March 2, Black teen refuses to give up her bus seat

Today is Monday, March 2, the 61st day of 2026. There are 304 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On March 2, 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks’ more famous act of defiance, Claudette Colvin, a Black high school student in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger.

Also on this date:

In 1807, the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves was signed by President Thomas Jefferson. (The domestic trade of enslaved people was not affected.)

In 1861, the state of Texas, having seceded from the Union, was admitted to the Confederacy.

In 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, despite Tilden winning the popular vote. Tilden remains the only presidential candidate to get over 50% of the popular vote (50.9%) and not win the presidency.

In 1943, the three-day Battle of the Bismarck Sea began in the southwest Pacific during World War II; U.S. and Australian warplanes inflicted heavy damage on an Imperial Japanese convoy.

In 1962, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks, a single-game NBA record that still stands. Philadelphia won by a score of 169-147.

In 1985, the U.S. government approved a screening test for AIDS that detected antibodies to the virus, allowing possibly contaminated blood to be excluded from the blood supply.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, that a grieving father’s pain over mocking protests near his Marine son’s funeral had to yield to First Amendment protections for free speech in a decision favoring the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas.

In 2020, a tornado outbreak began in Tennessee, killing 24 people and causing massive destruction as at least six twisters tore through the state over two days.