February 4
0211 Death: Lucius Septimius Severus, the Roman emperor primarily responsible for making the empire's pioneering republican government into a military monarchy.
0708 Death: Sisinnius, Greek-Syrian pope for 20 days.
1194 Britain's Richard I, called the Lion Hearted, pays Leopold O. Fenrik VI's ransom for his release.
1600 The Rogers and Hammerstien's of astronomy, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, meet for first time outside of Prague.
1746 Birth: Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Polish-born American patriot. "...son of Ludwik and Tekla Kosciuszko. He attended school in Lubieszow and then the Cadet Academy in Warsaw before continuing his engineering studies in Paris, France. By the time Kosciuszko arrived in America from Poland in 1776, he was a skilled engineer who came to offer his services to the American colonies in their struggle for independence. On October 18, 1776 Kosciuszko was commissioned as Colonel of Engineers by the Continental Congress and began his outstanding service of fortifying battle sites, many of which became turning points in America's fight for independence against the British. Shortly after arriving in Philadelphia in 1776, Kosciuszko read the Declaration of Independence and was moved to tears because he discovered in this single, concise document everything in which he truly believed. When he discovered that Thomas Jefferson was responsible for drafting the Declaration, he felt compelled to meet him. A few months later, while moving south with the Continental Army, Kosciuszko stopped in Virginia to meet with Jefferson. After a very warm reception, the two men spent the day comparing philosophies and eventually became the best of friends. In the early days of the war, Kosciuszko helped to fortify the Philadelphia waterfront at Fort Mercer. Shortly after, he was transferred to New York, where he helped with fortifications along the Hudson and planned the defense for Saratoga. The Battle of Saratoga became known as one of military history's most famous struggles for independence and proved to be a turning point in the war. In 1778, Kosciuszko was made chief engineer of West Point, New York. This fortification became known as the American Gibraltar because it was unable to be penetrated by the British Army. Eventually West Point became a military academy, as suggested by Kosciuszko to General George Washington. In 1783, Kosciuszko was appointed Brigadier General and was awarded the Cincinnati Order Medal by General George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Washington also presented Kosciuszko with two pistols and a sword as gifts for his outstanding service to America..."
1783 England officially proclaims an end to hostilities in America.
1787 The first Anglican bishops of New York and Pennsylvania are consecrated in London.
1787 Shays' Rebellion ends with defeat at Petersham. "...a rebellion by farmers against unsettled economic conditions and against politicians and laws which were grossly unfair to farmers and working people in general. They protested against excessive taxes on property, polling taxes which preented the poor from voting, unfair actions by the court of common pleas, the high cost of lawsuits, and the lack of a stable currency. They rallied for the government issue of paper money, since at the time there were a variety of paper monies in circulation, but not much was honored at face value. A campaign for "sound money" rallied for the issue of a gold-backed currency. The revolutionary war was over, but The United States had yet to form formal government organizations. The contstitutional congress had yet to convene, and the country was in chaos. The rebels protested against governmental and court systems that were wrought with dictatorial and oppressive regimes and against excessive salaries for government and court officials. Their actions included mobbing the court buildings in Northampton, Great Barrington, Worcester and Concord to prevent the sitting of the courts, whose actions had been grossly unfair to working people. On August 29, 1786, rebel mobs stormed the courthouse in Northampton to prevent the trial and imprisonment of debtors. In September 1786, Shays and about 600 armed farmers stormed the courthouse in Springfield. Governor Bowdoin countered with a militia of 4400 troops. On January 25, 1787, Shays led 2000 rebels to Springfield, MA to storm the arsenal, but government forces of 1200 soldiers led by General Shepard quelled the uprising. The rebels were captured and sentenced to death for treason in February 1787, but they were later pardoned. One of the leaders in Shays' Rebellion, a farmer named Stone, who had led a group of 400 farmers during the actions of 1786-87, left another rebellious legacy..."
1789 George Washington, the commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, is unanimously elected the first president of the United States by all 69 presidential electors who cast their votes. John Adams of Massachusetts, who receives 34 votes, is elected vice president.
