Unix Timestamp: 1044144000
Sunday, February 2. 2003, 12:00:00 AM UTC

Sam Gagner of the Edmonton Oilers becomes just the thirteenth NHL player in history to record 8 points in one game, doing so against the Chicago Blackhawks. It is the first time the feat is attained since 1989. //www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/story/2012/02/03/sp-oilers-hawks.html (CBC)

Egyptian comedian Adel Imam is sentenced to three months in prison for insulting Islam. (//www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/02/egyptian-comic-adel-imam-jailed-islam ("The Guardian"))

The International Criminal Court announces it will investigate Israeli war crimes possibly committed during Operation Cast Lead.

Iran opens its first space center and launches a rocket into space.Iran Opens Space Center, Launches Rocket, Associated Press

A Palestiniansuicide bomber kills 1 and wounds 13 in a Dimona, Israel shopping center.Dimona bombing: Suicide attack in Israel first in a year, Associated Press

Rebels attack the capital of Chad, N'Djamena.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes its fourth assessment report, concluding that global climate change is very likely to have a predominantly human cause. //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm (BBC)

Chinese President Hu Jintao signs a series of economic deals with Sudan, which China has protected from UN sanctions. //news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6323017.stm (BBC)

The CIA admits that there was no imminent threat from weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

An 11-story apartment building collapses in Konya, Turkey, killing more than 90 residents.

Jóannes Eidesgaard becomes prime minister of the Faroe Islands.

U.S. President George W. Bush announces the formation of the Iraq Intelligence Commission, an independent, bipartisan inquiry presidential commission to probe into prewar intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction leading up to the decision to invade Iraq. Former Iraq Survey Group chief David Kay, who searched for weapons in Iraq, meets with Bush at the White House and maintains that Bush was right to go to war in Iraq and characterizes the Saddam Hussein regime as far more dangerous than even we anticipated when it was thought he had WMDs ready to deploy. //www.cnn.com/2004/US/02/02/sprj.nirq.iraq.wmd/index.html (See rationale for the Iraq War and Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq)

Hugo Chávez becomes President of Venezuela.

Apartheid: In South Africa, President F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to legally function again and promises to free Nelson Mandela.

One of Australia's worst crimes, the Anita Cobby murder, occurs.

Giovanni Vigliotto goes on trial for multiple counts of bigamy involving 105 women.

The Hama massacre begins in Syria.

February 3 ndash The New Mexico State Penitentiary Riot takes place 33 inmates are killed and more than 100 inmates injured.

Abscam: FBI personnel target members of the Congress of the United States in a sting operation.

The American Basketball Association is formed.

The word "Aerospace" is coined, from the words Aircraft (aero) and Spacecraft (space), taking into consideration that the Earth's atmosphere and outerspace is to be one, or a single realm.

The Tybee Bomb, a 7,600 pound (3,500 kg) Mark 15 hydrogen bomb, is lost in the waters off Savannah, Georgia.

Gamel Abdel Nasser is nominated as the first president of the United Arab Republic.

A coal gas explosion at the giant Bishop coal mine in Bishop, Virginia kills 37 men.

President Iskander Mirza of Pakistan lays the foundation-stone of the Guddu Barrage across the river Indus near Sukkur.

France prohibits U.N. involvement in Algeria.

The first nuclear-powered submarine, the , logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional "Nautilus" described in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".

The first nuclear-poweredsubmarine, the , logs its 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional \'\'Nautilus\'\' described in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".

In the United States, a mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient.

A tropical storm forms just north of Cuba moving northeast. The storm makes landfall in southern Florida the next day. It is the earliest reported landfall from a tropical storm, and the earliest formation of a tropical storm on record in the Atlantic basin.

George VI (King of the United Kingdom and his dominions, of Canada, of South Africa, of Australia, of New Zealand and of Ceylon) dies aged 56 after a long illness. He is succeeded by his daughter The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh (now Elizabeth II), who is on a visit to Kenya. She is simultaneously proclaimed Queen of Canada at Rideau Hall, Ottawa, Ontario.

The first issue of "Human Events" is published.

WWII: In Russia, the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end with the surrender of the German 6th Army.

WWII: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs an executive order directing the internment of Japanese Americans and the seizure of their property.

Vsevolod Meyerhold is executed in the Soviet Union on charges of treason and espionage. He is cleared of all charges 15 years later in the first waves of de-Stalinization

Hungary joins the Anti-Comintern Pact.

