Today is Tuesday, Feb. 4, the 35th day of 2020. There are 331 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Feb. 4, 2004, the social networking website Facebook had its beginnings as Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook.”
On this date:
In 1783, Britain’s King George III proclaimed a formal cessation of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.
In 1789, electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.
In 1861, delegates from six southern states that had recently seceded from the Union met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form the Confederate States of America.
In 1938, the Thornton Wilder play “Our Town” opened on Broadway. Walt Disney’s animated feature “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” opened in general U.S. release.
In 1944, the Bronze Star Medal, honoring “heroic or meritorious achievement or service,” was authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta.
In 1974, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19, was kidnapped in Berkeley, California, by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army.
In 1976, more than 23,000 people died when a severe earthquake struck Guatemala with a magnitude of 7.5, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
In 1983, pop singer-musician Karen Carpenter died in Downey, California, at age 32.
In 1997, a civil jury in Santa Monica, California, found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
In 2004, the Massachusetts high court declared that gay couples were entitled to nothing less than marriage, and that Vermont-style civil unions would not suffice.
In 2018, the Philadelphia Eagles, led by backup quarterback Nick Foles, became NFL champs for the first time since 1960, beating Tom Brady and the New England Patriots 41-33 in the Super Bowl.