This Day in History

On Feb. 4, 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, ordering Simpson to pay $33.5 million to the victims' families.

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In 1789, electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.

In 1801, John Marshall took office as chief justice of the United States, a position he would hold for a record 34 years.

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

In 1974, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19, was kidnapped in Berkeley, California, by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army.

In 1976, more than 23,000 people died when a severe earthquake struck Guatemala with a magnitude of 7.5.

In 2004, Facebook had its beginnings as Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook."

In 2013, British scientists announced that the skeletal remains they had discovered during an excavation beneath a Leicester, England parking lot were, beyond reasonable doubt, the remains of 15th century monarch King Richard III.

In 2021, a voting technology company, Smartmatic USA, sued Fox News, three of its hosts and two former Trump lawyers — Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell — for $2.7 billion, for allegedly conspiring to spread false claims that the company helped "steal" the presidential election. (The case remains ongoing.)

Today's birthdays: Former Argentinian President Isabel Peron is 94. Former Vice President Dan Quayle is 78. Rock singer Alice Cooper is 77. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is 72. Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor is 66. Country singer Clint Black is 63. Boxing Hall of Famer Oscar De La Hoya is 52. Singer Natalie Imbruglia is 50. Rapper Cam'ron is 49. Singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw is 48. Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Carly Patterson is 37.