On This Day: February 4

Updated February 3, 2012, 1:28 pm

On Feb. 4, 1974, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, Calif., by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

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On Feb. 4, 1902, Charles A. Lindbergh, the American aviator who became the first man to fly the Atlantic solo nonstop from the United States to Europe, was born. Following his death on Aug. 26, 1974, his obituary appeared in The Times.

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On This Date

By The Associated Press

1783	Britain declared a formal cessation of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.
1789	Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.
1861	Delegates from six southern states met in Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States of America.
1913	Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Ala.
1938	The Thornton Wilder play “Our Town” opened on Broadway.
1941	The United Service Organizations (USO) was formed.
1945	President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta.
1948	The island nation of Ceylon – now Sri Lanka – became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.
1974	Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, Calif., by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
1977	The album “Rumours” by Fleetwood Mac was released.
1997	A civil jury found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
1999	Four plainclothes New York City police officers fired 41 bullets at Amadou Diallo in front of his Bronx home after mistaking his wallet for a gun. The unarmed West African immigrant was killed.
2003	Yugoslavia was dissolved and replaced with a loose union of its remaining two republics, Serbia and Montenegro.
2004	The Massachusetts high court declared that gays were entitled to marry.
2004	The social networking website Facebook was launched.

Current Birthdays

By The Associated Press

Rock singer Alice Cooper turns 64 years old today.

AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

Former Vice President Dan Quayle turns 65 years old today.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

1923	Conrad Bain, Actor (“Diff’rent Strokes”), turns 89
1936	David Brenner, Comedian, turns 76
1940	George A. Romero, Director, turns 72
1959	Lawrence Taylor, Football Hall of Famer, turns 53
1962	Clint Black, Country musician, turns 50
1971	Rob Corddry, Actor, turns 41
1975	Natalie Imbruglia, Rock singer, turns 37
1977	Gavin DeGraw, Rock singer, turns 35
1988	Carly Patterson, Gymnast, turns 24

Historic Birthdays

Charles A. Lindbergh 2/4/1902 – 8/26/1974 American aviator.Go to obituary »

85	Mark Hopkins 2/4/1802 – 6/17/1887 American educator and theologian
85	Clement Ader 2/4/1841 – 3/5/1926 French engineer and pioneer of flight
78	Ludwig Prandtl 2/4/1875 – 8/15/1953 German physicist, “father of aerodynamics”
70	Jacques Copeau 2/4/1879 – 10/20/1949 French actor/critic/director
74	Fernand Leger 2/4/1881 – 8/17/1955 French painter
75	George Kennedy Bell 2/4/1883 – 10/3/1958 English Anglican bishop of Chichester
95	Raymond Dart 2/4/1893 – 11/22/1988 Australian-bn. South African physical anthropologist
73	MacKinlay Kantor 2/4/1904 – 10/11/1977 American author/newspaperman
39	Dietrich Bonhoeffer 2/4/1906 – 4/9/1945 German Protestant theologian
90	Clyde W. Tombaugh 2/4/1906 – 1/17/1997 American astronomer who discovered Pluto