On February 4…

1783 – Britain’s King George III proclaimed a formal cessation of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.

1789 – Electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.

1895 – The first rolling lift bridge opened over the Chicago River at Van Buren Street, Chicago. The bridge used steel trusses or girders across the navigable channel supported by, and rigidly connected to, large steel rollers as curved steel bases, like rocking chair rockers, weighted in the rear to counterbalance the span. To open, the bridge rolled back on its rockers until upright, like a jackknife.

1901 – Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines opened in New York City, marking the first time that Ethel Barrymore received billing as a star.

1913 – Louis Perlman of New York City received a patent for his famous, demountable tire-carrying rims – better known as wheels.

1926 – John Giola of New York City became famous as the Charleston endurance dance champion, by dancing, non-stop, for 22 hours and 30 minutes.

1932 – The first Winter Olympics in the United States were held at Lake Placid, NY.

1937 – Glen Gray and his Casa Loma Orchestra recorded A Study in Brown, on Decca Records.

1938 – The play, Our Town, by Thornton Wilder, opened in New York City at the Henry Miller Theatre.

1941 – The United Service Organizations (USO) came into existence.

1952 – Baseball great Jackie Robinson signed a contract with New York’s WNBC and WNBT (TV) to serve as Director of Community Activities.

1953 – Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis appeared in the film, The Stooge, which premiered this day at the Paramount Theatre in New York City.

1957 – Smith-Corona Manufacturing Inc. of New York began selling portable electric typewriters. The first machine weighed 19 pounds.

1969 – Bowie Kuhn took office as Commissioner of Baseball and served for 16 seasons, until September 30, 1984.

1969 – 33-year-old John Madden became head coach of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders and went on to become the youngest head coach in the modern NFL era to win 100 games in his first ten seasons.

1972 – Mariner 9 took pictures of Mars as it orbited the red planet.

1974 – Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped from her home in Berkeley, CA, by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA).

1976 – More than 23,000 people died when a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Guatemala.

1983 – Singer Karen Carpenter died at her parent’s home in Los Angeles of heart failure caused by chronic anorexia nervosa.

1987 – Yachtsmen Dennis Conner, Tom Whidden and Peter Isler brought the America’s Cup back home, defeating Australia’s Kookaburra III with Stars and Stripes ’87.

1987 – Piano maestro Liberace died of AIDS at his Palm Springs, CA estate at the age of 67.

1993 – The “Family and Medical Leave Act” was passed by the U.S. Congress, which gives employees unpaid leave in the event of a birth or a medical emergency in their family.

1997 – A civil jury in Santa Monica, California found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. The jury awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages to Goldman’s parents and $25 million in punitive damages to Nicole Brown Simpson’s estate and Goldman’s father.

1998 – An earthquake, measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, hit Takhar, near Tajikikstan’s border with Northeastern Afghanistan, leaving over 5,000 dead, over 30,000 homeless, and thousands more were missing.