TODAY IN HISTORY
Today’s highlight:
On Feb. 4, 1783, Britain’s King George III proclaimed a formal cessation of hostilities in the American Revo- lutionary War.
On this date:
In 1789, electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.
In 1801, John Marshall was confirmed by the Sen- ate as chief justice of the United States.
In 1913, Rosa Parks, a Black woman whose 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus to a white man sparked a civil rights revolution, was born Rosa Louise Mccauley in Tuskegee.
In 1945, President Frank- lin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime confer- ence at Yalta.
In 1974, newspaper heir- ess 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 Guate- mala with a magnitude of 7.5, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
1977, eleven peo- ple were killed when two Chicago Transit Authority trains collided on an ele- vated track.
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, senators at Pres- ident Bill Clinton’s impeach- ment trial voted to permit the showing of portions of Monica Lewinsky’s videotaped deposition.
In 2004, the social networking website Facebook had its beginnings as Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook.”
In 2012, Florence Green, who had served with the Women’s Royal Air Force and was recognized as the last veteran of World War I, died in King’s Lynn, eastern England, at age 110.
In 2020, 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.
Ten years ago: President Barack Obama signed a bill temporarily raising the government’s $16.4 trillion borrowing limit, averting a default.
Five years ago: 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. An Amtrak passenger train slammed into a parked freight train in the early-morning darkness in South Carolina after a thrown switch sent it hurtling down a side track; the conductor and engineer were killed and more than 100 passengers were injured.
One year ago: Chinese President Xi Jinping declared the Winter Olympics open at a ceremony at Beijing’s Bird Nest Stadium.