February 4 ...

In 1783 Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United States of America. In 1789 General George Washington was unanimously elected the first president of the United States by all 69 presidential electors casting their votes. In 1801 John Marshall was sworn in as chief justice of the United States. In 1822 free American blacks settled Liberia, West Africa and founded Monrovia, the colony's capital city, named in honor of President James Monroe. In 1861 delegates from six southern states met in Montgomery, AL, to form the Confederate States of America. In 1904 the Russo-Japanese War began when Japan attacked Port Arthur. In 1938 Adolf Hitler became Germany's war minister and Joachim von Ribbentrop took over foreign affairs; also on this day, Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, opened in New York City. In 1945 Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta to discuss plans for the defeat of the Axis powers and to decide on the post-war future. In 1957 Smith-Corona began selling portable electric typewriters -- weighing 19 pounds. In 1974 Patricia Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army from her apartment in Berkeley, CA; she later joined her kidnappers in an armed robbery. In 1976 more than 22,000 people died when a severe earthquake struck Guatemala and Honduras.