October 4 is the 277th day of the year (278th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 88 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
Christian feast day:
This is Cinnamon Roll Day or kanelbullens dag (Sweden), Day of Peace and Reconciliation (Mozambique), Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Lesotho from the United Kingdom in 1966.
Day of Peace and Reconciliation (Mozambique)
Independence Day (Lesotho), celebrates the independence of Lesotho from the United Kingdom in 1966.
The beginning of World Space Week (International)
World Animal Day (International)
History
In AD 23, Rebels capture and sack the Chinese capital Chang’an during a peasant rebellion. They kill and decapitate the emperor, Wang Mang, two days later.
In 610, Heraclius arrives by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrows Byzantine Emperor Phocas and becomes Emperor.
In 1227, Assassination of Caliph al-Adil.
In 1302, A peace treaty between the Byzantine Empire and the Republic of Venice ends the Byzantine–Venetian War (1296–1302).
In 1363, End of the Battle of Lake Poyang; the Chinese rebel forces of Zhu Yuanzhang defeat that of his rival, Chen Youliang, in one of the largest naval battles in history.
In 1511, Formation of the Holy League of Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Papal States and the Republic of Venice against France.
In 1535, The first complete English-language Bible (the Coverdale Bible) is printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
In 1597, The first Guale uprising begins against the Spanish missions in Georgia.
In 1636, The Swedish Army defeats the armies of Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Wittstock.
In 1669, Rembrandt, Dutch painter and illustrator (b. 1606) dies. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting, although in many ways antithetical to the Baroque style that dominated Europe, was extremely prolific and innovative, and gave rise to important new genres in painting.
Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt’s later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch painters. Rembrandt’s greatest creative triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity.
In his paintings and prints he exhibited knowledge of classical iconography, which he molded to fit the requirements of his own experience; thus, the depiction of a biblical scene was informed by Rembrandt’s knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of classical composition, and his observations of Amsterdam‘s Jewish population. Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called “one of the great prophets of civilization.”
In 1693, Battle of Marsaglia: Piedmontese troops are defeated by the French.
In 1725, Foundation of Rosario in Argentina.
In 1777, Battle of Germantown: Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under Sir William Howe.
In 1779, The Fort Wilson Riot takes place.
In 1795, Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence with a “Whiff of Grapeshot”, using cannon to suppress armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the French Legislature (National Convention).
In 1824, – Mexico adopts a new constitution and becomes a federal republic.
In 1830, Creation of the Kingdom of Belgium after separation from the Netherlands.
In 1853, Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.
In 1861, Frederic Sackrider Remington dies after an emergency appendectomy led to peritonitis on December 26, 1909. His extreme obesity (weight nearly 300 pounds) had complicated the anesthesia and the surgery, and chronic appendicitis was cited in the post-mortem examination as an underlying factor in his death. He was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the last quarter of the 19th-century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and the U. S. Cavalry.
In 1876, Texas A&M University opens as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, becoming the first public institution of higher education in Texas.
In 1883, First run of the Orient Express.
In 1883, First meeting of the Boys’ Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland.
In 1895, The first U.S. Open Men’s Golf Championship administered by the United States Golf Association is played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1904, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, French sculptor, designed the Statue of Liberty (b. 1834) dies of tuberculosis in Paris on 4 October 1904. Born in Colmar, in the Haut-Rhin departement of France, to Jean Charles Bartholdi (1791–1836) and Augusta Charlotte Bartholdi (née Beysser; 1801–1891), Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi was the youngest of their four children, and one of only two to survive infancy, along with the oldest brother, Jean-Charles, who became a lawyer and editor. When Bartholdi’s father died, his mother moved the family to Paris, while still maintaining ownership and visiting their house in Alsace, which later became the Bartholdi Museum. He attended the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris, and received a BA in 1852. He then went on to study architecture at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts as well as painting under Ary Scheffer in his studio in the Rue Chaptal, now the Musée de la Vie Romantique. Later, Bartholdi turned his attention to sculpture, which afterward exclusively occupied him.
In 1917, World War I: The Battle of Broodseinde fought between the British and German armies in Flanders.
In 1918, An explosion kills more than 100 and destroys the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, New Jersey. Fires and explosions continue for three days forcing massive evacuations and spreading ordnance over a wide area, pieces of which were still being found as of 2007.
In 1927, Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore.
In 1936, In the East End of London, marches staged by British fascists and various anti-fascist organizations result in violent clashes between them in what becomes known as the Battle of Cable Street.
In 1940, Meeting between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini at the Brenner Pass.
In 1941, Norman Rockwell‘s Willie Gillis character debuts on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
In 1943, World War II: U.S. captures the Solomon Islands from the Japanese.
In 1944, Al Smith, American politician, 42nd Governor of New York (b. 1873) dies at the Rockefeller Institute Hospital on October 4, 1944 of a heart attack, at the age of 70, broken-hearted over the death of his wife from cancer five months earlier, on May 4, 1944. He was an American statesman who was elected Governor of New York four times and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928. He was the foremost urban leader of the efficiency-oriented Progressive Movement and was noted for achieving a wide range of reforms as governor in the 1920s. He was also linked to the notorious Tammany Hall machine that controlled New York City’s politics; was a strong opponent of Prohibition and was the first Catholic nominee for President. His candidacy mobilized Catholic votes—especially women who previously had not voted. It also mobilized the anti-Catholic vote, which was strongest in the South. As a committed “wet” (anti-Prohibition) candidate, Smith attracted not only drinkers but also voters angered by the corruption and lawlessness brought about by prohibition. However, he was feared among Protestants, including German Lutherans and Southern Baptists, who believed that the Catholic Church and the Pope would dictate his policies. Most importantly, this was a time of national prosperity under a Republican Presidency, and Smith lost in a landslide to Republican Herbert Hoover. Four years later Smith sought the 1932 nomination but was defeated by his former ally and successor as New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. Smith entered business in New York City and became an increasingly vocal opponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal.
