TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – FEB 4
211 Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies, leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons, Caracalla and Geta
1194 Richard I, King of England, is freed from captivity in Germany.
1508 The Proclamation of Trent is made.
1783 England proclaimed the formal end to the hostilities with the United States.
1787 Shay’s Rebellion, an uprising of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers against the new U.S. government, fails.
1789 George Washington is elected as first President of the United States. Washington took office on April 30, 1789.
1795 France abolishes slavery in her territories and confers slaves to citizens.
1824 J.W. Goodrich introduced rubber galoshes to the public.
1844 World’s oldest known Bible, “The Codex Sinaiticus” (Sinai Bible), is discovered or stolen in Egypt by Constantin von Tischendorf
1861 The Confederate States of America are established. 6 slave states met in Montgomery, Alabama to form the Confederacy, which lasted only until 1865.
1865 Robert E. Lee is named general-in-chief of Confederate forces
1899 After an exchange of gunfire, fighting breaks out between American troops and Filipinos near Manila, sparking the Philippine-American War
1906 The New York Police Department begins finger print identification.
1909 California law segregates Caucasian and Japanese schoolchildren.
1922 Lincoln purchased the Ford Company for $8 million dollars on this day. During the time of this transition, Henry Ford had assumed position of president of Lincoln.
1936 Radium E. became the first radioactive substance to be produced synthetically.
1938 The animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released and had major success in the box-office,
1941 The United Service Organization (U.S.O.) is formed to cater to armed forces and defense industries.
1945 The Big Three, American, British and Soviet leaders, meet in Yalta to discuss the war aims.
1959 Today was the first day of the invention of the Barbie Doll. This doll was created by Ruth Handler, who was one of the founders of the Mattel Company.
1966 Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins televised hearings on the Vietnam War.
1974 Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, beginning one of the most bizarre cases in FBI history.
1985 U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s defense budget called for a tripling of the expenditure on the “Star Wars” research program.
1988 Panamanian General Manuel Noriega indicted by US federal grand jury for drug trafficking and racketeering
1997 A civil jury panel in Santa Monica, California had determined that O.J. Simpson was guilty of the deaths of both his ex-wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
1997 President Milosevic of Serbia apparently surrendered to the will of his people, ordering his government to recognize opposition victories in local elections held in November 1996.
1999 Warplanes from Israel attacked south Lebanon just after rockets were fired toward Israel. No casualies were claimed on either side.
2003 The country of Yugoslavia disappeared, to be replaced by the loose federation of Serbia and Montenegro.
2004 The Massachusetts Supreme Court declared that gays had the right to marry.
2004 Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room
2010 Legal action has started against the Bank of America and its former executives, and accuses them of duping investors and taxpayers during their takeover of Merrill Lynch.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
