February 4

Birthdays

1. 1985 Brandon "Bug" Hall (actor)
2. 1975 Natalie Imbruglia (actress, singer)
3. 1973 Oscar De La Hoya (boxer)
4. 1959 Lawrence Taylor (linebacker)
5. 1948 Alice Cooper (singer)
6. 1947 Dan Quayle (US Vice-President)
7. 1945 David Brenner (comedian)
8. 1923 Conrad Bain (actor)
9. 1921 Betty Friedan (author)
10. 1918 Norman Wisdom (comedian)
11. 1918 Ida Lupino (actress, director)
12. 1913 Rosa Parks (activist)
13. 1906 Clyde W. Tombaugh (astronomer)
14. 1902 Charles Lindbergh (Lucky Lindy) (aviator)
15. 1802 Mark Hopkins (educator)

February 4 in history:

• 211, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus dies, leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons, Caracalla and Geta

• 960, the coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song, initiating the Song Dynasty period of China that would last more than three centuries

• 1454, in the Thirteen Years' War, the Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sends a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master

• 1783, Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United States of America

• 1789, George Washington is unanimously elected to be the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College. The happens in 1792

• 1825, the Ohio Legislature authorizes the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal

• 1859, Codex Sinaiticus discovered in Egypt

• 1899, the Philippine-American War begins

• 1915, Germany establishes a submarine blockade around the UK and declares any vessel in it a legitimate target

• 1936, Radium E becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically

• 1943, during World War II: Battle of Stalingrad ends

• 1945, President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta

• 1957, USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, logs her 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"

• 1974, the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California

• 1976, in Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000

• 1991, the Baseball Hall of Fame votes to ban Pete Rose

• 1996, major snowstorm paralyzes Midwestern United States, Milwaukee, Wisconsin ties all-time record low temperature at -26 degrees F (-32.2 degrees C)

• 1998, while in Belgium, Bill Gates is assaulted by a Belgian man and hit in the face with a cream pie