Category: Today

February 3 is one of those “good days/​bad days” dates:

• Nice: 1783 – Spain recognized United States independence.
• Not-​so-​nice: 1787 – Militia led by General Benjamin Lincoln crushed the remnants of Shays’ Rebellion in Petersham, Massachusetts.
• Great: 1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
• Horrible: 1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
• But we can celebrate birthdays of two worthies: Walter Bagehot, famed editor of The Economist and author of Lombard Street, was born in 1826, while economist Greg Mankiw was born on this date in 1958.

On February 2, 1887, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania celebrated the first Groundhog Day. On the same day in 1976, the Groundhog Day gale hit the north-​eastern United States and south-​eastern Canada.

In 2009, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe officially devalued the Zimbabwean dollar for the third and final time, making Z$1 trillion now only Z$1 of the new currency, equivalent to Z$10 septillion before the first devaluation. Politicians in Zimbabwe looked up, saw their shadow, and realized that they had only a couple months more of their inflation binge. Indeed, the legalization of trading currencies, the previous month, had sealed the fate of Zimbabwe’s independent dollar. The Zimbabwean dollar was abandoned officially on the 9th of April, 2009.

On January 31, 1849, the Corn Laws were abolished in the United Kingdom, one of the most impressive and far-​reaching anti-​protectionist moves of all time. “Corn” stood for all grains, including wheat, oats, barley, etc., and the free-​trade agitation by John Bright and Richard Cobden (pictured) was one of the main impetuses for the reform. 

On January 30, 1835, Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson, but failed, subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen. That was the first attempt on the life of a sitting U.S. president.

Sadly, January 30, 1948, was the date upon which Indian pacificist leader Mohandes K. Gandhi was shot and killed.

On January 29, 1761, Albert Gallatin was born. Gallatin served as the fourth United States Secretary of the Treasury — a post in which he served longer than any other in American history — advanced the anthropological and linguistic study of native Americans, and became the subject of a biography by Henry Adams. Called the “father of American ethnology,” he has been honored with a 1967 U.S. stamp (pictured) as well as many placenames, including the Gallatin National Forest in Montana.

On January 28, 1912, Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari died. The last major economist of the French Liberal School, heir to Frederic Bastiat, and a prominent advocate of laissez faire, Molinari’s last book, “The Society of To-​morrow” (the only one of his many books to be translated into English in his day) envisioned a future of extremely limited government, arguing against the growing tide of socialism and war that was becoming the then-​near future.