Feb. 4, 1962 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital was founded in Memphis, Tenn., by entertainer Danny Thomas.
1783 Britain's King George III proclaimed a formal cessation of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.
1789 Electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.
1861 Delegates from six Southern states that recently had seceded from the Union met in Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States of America.
1932 New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid.
1941 The United Service Organizations, or USO, came into existence.
1962 A rare conjunction of the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn occurred.
1972 Mariner 9, orbiting Mars, transmitted images of the Red Planet.
1974 Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, Calif., by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
1976 More than 23,000 people died when a magnitude-7.5 earthquake struck Guatemala.
1982 President Ronald Reagan announced a plan to eliminate all medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe.
1983 Singer-musician Karen Carpenter died in Downey, Calif., at age 32.
1987 The pianist Liberace died in Palm Springs, Calif., at age 67.
10 years ago The World Economic Forum concluded five days of meetings in New York; activists in Porto Alegre, Brazil, concluded their World Social Forum, held as a counter to the gathering in New York. Former Enron Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay resigned from the board, cutting his last tie to the company beyond stock ownership.
Five years ago The Indianapolis Colts won Super Bowl XLI, beating the Chicago Bears 29-17.
One year ago President Barack Obama appealed to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to focus on his legacy and begin an orderly process to relinquish the power he held for 30 years; Obama stopped short of calling for Mubarak's immediate resignation.
Thought for today "The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian (1906-1945)
The Associated Press
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