February 4th
Today in America's Present Past
1787 | Shays Rebellion ends
1789 | POTUS: The first Electoral College concludes with the election of George Washington as President and John Adams as Vice-President.
1802 | Educator Mark Hopkins was born.
1819 | “Emperor” Norton was born.
1826 | General Halbert Paine was born.
1847 | America’s first telegraph company was founded in Maryland.
1849 | The University of Wisconsin is founded.
1854 | Alvan Bovay proposes that a new Whig “breakaway” political party could be called the “Republican Party” during a meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin.
1861 | Civil War: Jefferson Davis was selected as the President of the Confederate States of America.
1864 | Civil War: Skirmish at Big Black River Bridge, Mississippi.
1865 | Civil War: Robert E. Lee is named General-in-Chief of Confederate forces.
1885 | Painter Sarah Miriam Peale died.
1887 | Congress: Passage of the Interstate Commerce Act authorizing the federal regulation of railroads.
1899 | Philippine-American war starts.
1902 | Aviator Charles Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan.
1904 | Author MacKinlay Kantor was born.
1913 | Louis Perlman patents demountable auto wheel rim.
1913 | Rosa Parks was born.
1913 | Congress: Establishes the National Institute of Arts & Letters.
1914 | Congress: Adopts the Burnett Anti-Immigration law.
1915 | Actor William Talman was born in Detroit, Michigan.
1915 | Mississippi State Penitentiary starts experiments to discover the causes of pellagra.
1921 | Activist Betty Friedan was born.
1924 | Musician Louis Armstrong weds Lillian Hardin.
1939 | Anthropologist Edward Sapir died.
1939 | Frank Sinatra weds Nancy Barbato.
1941 | WWII: The United Service Organization (USO) was formed.
1942 | WWII: General Clinton Pierce becomes the first general wounded in action during the war.
1944 | WWII: U.S. forces liberate Kwajalein in the Pacific theatre.
1945 | WWII: Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin meet in Yalta to discuss the final war phase.
1948 | Musician Alice Cooper was born in Detroit, Michigan.
1962 | Musician Clint Black was born.
1971 | National Guard deployed to quell rioting in Wilmington, North Carolina.
1971 | The NASDAQ is founded in New York City, New York.
1973 | Boxer Oscar De La Hoya was born.
1974 | War on Terror: Student Patty Hearst is kidnapped by domestic terrorists.
1980 | Famed Studio 54 closes in New York City, New York.
1987 | Congress: Republican President Ronald Reagan’s veto of the Clean Water Act is overridden.
1987 | Entertainer Liberace died.
1988 | A U.S. Grand Jury indicted Panamanian General Manuel Noriega.
2004 | Mark Zuckerberg launched the social media platform Facebook.
2006 | Activist Betty Friedan died.
2017 | Musician Lyle Lovett weds April Kimble.