Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 March 3

Sevastopol was the last of three ships in the Petropavlovsk class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1890s. Named for the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, the ship was part of the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur, a Russian naval base acquired from China in 1898. One of the first ships to use Harvey nickel-steel armor and Popov radios, she displaced 11,854 long tons (12,044 t) at full load and was 369 feet (112.5 m) long overall, and mounted a main battery of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns in two twin turrets. She was launched on 1 June 1895 and completed in 1899. Sevastopol saw service in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. Slightly damaged during a surprise attack on Port Arthur in early February, she later participated in several attempts to break out from the besieged port, including the Battle of the Yellow Sea, where she was damaged by several shells but managed to make it back to port with the remnants of the Russian Fleet. Immediately after the surrender of Port Arthur, Sevastopol was scuttled to prevent her capture by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The remains of the ship still lie outside the entrance to Port Arthur. (Full article...)

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• At least 29 people are killed and 130 injured in a mass stabbing at Kunming Railway Station in China.
• Amid tensions in Crimea, Ukraine, the Federation Council of Russia authorizes President Vladimir Putin (pictured) to use force.
• Militants kill 59 students in Yobe State, Nigeria.
• The Winter Olympics close with host nation Russia winning the most gold medals and most medals overall.
• Matteo Renzi is sworn in as Prime Minister of Italy.

Recent deaths: Alain Resnais – Paco de Lucía – Harold Ramis

March 3: Clean Monday (Eastern Christianity, 2014); Shrove Monday (Western Christianity, 2014); Liberation Day in Bulgaria (1878); Casimir Pulaski Day in Illinois (2014); Hinamatsuri in Japan

• 1861 – The Emancipation Manifesto of Tsar Alexander II was proclaimed, abolishing serfdom in Imperial Russia.
• 1885 – American Telephone & Telegraph (first logo pictured), at one point the world's largest telephone company, was incorporated in New York.
• 1924 – The Free State of Fiume, a short-lived independent free state located in the modern city of Rijeka, Croatia, was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy.
• 1945 – Second World War: The Royal Air Force accidentally bombed the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood in the Dutch city of The Hague, killing 511 evacuees.
• 2009 – The building housing the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne, one of the the largest communal archives in Europe, collapsed.

More anniversaries: March 2 – March 3 – March 4

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The Bode Museum on Museum Island in Berlin, Germany, named after its founding director, is a museum of antiquities including sculpture, Byzantine art and numismatics. Designed by Ernst von Ihne and completed in 1904, the building was restored from 1997 to 2006.

Photograph: Thomas Wolf