February 4, O.J. Simpson found liable in civil trial

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 4, the 35th day of 2025. There are 330 days left in the year.

Today 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.

Also on this date:

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.)