Today in History

Today is Thursday, Feb. 4, the 35th day of 2021. There are 330 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Feb. 4, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta.

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 1913, Rosa Parks, a Black woman whose 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus to a white man sparked a civil rights revolution, was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee.

In 1944, the Bronze Star Medal, honoring “heroic or meritorious achievement or service,” was authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1962, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was founded in Memphis, Tennessee, by entertainer Danny Thomas.

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 1999, Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant, was shot and killed in front of his Bronx home by four plainclothes New York City police officers. (The officers were acquitted at trial.)

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.

Ten years ago: President Barack Obama appealed to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to focus on his legacy and begin an orderly process to relinquish the power he’d held for 30 years; however, Obama stopped short of calling for Mubarak’s immediate resignation. Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said he would return half of his annual salary to the public treasury in a symbolic gesture that appeared calculated to insulate him against anti-government unrest spreading across the Middle East.

Five years ago: In their first one-on-one debate, Hillary Clinton accused Bernie Sanders of subjecting her to an “artful smear” by trying to cast her as beholden to Wall Street interests while Sanders suggested the former secretary of state was a captive of America’s political establishment during the Democratic faceoff in Durham, New Hampshire. Infuriating members of Congress, a smirking Martin Shkreli took the Fifth at a Capitol Hill hearing on his practice of jacking up drug prices as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.

One year ago: Thousands of medical workers in Hong Kong were on strike for a second day to demand that the country’s border with China be completely closed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus; the territory reported its first death from the virus and the second known fatality outside China. Addressing a nation and a Congress sharply divided over his impeachment, President Donald Trump delivered a State of the Union address in which he hailed a “Great American Comeback” on his watch; Republican legislators chanted “Four More Years,” while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up her copy of Trump’s speech as he ended the address. Daniel arap Moi, a former schoolteacher who became Kenya’s longest-serving president, died at 95.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor Jerry Adler is 92. Former Argentinian President Isabel Peron is 90. Actor Gary Conway is 85. Actor John Schuck is 81. Rock musician John Steel (The Animals) is 80. Singer Florence LaRue (The Fifth Dimension) is 79. Former Vice President Dan Quayle is 74. Rock singer Alice Cooper is 73. Actor Michael Beck is 72. Actor Lisa Eichhorn is 69. Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor is 62. Actor Pamelyn Ferdin is 62. Rock singer Tim Booth is 61. Rock musician Henry Bogdan is 60. Country singer Clint Black is 59. Rock musician Noodles (The Offspring) is 58. Actor Gabrielle Anwar is 51. Actor Rob Corddry is 50. Singer David Garza is 50. Actor Michael Goorjian is 50. TV personality Nicolle Wallace is 49. Olympic gold medal boxer Oscar De La Hoya is 48. Rock musician Rick Burch (Jimmy Eat World) is 46. Singer Natalie Imbruglia is 46. Rapper Cam’ron is 45. Rock singer Gavin DeGraw is 44. Rock singer Zoe Manville is 37. Actor/musician Bashy, AKA Ashley Thomas, is 36. Actor Charlie Barnett is 33. Olympic gold medal gymnast-turned-singer Carly Patterson is 33. Actor Kyla Kenedy (TV: “Speechless”) is 18.