This Day in History

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1783 – England proclaimed the formal end to the hostilities with the United States.1787 – Shays’s Rebellion, an uprising of Massachusetts farmers, was defeated.1789 – George Washington and John Adams are elected the president and vice president of the United States.1861 – Delegates from six southern states met at Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States of America.1945 – Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at the Yalta Conference.1948 – Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) gained independence from the United Kingdom.1969 – The Palestine National Congress appointed Yasir Arafat head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.1974 – Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.2003 – The country of Yugoslavia disappeared, to be replaced by the loose federation of Serbia and Montenegro.2004 – The Massachusetts Supreme Court declared that gays had the right to marry.]]]]> ]]>