February 4 in History

• 1789

  February 4, 1789:

  George Washington is elected unanimously by the Electoral College to become the first President of the United States.

• 1932

  February 4, 1932:

  The first Winter Olympics to be hosted in the United States takes off in Lake Placid, New York.

• 1938

  February 4, 1938:

  American playwright Thornton Wilder’s play, “Our Town” is performed on Broadway for the first time.

• February 4, 1938:

  Disney’s animated musical fantasy film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is released in the United States.

• 1945

  February 4, 1945:

  Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin of the UK, US and Soviet Union respectively meet to kick off the Yalta Conference to find ways to defeat Nazi Germany.

• 1974

  February 4, 1974:

  Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, an American leftist group.

• 1998

  February 4, 1998:

  A pie is thrown in Bill Gates’ face by a group of pranksters in Brussels, Belgium.

• 2003

  February 4, 2003:

  The country Yugoslavia is formally renamed Serbia and Montenegro.

• 2004

  February 4, 2004:

  Facebook makes its debut on the internet as “TheFacebook.com”.