Today in history

On Feb. 4, 1783, Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United States of America.

In 1861 delegates from six southern states met in Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States of America.

In1913 civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Ala.

In1945 President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a war time conference at Yalta.

In 1974 newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, Calif., by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

In 1976 morepeople died when than a 22,000 severe earthquake struck Guatemala and Honduras.

In1983 singer Karen Carpenter died in Downey, Calif.; shewas 32.

In 1995 a standoff between the United States and China escalated into a trade war, with each country ordering stiff tariffs against the other.

In199624 people were killed when a Colombian cargo plane in Paraguay caught fire shortly after takeoff and crashed into a suburban neighborhood.

In1997 a civil jury in Santa Monica, Calif., 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 plain clothes New York City police officers.

In 2003 lawmakers formally dissolved Yugoslavia and replaced it with a loose union of its remaining two republics, Serbia and Montenegro.

In 2004 the Massachusetts high court declared gays were entitled to nothing less than marriage and that Vermont-style civil unions would not suffice.

In 2005 actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis died in Miami Beach; hewas 87.

In 2007 the Chicago Bears lost Super Bowl XLI to the Indianapolis Colts, 29-17, in a rainy Miami.