On This Day — 2 April

2025

Liberation Day tariffs: U.S. President Donald Trump announces sweeping worldwide tariffs.

Liberation Day tariffs

2024

Viertola school shooting: A 12-year-old pupil is killed and two others injured by a shooter of the same age in Vantaa, Finland.

Viertola school shooting

2021

At least 49 people are killed in a train derailment in Taiwan after a truck accidentally rolls onto the track.

2021 Hualien train derailment

2021

A Capitol Police officer is killed and another injured when an attacker rams his car into a barricade outside the United States Capitol.

United States Capitol Police

2020

COVID-19 pandemic: The total number of confirmed cases reach one million.

COVID-19 pandemic

2015

Gunmen attack Garissa University College in Kenya, killing at least 148 people and wounding 79 others.

Garissa University College attack

2015

Four men steal items worth up to £200 million from an underground safe deposit facility in London's Hatton Garden area in what has been called the "largest burglary in English legal history."

Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary

2014

A spree shooting occurs at the Fort Hood army base in Texas, with four dead, including the gunman, and 16 others injured.

2014 Fort Hood shootings

2012

A mass shooting at Oikos University in California leaves seven people dead and three injured.

2012 Oikos University shooting

2012

UTair Flight 120 crashes after takeoff from Roshchino International Airport in Tyumen, Russia, killing 33 and injuring 10.

UTair Flight 120

2011

India wins the Cricket World Cup for the second time in history under the captaincy of MS Dhoni.

India national cricket team

2006

Over 60 tornadoes break out in the United States; Tennessee is hardest hit with 29 people killed.

Tornado

2004

Islamist terrorists involved in the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks attempt to bomb the Spanish high-speed train AVE near Madrid; the attack is thwarted.

Islamism

2002

Israeli forces surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, into which armed Palestinians had retreated.

Israel

1992

In New York, Mafia boss John Gotti is convicted of murder and racketeering and is later sentenced to life in prison.

New York (state)

1992

Forty-two civilians are massacred in the town of Bijeljina in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bijeljina massacre

1991

Rita Johnston becomes the first female Premier of a Canadian province when she succeeds William Vander Zalm (who had resigned) as Premier of British Columbia.

Rita Johnston

1989

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Havana, Cuba, to meet with Fidel Castro in an attempt to mend strained relations.

Soviet Union

1986

Alabama governor George Wallace, a former segregationist, best known for the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door", announces that he will not seek a fifth four-year term and will retire from public life upon the end of his term in January 1987.

Alabama

1982

Falklands War: Argentina invades the Falkland Islands.

Falklands War

1980

United States President Jimmy Carter signs the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act.

Jimmy Carter

1979

A Soviet bio-warfare laboratory at Sverdlovsk accidentally releases airborne anthrax spores, killing 66 plus an unknown amount of livestock.

Sverdlovsk anthrax leak

1976

Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigns as leader of Cambodia and is placed under house arrest.

Norodom Sihanouk

1975

Vietnam War: Thousands of civilian refugees flee from Quảng Ngãi Province in front of advancing North Vietnamese troops.

Vietnam War

1969

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 crashes into the Polica mountain near Zawoja, Poland, killing 53.

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 (1969)

1930

After the mysterious death of Empress Zewditu, Haile Selassie is proclaimed emperor of Ethiopia.

Zewditu

1921

The Autonomous Government of Khorasan, a military government encompassing the modern state of Iran, is established.

Autonomous Government of Khorasan

1917

American entry into World War I: President Wilson asks the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.

American entry into World War I

1912

The ill-fated RMS Titanic begins sea trials.

Titanic

1911

The Australian Bureau of Statistics conducts the country's first national census.

Australian Bureau of Statistics

1885

Canadian Cree warriors attack the village of Frog Lake, killing nine.

Cree

1865

American Civil War: Defeat at the Third Battle of Petersburg forces the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate government to abandon Richmond, Virginia.

Third Battle of Petersburg

1863

American Civil War: The largest in a series of Southern bread riots occurs in Richmond, Virginia.

American Civil War

1801

French Revolutionary Wars: In the Battle of Copenhagen a British Royal Navy squadron defeats a hastily assembled, smaller, mostly-volunteer Dano-Norwegian Navy at high cost, forcing Denmark out of the Second League of Armed Neutrality.

French Revolutionary Wars

1800

Ludwig van Beethoven leads the premiere of his First Symphony in Vienna.

Ludwig van Beethoven

1792

The Coinage Act is passed by Congress, establishing the United States Mint.

Coinage Act of 1792

1755

Commodore William James captures the Maratha fortress of Suvarnadurg on the west coast of India.

Commodore (Royal Navy)

1725

J. S. Bach's cantata Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, BWV 6, is first performed in Leipzig on Easter Monday.

Johann Sebastian Bach

1513

Having spotted land on March 27, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León comes ashore on what is now the U.S. state of Florida, landing somewhere between the modern city of St. Augustine and the mouth of the St. Johns River.

Juan Ponce de León

1285

Election of Pope Honorius IV following the death of Pope Martin IV.

Pope Honorius IV

1107

Seljuq sultan Muhammad I Tapar begins the siege of Shahdiz, a fortress of the Nizari Ismailis.

Seljuk Empire