November 2 in the history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union:.
1,721 After the victory in the Northern War and the signing of the peace treaty in Nichtstadt, the Senate and the Synod awarded Peter I the title of Peter the Great, Father of the Fatherland, Emperor of All Russia. From that day on, Russia became an empire. The ceremony took place in the Trinity Cathedral in St. Petersburg under gunfire.
1894 The last Russian Emperor Nicholas II ascended the throne after the sudden death of his father, Emperor Alexander III.
1914 During World War I, the Russian Empire declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
1937 On November 2, ruby stars were lit for the first time on the five towers of the Moscow Kremlin. Their sketches were prepared by People's Artist of the USSR Fyodor Fedorovsky.
1938 For the first time in the Soviet Union, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to women. It was awarded to pilots Valentina Grizodova, Polina Osipenko and Marina Raskova for a record-breaking non-stop flight from Moscow to the Far East in the ANT-37 Rodina (24–25 September 1938).
1939 The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union adopted a law on the inclusion of Western Belarus in the Soviet Union and its reunification with the Byelorussian Soviet.
1942 The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union signed a decree on the establishment of the Extraordinary State Commission to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices.
1961 At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, a new party program was announced, the second part of which promised that by 1980 "a communist society will be fundamentally built in the Soviet Union."