February 2: Groundhog Day
Standard Holiday: Groundhog Day (USA and Canada)
1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed.
Geek Events to celebrate on February 2:
1935 – Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine. That’s a fact.
February 2 birthdays of geeky note:
1522 – Lodovico Ferrari, Italian mathematician (d. 1565). Ferrari is attributed with the discovery of the solution to the quartic in 1540, but since this solution, like all algebraic solutions of the quartic, requires the solution of a cubic to be found, it couldn’t be published immediately. The solution of the quartic was published together with that of the cubic by Ferrari’s mentor Gerolamo Cardano in the book Ars Magna (1545). He has nothing to do with the car manufacturer.