In a response to Georges Bonnet's speech of January 26, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, referring to Bonnet's alleged statement of December 6, 1938 accepting Eastern Europe as being in Germany's exclusive sphere of influence, protests that all French security commitments in that region are now off limits.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain states in the House of Commons that any German attack on France will be automatically considered an attack on Britain.

A second international conference on disarmament ends without results, It tries to limit the army sizes of the major powers, while Germany is entitled to 200,000, Germany leaves the conference because a plan postpones the limitations for 4 years.

"Ulysses", by James Joyce, is published in Paris on his 40th birthday by Sylvia Beach.

Charles Chaplin makes his film début in the comedy short "Making a Living".

The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne agrees that Australia's capital (Canberra) should be located between Sydney and Melbourne.

In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the first Groundhog Day is observed.

The Parkfield Earthquake occurs.

Greece declares war on Turkey.

The National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs is formed at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois it replaced the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players. Morgan Bulkeley of the Hartford Dark Blues is selected as the league's first President.

Battle of Montejurra-(Third Carlist War)-The new commander General Fernando Primo de Rivera marched on the remaining Carlist stronghold at Estella, where he met a force of about 1,600 men under General Carlos Calderón at nearby Montejurra. After a courageous and costly defence Calderón was forced to withdraw.

It is revealed that the famed Cardiff Giant is just carved gypsum and not the petrified remains of a human.

First railway opens in New Zealand, by Dun Mountain Copper Mining Company.

Dallas, Texas is incorporated as a city.

The Supreme Court of the United States under John Marshall rules in favor of Dartmouth College in the famous "Dartmouth College v. Woodward" case, allowing Dartmouth to keep its charter and remain a private institution.

French troops occupy the Papal States (Vatican).

In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.

The Articles of Confederation are ratified by Maryland, the 13th and final state to do so.

March ndash Riots break out in Socorro and spread to other towns.

Alexander Selkirk is rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe.

An earthquake hits the town of L'Aquila, Italy.

Jan van Riebeeck produces the first South African wine at the Cape of Good Hope.

New Amsterdam (later renamed New York City) is incorporated.

Battle of Inverlochy: The Covenanters are defeated by Montrose.

King Charles I of England is crowned, but without his wife, Henrietta Maria, who declines to participate in a non-Catholic ceremony.

Candlemas night) ndash First known production of William Shakespeare's comedy "Twelfth Night", in London.

The University of Jena is founded in Thuringia, Germany.

The Diet of Augsburg begins.

Battle of Baçente: The Portuguese under Christovão da Gama capture a Moslem-occupied hillfort in northern Ethiopia.

SpaniardPedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Battle of Diu: The Portuguese defeat a coalition of Indians, Muslims and Italians.

Battle of Mortimer\\\'s Cross: Yorkist troops led by Edward, Duke of York defeat Lancastrians under Owen Tudor and his son Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke in Wales.

Battle of Mortimer's Cross: Yorkist troops led by Edward, Duke of York defeat Lancastrians under Owen Tudor and his son Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke in Wales.

Genoese ships fleeing the Black Death plague in Kaffa stop in Constantinople, contaminating the city.

The agreement reorganizing the Byzantine Empire's affairs is finalized as Anna of Savoy's son John V Palaiologos marries Kantakouzenos' 15-year-old daughter Helena.

The Byzantinecivil war between John VI Kantakouzenos and the regency for John V Palaiologos ends with Kantakouzenos entering Constantinople.

Battle of Lincoln: Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester and Empress Matilda wrest control of the English throne from King Stephen.

The archbishop of Tarragona, Oleguer Bonestruga, very successfully preaches the Crusade in against the Moors in Catalonia.

Zhu Yu's book is the first to report the use of a magnetic compass for navigation at sea, although the first actual description of the magnetic compass is by another Chinese writer Shen Kuo in his "Dream Pool Essays" published in 1088.

Pope Callixtus II succeeds Pope Gelasius II as the 162nd pope.

In Toulouse, condemnation by the Church of the Petrobrusian heresy.

Knights Templar Founded by Hugh de Payns.

Councils of Toulouse and Reims.

In his "Pingzhou Table Talks" published in this year, the Song Dynasty Chinese author Zhu Yu writes of the earliest known use of separate hull compartments in ships.

Great Comet of 1106 first sighted.//cometography.com/lcomets/1106c1.html Cometography.com

Panic spreads throughout Europe that the end of the universe may be near, on the supposed 1,000th anniversary of the crucifixion of Christ, due to some unusually harsh spring weather. The Book of Revelation predicts the end of the earth after a 1000 year period.Revelation Chapter 20

Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, becomes King of Burgundy.

Pope John XII crowns Otto I the GreatHoly Roman Emperor.