On This Day in History - February 4th - Almanac

Today is Sunday, Feb. 4, the 35th day of 2024 with 331 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus.

Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include Polish-born American patriot Tadeusz Kosciuszko in 1746; French cubist painter Fernand Leger in 1881; aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1902; legendary golfer Byron Nelson in 1912; civil rights activist Rosa Lee Parks in 1913; actor Ida Lupino in 1918; feminist Betty Friedan in 1921; former Argentinian President Isabel Martínez de Perón in 1931 (age 93); comedian David Brenner in 1936; actor John Schuck in 1940 (age 84); filmmaker George A. Romero in 1940; former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle in 1947 (age 77); shock rocker Alice Cooper in 1948 (age 76); actor Lisa Eichhorn in 1952 (age 72); football Hall of Fame member Lawrence Taylor in 1959 (age 65); country singer Clint Black in 1962 (age 62); Hunter Biden, businessman/son of President Joe Biden, in 1970 (age 54); actor Gabrielle Anwar in 1970 (age 54); boxer Oscar de la Hoya in 1973 (age 51); singer/songwriter Natalie Imbruglia in 1975 (age 49); singer Gavin DeGraw in 1977 (age 47); comedian Hannibal Buress in 1983 (age 41).

On this date in history:

In 1789, George Washington of Virginia, the commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, was elected the first president of the United States by all 69 presidential electors who cast votes. John Adams of Massachusetts was elected vice president.

In 1792, George Washington was unanimously elected to a second term as U.S. president in a vote of the Electoral College.

In 1861, the 25-year period of conflict known as the Apache War began at Apache Pass, Ariz., with the arrest of American-Indian leader Cochise for raiding a ranch. Cochise escaped his U.S. Army captors and declared war.

In 1938, Adolf Hitler seized control of the German army and put Nazi officers in key posts as part of a plan that led to World War II.

In 1945, the U.S. Army liberated the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in the Philippines from Japanese command. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, the Big Three, meet at Yalta to discuss unconditional surrender terms for Germany.

In 1974, urban guerrillas calling themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army abducted Patricia Hearst, the 19-year-old daughter of publisher Randolph Hearst, from her apartment in Berkeley, Calif. Hearst was arrested as a fugitive in September of 1975. She said she had been forced to join her captors and was charged with participating in bank robberies.

In 1976, a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck the Guatemala City region in Guatemala, killing an estimated 23,000 people and injuring tens of thousands.

In 1983, singer Karen Carpenter died after battling anorexia nervosa for years. The condition weakened her heart and she died of heart failure.

In 1997, a jury in a civil trial in Santa Monica, Calif., found O.J. Simpson liable in the killings of his former wife and her friend and he was ordered to pay a total of $33.5 million to the families. Simpson had been acquitted in his murder trial.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard College dorm room. The social media network would grow to include some 2 billion users.

In 2006, widespread Muslim protests of caricatures depicting Muhammad in a negative way turned violent. Angry demonstrators smashed windows, set fires and burned flags. Syrian mobs burned Danish and Norwegian embassies because newspapers in those countries published the drawings.

In 2012, Russia and China vetoed an effort by the U.N. Security Council to end the violence in Syria with an Arab League peace plan.

In 2023, U.S. fighter planes shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that had flown over the United States earlier in the week.

A thought for the day: "I had felt for a long time, that if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so." -- American civil rights activist Rosa Parks