrest.

On 2 February 1990, opening Parliament in Cape Town, the new president, F. W. de Klerk, announced that the ANC, the Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party were unbanned and that Mandela would be released without conditions. Mandela walked free nine days later, and four years of negotiations led to South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. De Klerk and Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: South African History Online: F. W. de Klerk’s speech to Parliament, 2 February 1990 ↗
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PEOPLE

Born Today

Talleyrand
Image creditPierre-Paul Prud'hon · CC0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1754

Talleyrand

French diplomat who served the Revolution, Napoleon and the restored kings in turn.

James Joyce
Image creditUnknown · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1882

James Joyce

Irish writer of Dubliners, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Image creditChristian Lambiotte · CC BY 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1926

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing

President of France from 1974 to 1981.

Stan Getz
Image creditSAS Scandinavian Airlines · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1927

Stan Getz

American jazz saxophonist who helped bring bossa nova to the world with The Girl from Ipanema.

Shakira
Image creditJunta de Andalucía · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1977

Shakira

Colombian singer and songwriter of Hips Don’t Lie and Waka Waka.

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SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

Roger Federer, photographed in 2015.
Roger Federer, photographed in 2015.
Image creditTatiana from Moscow, Russia · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
2004

Roger Federer becomes the world’s number one

The Swiss player Roger Federer had won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2003. In January 2004 he won the Australian Open, and on 2 February 2004, aged 22, he rose to the top of the men’s world rankings, overtaking Andy Roddick.

He stayed there for a record 237 weeks in a row, until Rafael Nadal replaced him in August 2008, and he was number one for 310 weeks in all. By the time he retired in 2022 he had won 20 Grand Slam singles titles, including eight at Wimbledon.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: ATP Tour: Roger Federer rises to No. 1 for the first time in 2004 ↗
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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

The blue cover of the first edition of Ulysses, published in Paris by Shakespeare and Company in 1922.
The blue cover of the first edition of Ulysses, published in Paris by Shakespeare and Company in 1922.
Image creditJames Joyce · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1922

James Joyce’s Ulysses is published on his fortieth birthday

James Joyce’s novel follows Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and the young Stephen Dedalus through a single day in Dublin, 16 June 1904. Parts of it appeared in an American magazine, but they were ruled obscene, and no established publisher in Britain or America would touch the book.

Sylvia Beach, the American owner of the Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company, offered to publish it. After months of struggle with French printers and Joyce’s endless corrections, the first copies arrived on 2 February 1922, Joyce’s fortieth birthday. It was banned in the United States until 1933 and is now counted among the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Ulysses ↗
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LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Bertrand Russell
Image creditBassano Ltd · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1970

Bertrand Russell

British philosopher and mathematician, Nobel laureate and campaigner against nuclear weapons.

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

Schoolchildren taking part in World Wetlands Day in Pakistan, 2 February 2015.
Schoolchildren taking part in World Wetlands Day in Pakistan, 2 February 2015.
Image creditPowell.Ramsar · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Annual

World Wetlands Day

On 2 February 1971 countries meeting in the Iranian city of Ramsar, on the Caspian Sea, adopted the Convention on Wetlands, the first global treaty to protect a type of habitat. World Wetlands Day has marked the anniversary since 1997, with events around the world about the marshes, lakes, rivers and coasts that store water and shelter wildlife.

Source: Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar): World Wetlands Day ↗
HISTORY & TIMELINE

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Follow 2 February chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 8 verified events and the sources behind them.

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