On This Day
What Happened on February 4 in History
8 events that happened on February 4, oldest first. Every entry is written in our own words and links to its source.
The Young Republic and the Civil War Era
1789
Presidential electors cast their votes and unanimously choose George Washington as the first president.
Each elector cast two votes, and Washington was named on every ballot, while John Adams finished second and became vice president. Congress counted the votes that April, and Washington took the oath of office in New York City on April 30.
1861
Delegates from six seceded Southern states meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to form the Confederacy.
Within days the convention adopted a provisional constitution and chose Jefferson Davis as provisional president of the Confederate States of America. Texas soon joined, and the Civil War began that April.
Source: history.com; millercenter.org
1899
Fighting breaks out in Manila between American and Filipino forces, starting the Philippine-American War.
Filipino leaders had declared independence from Spain, but the United States was about to annex the islands under the Treaty of Paris. The war lasted for years and cost many thousands of Filipino lives.
Source: history.state.gov
The Early 1900s and the World Wars
1945
Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin open their summit at Yalta in Crimea.
Over eight days the three leaders planned the final defeat of Germany, its division into occupation zones, and the founding of the United Nations. Stalin also agreed to join the war against Japan, while promises about free elections in Eastern Europe were later broken.
Source: history.com
The Cold War
1948
Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, gains independence from Britain as a dominion in the Commonwealth.
The island had been a British colony since the early 1800s and reached independence through negotiation rather than armed struggle. It became a republic and took the name Sri Lanka in 1972.
Source: history.state.gov
1974
Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California.
Her captors were a small radical group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Two months later she appeared on a security camera taking part in a bank robbery with the group, and her case became one of the most debated trials of the decade.
Source: history.com; archive.nytimes.com
The Modern Era
1999
Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Guinean immigrant, is shot and killed by New York City police officers.
Four plainclothes officers fired 41 shots at Diallo in the doorway of his Bronx building after mistaking his wallet for a gun. The officers were acquitted in 2000, and the case set off large protests over policing and race.
Source: history.com
2004
Mark Zuckerberg launches the website that becomes Facebook from his Harvard dorm room.
TheFacebook began as a directory for Harvard students and soon spread to other colleges. Opened to the general public in 2006, it grew into one of the largest social networks in the world.
Source: history.com