TODAY HISTORY LESSON: FEBRUARY 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.
1783 Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United States of America.
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.
1859 One of the oldest known copies of the Bible, “The Codex Sinaiticus” (Sinai Bible), is seen in Egypt by Constantin von Tischendorf who takes the manuscript home with him
1861 Delegates from six southern states met at Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States of America.
1889 Harry Longabaugh is released from Sundance Prison in Wyoming, thereby acquiring the famous nickname, “the Sundance Kid.”
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.
1933 German President Von Hindenburg limits freedom of the press
1941 The United Service Organization (U.S.O.) is formed to cater to armed forces and defense industries.
1945 During World War II, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a conference at Yalta to outline plans for Germany’s defeat.
1948 Ceylon (Sri Lanka) proclaims independence within the British Commonwealth. Since the 16th century, the island had been colonized by Portugal, the Netherlands, and Great Britain.
1964 The Administrator of General Services announced that the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had been ratified. The amendment banned the poll tax.
1974 Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, beginning one of the most bizarre cases in FBI history.
1985 20 countries (but not US) sign UN treaty outlawing torture
1986 The U.S. Post Office issues a commemorative stamp featuring Sojourner Truth.
1997 A civil jury in California found O.J. Simpson liable in the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Goldman’s parents were awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages.
1999 Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant, was shot and killed in front of his Bronx home by four plainclothes New York City police officers. The officers had been conducting a nighttime search for a rape suspect.
2003 The country of Yugoslavia disappeared, to be replaced by the loose federation of Serbia and Montenegro.
2004 The social networking website Facebook.com was launched.
2004 The Massachusetts Supreme Court declared that gays had the right to marry.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
