On this date:

In1783, Britain's King George III proclaimed a formal cessation of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.

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

In 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta.

In 1948, the island nation of Ceylon — now Sri Lanka — became an independent dominion within the British Commonwealth.

In 1974, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, Calif., by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Thought for Today:

"Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries." — James Michener, American author (1907-1997).