On March 2, 1776, General George Washington orders American artillery forces to begin bombarding Boston from their positions at Lechmere Point, northwest of the city center—in advance of bringing in the big guns. It marked the beginning of the end of the Siege of Boston and Britain's wartime occupation of Boston.

During the Texas Revolution, a convention of American Texans meets at Washington-on-the-Brazos and declares the independence of Texas from Mexico. The delegates chose David Burnet as provisional president and confirmed Sam Houston as the commander in chief of all Texan forces. The Texans also adopted a constitution that protected the free practice of slavery, which had been prohibited by Mexican law. Meanwhile, in San Antonio, Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s siege of the Alamo continued, and the fort’s 185 or so American defenders waited for the final Mexican assault.

Theodor Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss, the author and illustrator of such children’s books as “The Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham,” is born in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 2, 1904. Geisel, who used his middle name (which was also his mother’s maiden name) as his pen name, wrote 48 books—including some for adults—that have sold well over 200 million copies and been translated into multiple languages. Dr. Seuss books are known for their whimsical rhymes and quirky characters, which have names like the Lorax and the Sneetches and live in places like Whoville.

Barely a month before the United States enters World War I, President Woodrow Wilson signs the Jones-Shafroth Act, granting U.S. citizenship to the inhabitants of Puerto Rico.

On March 2, 1943, the Battle of the Bismarck Sea begins when U.S. and Australian land-based planes launch an offensive against a convoy of Japanese ships in the western Pacific.

On March 2, 1962, Philadelphia Warriors center Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points against the New York Knicks during a home game in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It was the first time that a professional basketball player had scored 100 points in a single contest; the previous record, 78, had been set by Chamberlain earlier in the season. During the game, Chamberlain sank 36 field goals and 28 foul shots, both league records.

On March 2, 1966, in Dearborn, Michigan, the Ford Motor Company celebrates the production of its 1 millionth Mustang, a white convertible. The sporty, affordable vehicle was officially launched two years earlier, on April 17, 1964, at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York. That same day, the new car debuted in Ford showrooms across America; almost immediately, buyers snapped up nearly 22,000 of them. More than 400,000 Mustangs were sold within that first year, exceeding sales expectations.

In a dramatic confirmation of the growing rift between the two most powerful communist nations in the world, troops from the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China fire on each other at a border outpost on the Ussuri River in the eastern region of the USSR, north of Vladivostok. In the years following this incident, the United States used the Soviet-Chinese schism to its advantage in its Cold War diplomacy.

On March 2, 1978, news outlets report one of history’s most famous cases of body-snatching: Sometime in the middle of the previous night, two men had stolen the corpse of the revered film actor Sir Charles Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey, located in the hills above Lake Geneva, near Lausanne, Switzerland.