Today in History, February 4th
On February 4, 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin opened the Yalta Conference. Plus Washington's unanimous electoral vote and Facebook's launch.
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February 4 is best known for the opening of the Yalta Conference in 1945, where Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in Crimea to plan the end of World War II and the shape of the peace. The date also saw presidential electors unanimously choose George Washington in 1789 and Facebook launch from a Harvard dorm in 2004.
The big story: The Yalta Conference Opens (1945)
With Germany close to collapse, the “Big Three” of the Allies met at Yalta, a resort town in Crimea, from February 4 to 11, 1945. The war in Europe was nearly won, the war with Japan was not, and the shape of the postwar world was up for grabs. They agreed to split defeated Germany into occupation zones, with France getting one. Stalin promised to join the Pacific war in exchange for territory and concessions in Northeast Asia, including the Kurile Islands and southern Sakhalin. The Soviets pledged free elections in liberated countries, and a deal on Poland let Communists into its postwar government. The leaders also settled how voting would work on the UN Security Council, with a veto for each permanent member. The first headlines were glowing. Later, critics charged that Roosevelt had handed Eastern Europe to Stalin, though historians note the Soviets made concessions too.
More events on February 4
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1789 | Presidential electors cast their ballots, and every one of them voted for George Washington. |
| 1826 | James Fenimore Cooper published The Last of the Mohicans. |
| 1846 | Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began leaving Nauvoo, Illinois, on the trek that would take them to Utah. |
| 1861 | Delegates from six seceded Southern states met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form the Confederate States of America. |
| 1915 | Germany declared the waters around the British Isles a war zone where merchant ships could be sunk without warning. |
| 1922 | Ford Motor Company bought the struggling Lincoln Motor Company for $8 million. |
| 1938 | Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, its first feature-length cartoon, went into general release. |
| 1974 | Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped in California by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a small radical group. |
| 2004 | Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched “TheFacebook,” the site that grew into Facebook. |
| 2007 | Tony Dungy’s Indianapolis Colts won Super Bowl XLI, making him the first Black head coach to win the title. |
Born on February 4
- 1902: Charles Lindbergh, aviator who made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic.
- 1913: Rosa Parks, civil rights activist whose 1955 arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott.
- 1921: Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique and a founder of the National Organization for Women.
Sources
- The Yalta Conference, 1945, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
- Yalta Conference, Britannica
- This Day in History: February 4, History.com
- Charles Lindbergh, Britannica
- Rosa Parks, Britannica
- Betty Friedan, Britannica
