Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 March 2

Lionel Matthews (15 August 1912 – 2 March 1944) was an Australian Army officer during World War II who was posthumously awarded the George Cross, the highest non-combat award for heroism for members of the Australian armed forces at the time. Matthews served in the 27th Brigade during the Malayan campaign, and at the surrender of Singapore in 1942 became a prisoner of war (POW). He was awarded the Military Cross for courage, energy and ability under fire during this fighting. At Sandakan POW camp Matthews established an intelligence network, collecting information, weapons, medical supplies and radio parts, and making contact with organisations outside the camp. The group was betrayed, and Matthews was arrested, beaten, tortured and starved. He refused to provide any information, and was executed by firing squad. After the war he was awarded the George Cross in recognition of his gallant and distinguished services while in Japanese hands. (Full article...)

Tiffany & Co. flagship store

• ... that in 2017 you could finally have breakfast at Tiffany's (pictured)?
• ... that the British mycologist Denis Garrett, "one of the last 'string and sealing wax' scientists", once bought plastic lavatory cisterns for his laboratory to use in experiments?
• ... that sand in the stomach of the ocean surgeon helps to grind up its food?
• ... that Vera Wülfing-Leckie translated in Senegal a novel by Boubacar Boris Diop written in the Wolof language, titled Doomi Golo: The Hidden Notebooks in English?
• ... that Langston Hughes's poems "Mother to Son", "Harlem", and "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" have been described as "anthems of black America"?
• ... that Miki Satō would write song lyrics while commuting by train from home to university?
• ... that after winning the 2004 Football League Second Division play-off Final, some of the Brighton & Hove Albion players dropped the trophy while celebrating and damaged it?
• ... that poet Mary Custis Vezey, an eleventh-generation American, published much of her work in Russian?

Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic

• ​More than 300 girls are kidnapped from a secondary school by armed bandits in Zamfara, Nigeria.
• In tennis, Naomi Osaka wins the women's singles and Novak Djokovic wins the men's singles at the Australian Open (both winners pictured).
• Porfirije is enthroned as the 46th Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
• NASA's Perseverance rover, carrying the Ingenuity helicopter, successfully lands on Mars.

March 2

Carl Sylvius Völkner

• 1444 – The League of Lezhë, an alliance of regional chieftains, was established in Venetian Albania with Skanderbeg as its commander.
• 1865 – New Zealand Wars: Carl Sylvius Völkner (pictured), a Protestant missionary, was killed by Hauhau militants in Ōpōtiki for working as an agent for George Grey, Governor-General of New Zealand.
• 1937 – The Steel Workers Organizing Committee, precursor to the United Steel Workers of America, had a major success when it signed a collective-bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel.
• 1962 – Led by General Ne Win, the Burmese military seized power in a coup d'état.
• 2017 – A naming ceremony for the chemical elements moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson took place at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.