1789

Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.

1801

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

1945

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

1974

Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19, was kidnapped in Berkeley by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army.

1997

A civil jury in Santa Monica 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.

2004

Facebook had its beginnings as Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook.”

Birthdays

Former Vice President Dan Quayle is 78. Rock singer Alice Cooper is 77. 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. Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Carly Patterson is 37.