On February 2, 1819, the US Supreme Court decided Dartmouth College v. Woodward, ruling that the charter of a college was a contract that a state could not alter arbitrarily.

On February 2, 1653, the City of New Amsterdam was incorporated by the Dutch Republic. After the British conquest, the city was renamed New York after the Duke of York.

King Alaric II of the Visigoths put the Breviary of Alaric, a collection of Roman laws, into effect on February 2, 506. The breviary contains constitutions and laws of the newly fallen Roman Empire, including the Theodosian code, and parts of the Gregorian and Hermogenian Codes. The Breviary of Alaric predated the Byzantine Empire's Code of Justinian by 23 years.  Read an entry on the Breviary of Alaric from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.