On This Day: February 4

This is the 35th day of the year.

Fact of the Day: pear and peach

The first peach and pear trees were brought to America by Walloon settlers from Belgium in the early 17th century. They were first cultivated in what is now New Jersey and New York. Pear trees are relatively long-lived (50 to 75 years) and may reach considerable size unless carefully trained and pruned; the pear is commercially the second most important of the world's deciduous fruit trees, exceeded only by the apple. Peach trees are relatively short-lived as compared with some other fruit trees. The peach is about 87 percent water and has fewer calories than either apples or pears.

Holidays

Sri Lanka: Independence Day.

Feast day of St. Theophilus the Penitent, St. Nicholas Studites, St. Andrew Corsini, bishop, St. Joan of Valois, St. Isidore of Pelusium, St. John de Britto, St. Modan, St. Phileas, St. Joseph of Leonessa, and St. Rembert.

Angola: Armed Struggle Day.

Events

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

1789 - Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first President of the United States. John Adams of Massachusetts, who received 34 votes, was elected vice president.

1861 - Delegates from six southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana) met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form the Confederate States of America.

1887 - The Interstate Commerce Commission was established.

1904 - The Russo-Japanese War began after Japan laid siege to Port Arthur.

1913 - Louis Perlman of New York City received a patent for his demountable tire-carrying rims, which we now call wheels.

1932 - The first Winter Olympic Games in the United States were held at Lake Placid, New York.

1941 - The United Service Organizations (USO) was founded order to provide recreation for on-leave members of the U.S. armed forces and their families.

1945 - President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began the wartime Yalta Conference meeting.

1948 - The island nation of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.

1957 - Smith-Corona began selling portable electric typewriters.

1974 - Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California, by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

1976 - More than 22,000 people died when a severe earthquake struck Guatemala and Honduras.

1997 - A civil jury in Santa Monica, California, found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

2003 - Lawmakers formally dissolved Yugoslavia and replaced it with a union of its remaining two republics, Serbia and Montenegro.

Births

1902 - Charles Lindbergh, American aviator.

1913 - Rosa Lee Parks, American civil rights activist.

1921 - Betty Friedan (Goldstein), American feminist author, founder of the National Organization for Women.

1921 - Betty Friedan (born Bettye Naomi Goldstein), American feminist, activist and writer.

1945 - David Brenner, American standup comedian, actor, author, and filmmaker.

1947 - James Danforth "Dan" Quayle, 44th Vice President of the United States.

1948 - Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier), American rock singer, songwriter, and musician.

1973 - Oscar de la Hoya, a Mexican-American boxer who won a gold medal for the United States Boxing Team at the Barcelona Olympic Games.

Deaths

1983 - Karen Carpenter, American singer.

1987 - Liberace (born Wladziu Valentino Liberace), American entertainer.

2006 - Betty Friedan (born Bettye Naomi Goldstein), American feminist, activist and writer.