1794 French Revolution: The French National Convention proclaims the abolishment of slavery.
1815 Death: Jacob van Strij, cartoonist, graphic artist, at 58.
1822 Free American Blacks settle in Liberia, West Africa. "...In the early 1820s, hundreds of freed US slaves were sent to coastal Africa by antislavery societies. When, in 1847, they founded the continent's oldest republic, they gave it a constitution and a flag modeled after the country they had come from. Liberia is full of symbols that commemorate its historic links to the US. The capital Monrovia was named after US President James Monroe. Another major city honors President James Buchanan. In spite of the ties between the US and Liberia, the US has tried for years to ignore and forget its ties to Liberia. Founded on the principles that founded the United States, freedom and liberty, Liberia has consistently been treated as a "bastard stepchild" by Washington. And it is one of the few countrys in the world who are genuinly freindy to the US and its citizens. Put simply, Liberians love Americans. Even when America did pay lip-service to Liberia, as during the Cold War when an Air Force Base was established there, it was only for convenience, and not out of any sense of commitment. The Cold War is gone, as is Washington's attention. And the average American doesn't even know Liberia exists..."
1824 J.W. Goodrich introduces rubber galoshes, or overshoes, to the public.
1846 Mormons leave Nauvoo, Missouri for settlement in the west.
1847 The first US telegraph company is established in Maryland.
1854 Alvan Bovay proposes the name 'Republican Party' in Ripon, Wisconsin.
1861 US Civil War: At the first Confederate constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama, six states, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, elect Jefferson Davis president of the Confederacy.
1861 The 25-year period of conflict known as the Apache War begins at Apache Pass, Arizona, with the arrest of Apache Chief Cochise for raiding a ranch. Cochise escapes his US Army captors and declares war. (Bradley)
1874 The Battle of Kumasi ends the Ashanti War between Britain and Ghana.
1875 Birth: Ludwig Prandtl, Germany, physicist; father of aerodynamics.
1881 Birth: Fernand Leger, in France, French cubist, ceramist, painter.
1887 The Interstate Commerce Act authorizes federal regulation of railroads in the US.
1893 Birth: Raymond Dart, Australian paleoanthropologist; Australopithecus.
1894 Death: Antoine J. 'Adolfo' Sax, inventor of the saxophone.
1895 Birth: Hanns Rauter, German SS, Lieutenant General, SS police chief in Netherlands.
1895 The Van Buren Street Bridge opens in Chicago, Illinois; the first rolling lift bridge.
1899 A revolt breaks out against US occupation of the Philippines.
1901 Queen Victoria, the longest-reigning monarch in British history, is laid to rest in the family mausoleum at Windsor, two weeks after her death on 22 January, aged 81. The Queen's last days were spent at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Her son and heir, the new King Edward VII, was at her deathbed. The Queen's body lay in state for ten days at Osborne before being carried to the mainland by the royal yacht Alberta. The funeral train then made its stately progress to London. By Victoria's own instruction the color black is banned from her funeral, the hangings in London's streets are purple cashmere with white satin bows. An 81-gun salute is sounded - one for every year of her life - and a simple service is read before a small congregation. Queen Victoria, the Empress of India, ascended the throne in 1837 aged 18 and married Prince Albert from the German duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840. Her reign lasted 63 years. In her lifetime Britain reaped the benefits of the Industrial Revolution, becoming the leading industrial nation of the world. At its height, the Empire over which 'the sun never sets' stretched across five continents, encompassing over a quarter of the world's population. (Bradley)
1902 Birth: Captain Charles 'Lucky Lindy' Lindburgh, in Detroit, Michigan, US pioneer aviator; the first to fly solo across the Atlantic.
1904 Birth: Herman B. Wiardi Beckman, SDAP-politician, resistance fighter.
1906 Birth: Clyde W. Tombaugh, US astronomer who will discover Pluto.
1906 Birth: Dietrich BonhĂffer, anti-Nazi, German theologist, and twin sister Sabine born in Breslau, Germany; the sixth child of Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer; his father a prominent professor of psychiatry and neurology; his mother one of the few women of her generation to obtain a university degree. Protestant pastor who will become a leading member of the German Resistance and one of the few churchmen in Germany willing to pay the ultimate price for his Christian convictions. As a member of the Confessional Church he will assert that Christianity is incompatible with National Socialism and its racial doctrines. During a visit to Sweden in May 1942, BonhĂffer will take with him peace proposals from the German conspirators led by General Hans Oster, Chief of Staff of the Abwehr, and General Ludwig Beck, but they will be rejected by the British Foreign Office. After being arrested by the Gestapo in April 1943, he will be sent to concentration camps at Buchenwald, and then Flossenberg, where he will be executed together with Admiral Canaris and General Oster on April 9, 1945.
1907 Birth: Otto Ohlendorf, highly educated lawyer, economist, and head of Amt III (Security Service) of the Reich Main Security Office. As Commander of Einsatzgruppe D he will be responsible for organizing the mass murders of more than 90,000 people in the southern Ukraine (1941-42). Sentenced to death at Nuremberg in 1948, he will serve three years imprisonment before being hanged with three other Einsatzgruppen commanders, in Landsberg prison on June 8, 1951.
1913 Birth: Rosa Lee Parks, civil rights activist.
1913 The National Institute of Arts and Letters is founded in the US.
1914 The US Congress approves the Burnett-anti-immigration law.
1915 Experiments to find a cause of pellagra begin among the captive population of Mississippi Penitentiary.
1915 WW1: Germany proclaims a war zone around the British Isles in retaliation for the blockade of its ports. Germany intensifies its submarine campaign against Allied merchant ships and attacks neutral ships.
1919 Birth: Frank van Klingeren, architect; Mooring Post, Dronten.
1921 Death: Xavier Mellery, Belgian painter, illustrator, at 75.
1921 Birth: Betty Friedan, in Peoria, Illinois, feminist writer; Feminine Mystique.
1924 Mahatma Gandhi is released after spending two years in jail in Bombay.
1926 Weimar: Austrian chancellor Seipel declares that he wants to Austria to join with Germany in a political union.
1927 British driver Malcolm Campbell breaks the world land speed record in his car Bluebird, driving at 174.224 miles per hour.
1928 Death: Hendrik A. Lorentz, physicist: L transformation, Nobel 1902.
1931 Birth: Isabel Peron (Maria Martinez), dancer, president of Argentina.
1932 Japanese troops attack Harbin, Manchuria.
1934 Greek police prevent a pogrom against the Jews of Salonika.
1936 Swiss Nazi Party leader Wilhelm Gustloff is assassinated by David Frankfurter, a Jew.
1937 President Roosevelt begins a clearly unconstitutional effort to "pack" the Supreme court.
1938 Hitler announces he is personally taking over command of the German armed forces. Fritsch is forced to resign and Konstantin von Neurath is replaced by Joachim von Ribbentrop as Foreign Minister. Hitler assumes complete control of the Wehrmacht and announces a complete reorganization of the armed forces supreme command (OKW). Sixteen high-ranking generals are dismissed and 44 others are transferred to other posts. Hitler successfully eliminates the most important dissidents in the Wehrmacht and replaces them with men he feels he can either trust or manipulate. General Walter von Brauchitsch is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army (OKH). General Wilhelm Keitel is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the OKW.
1938 Austrian Nazis vandalize numerous Jewish businesses in the suburbs of Vienna.
1939 Birth: Jacques Charlier, Belgian sculptor.
1941 WW2: The United Service Organization (USO) is founded to provide support worldwide for United States service people and their families.
1941 WW2: A British Panzer division occupies Maus, Libya.
1941 WW2: Dutch premier De Geer flies to Berlin.
1942 Holocaust: A meeting takes place at the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories where the "scrapping by labor" of the Eastern peoples is openly discussed. Professors Fischer and B. K. Schultz are among those present. (Science)
1942 WW2: Clinton Pierce becomes the first US general wounded in action in WW2.
1944 WW2: The US 7th Infantry Division captures Kwajalein.
1945 WW2: Feb 4-12 Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill meet at Yalta in the Crimea. US Secretary of State, Edward R. Stettinius Jr. leads the American delegation and is accompanied by Averell Harriman. The Yalta agreement gives the Soviets almost half of prewar Poland and eastern Europe in general is torn asunder. Stalin is also promised Japan's Kuril Islands and control of Manchuria. Harry Hopkins and Alger Hiss, who is later convicted for denying under oath that he was a Soviet agent, are both deeply involved in negotiations with the Communists. Subsequently millions of people are displaced and disappear into Siberian work camps. Roosevelt and Churchill cynically reply to criticism by saying that Russia has been allowed "to use manpower" as a partial payment of war indemnities.
1947 Birth: Dan Quale, US politician, US Vice-president 1989-1992.
1948 Ceylon becomes a self-governing independent state within the British Commonwealth; later to become Sri Lanka.
1949 A failed assassination attempt is made on the life on the Shah of Persia (Iran).
1953 The WW2 rationing of sweets finally comes to an end in Britain.
1957 Death: Joseph Hardaway, creator of Bugs Bunny, at 66.
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1957 Death: Miguel Covarrubias, Mexican illustrator.
1961 Sputnik 7 is launched into Earth orbit.
1962 Cold War Rhetoric: Nedelya, a supplement of the Soviet newspaper Izvestia, claims that, “...baseball is an old Russian game.”
1964 The US federal government puts an end to one of America's more shameful bits of legislation by authorizing the Twenty-fourth Amendment, which effectively outlaws the poll tax. The tax stemmed back to the 1880s, when members of the burgeoning Populist party began to build a potentially potent coalition of African American and lower class white voters in the South. Across the region, planters, merchants, and industrialists moved to preserve their power and pushed for the passage of a deliberately prohibitive poll tax. The legislation, adopted by a host of Southern states, proved all too effective, as scores of African-Americans, as well as the 'poorer sort' of whites, simply could not afford to pay the tax and thus lost the right to vote. However, thanks in large part to the efforts of Senator Spessard L. Holland of Florida, the once recalcitrant Congress slowly came around to the cause of outlawing the tax and passed the Twenty-fourth Amendment on this day. (Bradley)
1964 The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) begins a 6 month test of reactions to sonic booms over Oklahoma City.
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1967 The US launches Lunar Orbiter 3.
1971 Death: Rolls-Royce, the symbol of British engineering excellence.
1971 The Apollo 14 lander Antares lands on the Moon with Shepard & Mitchell on board.
1971 The National Guard is mobilized to quell race rioting in Wilmington, North Carolina.
1972 Zambian President Kenneth Kuanda bans the opposition United Progressive Party and arrests its leader, Simon Kapepwe, together with more than 120 members.
1973 The Reshef, Israel's missile boat, is unveiled.
1974 19-year-old Patricia Hearst, the granddaughter of the late William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, from her apartment in Berkeley, California.
1974 Grenada achieves independence within the British Commonwealth.
1985 20 countries sign a UN treaty outlawing torture. Note: The United States Of America, the Home of the Free and the Land of the Brave, declines to sign.
1985 Naval exercises are canceled when the US refuses to tell New Zealand, which has a zero tolerance policy for nukes, whether or not US warships taking part are carrying nuclear weapons.
1986 Israeli fighters intercept a Libyan ship.
1991 Desert Storm: Iran offers to mediate an end to the Persian Gulf War.
1992 In response to dangerous unemployment levels, the US Congress passes a jobless benefits extension bill.
1993 US Congress approves legislation giving employees unpaid leave in the event of a birth or a medical emergency in their family. President Clinton will sign it into law the next day.
1993 The US Centers for Disease Control expands its investigation into contaminated hamburger meat that sickened hundreds of people in four Western US states.
1993 The Russian space agency tests an 82 inch wide space mirror.
1994 Mortar bombs kill nine people in a food line in Serb-besieged Sarajevo.
1994 Death: Han Jansen, painter, at 62.
1999 An unarmed African immigrant is shot to death by four New York City officers searching for a rape suspect. The four officers are later charged with second-degree murder.
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2002 President Bush submits a $2.13 trillion budget for the 2003 fiscal year to Congress, including a 14 percent or $48 billion increase in defense spending.
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