Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026 — the 35th day of the year. There are 330 days left in 2026.
On this day in history:
2004 — Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched ‘TheFacebook,’ the social network that grew into Facebook.
1789 — Electors unanimously chose George Washington as the first president of the United States.
1801 — John Marshall took office as chief justice of the United States, a position he held for 34 years.
1945 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began the wartime Yalta conference.
1974 — Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19, was kidnapped in California by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was later photographed taking part in a bank robbery, convicted and sentenced to seven years; President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence and she was later pardoned.
1976 — A magnitude-7.5 earthquake in Guatemala killed more than 23,000 people.
1997 — A civil jury in Santa Monica found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to the victims’ families.
2013 — British researchers announced that skeletal remains found beneath a Leicester parking lot were, beyond reasonable doubt, those of 15th-century King Richard III.
2023 — The U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic, saying it carried advanced equipment linked to military surveillance; China denied spying and called it a stray weather balloon.
Today’s birthdays:
Isabel Perón, former Argentine president, 95; rock singer Alice Cooper, 78; Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, 73; Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor, 67; country singer Clint Black, 64; Boxing Hall of Famer Oscar De La Hoya, 53; singer Natalie Imbruglia, 51; rapper Cam’ron, 50; singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw, 49; Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Carly Patterson, 38; actor Edvin Ryding, 23.
