On This Day in History February 3 ​Historical Events​ ​1451 Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire ​1509 Battle of Diu: Portuguese Armada defeats a Mamluk Egyptian fleet in a naval battle at the port of Diu, India, establishing Portuguese trading control in the Indian Ocean ​1870 Iowa ratifies the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing suffrage for all races and colors ​1928 Paleoanthropologist Davidson Black reports his findings on the ancient human fossils found at Zhoukoudian, China, in the journal Nature and declares them to be a new species he names 'Sinanthropus pekinensis' (now known as 'Homo erectus') The Hastings post office damaged after the 1931 earthquake ​1931 New Zealand's worst natural disaster, the Hawke's bay earthquake, kills 256 and injures thousands, devastating Napier and the Hawke's Bay region ​1966 First soft landing on the Moon, by the Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 More Historical Events ​Famous Birthdays​ ​Ferdinand Magellan​ ​1480 - 1521 ​Felix Mendelssohn​ ​1809 - 1847 ​Robert Gascoyne-Cecil​ ​1830 - 1903 ​Pretty Boy Floyd​ ​1904 - 1934 Also Fred Lynn (73) and Daddy Yankee (48) More Famous Birthdays ​Famous Deaths​ ​Woodrow Wilson​ ​1856 - 1924 ​Griselda Blanco​ ​1943 - 2012 More Famous Deaths ​America’s First Female Doctor​ Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree and the first woman on the British medical register, was born on this day. Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell