TODAY IN HISTORY

1783: Britain’s King George III proclaimed a formal cessation of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.

1789: Electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.

1861: Delegates from six southern states that had recently seceded from the Union met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form the Confederate States of America.

1938: Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town” opened on Broadway. Walt Disney’s animated feature film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” opened in general U.S. release.

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

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

1974: Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19, was kidnapped in Berkeley, California, by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army.

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.

1983: Pop singer-musician Karen Carpenter died in Downey, California, at age 32.

1997: A civil jury in Santa Monica, California, found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

2004: The social networking website Facebook had its beginnings as Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook.”

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.

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.