February 4, 1987
The U.S. House of Representatives overrode President Ronald Reagan’s second veto (401-26) of the Clean Water Act. The law provided funds for communities to build waste treatment facilities and to clean up waterways.
February 4, 1990
The Colombian government recognized native rights to half of its 69,000 square miles of forest in the Amazon River basin, home to 55,000 indigenous people.
February 4, 2004
The Massachusetts Supreme Court (Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health) declared that gays were entitled to nothing less than marriage under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
