In 1789, electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.

In 1913, Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Ala. As a black woman, her 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white man helped to spark a civil rights revolution.

In 1938, the Thornton Wilder play “Our Town” opened on Broadway. Walt Disney’s animated feature “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” opened in general U.S. release.

In 1962, a rare conjunction of the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn occurred.

In 1983, pop singer-musician Karen Carpenter died in Downey, Calif., at age 32.

In 1987, pianist Wladziu Valentino Liberace died at his Palm Springs, Calif., home at age 67.