In 1957, Space Race: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
In 1957, Avro Arrow roll-out ceremony at Avro Canada plant in Malton, Ontario.
In 1957, Leave It To Beaver premieres on CBS.
In 1958, Fifth Republic of France is established.
In 1960, Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes after a bird strike on takeoff from Boston‘s Logan International Airport, killing 62 of 72 on board.
In 1963, Hurricane Flora, kills 6,000 in Cuba and Haiti.
In 1965, Pope Paul VI arrives in New York, the first Pope to visit the United States of America and the Western hemisphere.
In 1966, Basutoland becomes independent from the United Kingdom and is renamed Lesotho.
In 1967, Omar Ali Saifuddien III of Brunei abdicates in favour of his son, His Majesty Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.
In 1974, Founding of the New Democracy party in Greece.
In 1976, Official launch of the InterCity 125 high speed train.
In 1983, Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 miles per hour (1,019.468 km/h), driving Thrust2 at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
In 1985, The Free Software Foundation is founded in Massachusetts, United States.
In 1988, U.S. televangelist Jim Bakker is indicted for fraud.
In 1989, Secretariat, American race horse (b. 1970) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse that, in 1973, became the first U.S. Triple Crown winner in 25 years. He set race records in all three events in the series – the Kentucky Derby (1:592⁄5), the Preakness Stakes (1:53), and the Belmont Stakes (2:24) – records that still stand today[update].[2][3] He is considered to be one of the greatest Thoroughbreds of all time. In 1999, ESPN ranked Secretariat the 35th-best North American athlete of the 20th century, the highest-ranking racehorse on the list.[4] Secretariat ranked second behind Man o’ War in The Blood-Horse‘s List of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century. He was also ranked second behind Man o’ War by a six-member panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. He was also ranked second behind Man o’ War by a Sports Illustrated panel of seven experts.
In 1991, The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty is opened for signature.
In 1992, The Rome General Peace Accords ends a 16-year civil war in Mozambique.
In 1992, El Al Flight 1862: An El Al Boeing 747-258F crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 39 on the ground.
In 1993, Russian Constitutional Crisis: In Moscow, tanks bombard the White House, a government building that housed the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rally outside.
In 1997, The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs at the Charlotte, North Carolina office of Loomis, Fargo and Company. A Federal Bureau of Investigation investigation eventually results in 24 convictions and the recovery of approximately 95% of the $17.3 million stolen cash.
In 2001, NATO confirms invocation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
In 2001, Siberia Airlines Flight 1812: A Sibir Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. Seventy-eight people are killed.
In 2003, Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel: Twenty-one Israelis, Jews and Arabs, are killed, and 51 others wounded.
In 2004, SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space.
In 2006, The Jackson City Council voted 7-2 (John Bannister, Frank Neudecker opposing) to annex an area encompassing about 20 square miles northwest of the city. The estimated cost to the city was upwards in the 8 figures excluding legal expenses. The total costs to date have not been revealed.
In 2007, An argument against the Curve System – Plenty of college students grumble when they get a mediocre grade and feel that they deserved better. When Brian Marquis got a C instead of an A-minus at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he made a federal case of it. The judge dismissed the case.
In 2007, A Colorado state constitutional amendment pushed by anti-union advocates that would bar compulsory union membership for workers advanced toward the 2008 ballot. The language for a proposed “Colorado Right to Work” amendment was approved by the state’s Initiative Title Setting Review Board.
In 2010, The Ajka plant accident in western Hungary releases about a million cubic metres (35 million cubic feet) of liquid alumina sludge. Nine people are killed and 122 injured, and the Marcal and Danube rivers are severely contaminated.
In 2014, Paul Revere, singer with the American rock band Paul Revere & the Raiders (b. 1938) died of cancer at his home in Garden Valley, Idaho on October 4, 2014, aged 76. His funeral, held at the Cathedral of the Rockies in Boise, Idaho, was attended by, amongst others, former Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne. The band was an American rock band that saw considerable U.S. mainstream success in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s. Among their hits were the songs “Kicks” (1966; ranked No. 400 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time), “Hungry” (1966), “Him Or Me – What’s It Gonna Be?” (1967) and the Platinum-certified classic No. 1 single “Indian Reservation” (1971).
In 2014, ISIS terrorists post video of British aid worker Alan Henning being BEHEADED
In 2014, Redbox Instant announced Saturday it would discontinue its streaming service on October 7, one year after it went live. The service, a partnership between Verizon and the company Outerwall, was envisioned as a potential competitor to Netflix in the digital streaming game. “The service had not been as successful as either partner hoped it would be,” the companies said in a joint statement. [Reuters]
In 2015, Clinton Proposes New Gun Measures, Staking Claim Vs. Sanders Hillary Clinton is to announce proposals to close gun sale loopholes and repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Clinton, then a senator, voted against the 2005 law, which provides legal protection to gun manufacturers and dealers who sell guns that are used for criminal activity. Joining others calling for tighter gun laws in the wake of last week’s mass shooting in Oregon, Clinton also plans to back legislation to prohibit anyone with a history of domestic violence from buying or possessing guns. Bloomberg