April 4 is the 94th day of the year (95th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 271 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Children’s Day (Republic of China and Hong Kong)
- Independence Day (Senegal), celebrates the independence of Senegal from France (1960).
- Peace Day (Angola)
History
In 503 BC, According to the Fasti Triumphales, Roman consul Agrippa Menenius Lanatus celebrated a triumph for a military victory over the Sabines.
In 1147, First historical record of Moscow.
In 1287, King Wareru founds Kingdom of Ramannadesa, and proclaims independence from Pagan Empire
In 1581, Francis Drake is knighted for completing a circumnavigation of the world.
In 1581, Queen Elizabeth dines on board the “Pelican,” the ship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the World, and, after dinner, Knighted him.
In 1609, Philip III of Spain issues the decree of the “Expulsion of the Moriscos”.
In 1617, John Napier, Scottish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (b. 1550) dies. He also signed as Neper, Nepair; nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston) was a Scottish landowner known as amathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. His Latinized name was Joannes Neper.
John Napier is best known as the inventor of logarithms. He also invented the so-called “Napier’s bones” and made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics.
Napier’s birthplace, Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh, Scotland, is now part of the facilities of Edinburgh Napier University. After his death, at home at Merchiston Castle, from the effects of gout, Napier’s remains were buried in the churchyard of St Giles Cathedral but, following the loss of the graveyard there to build the Law Courts, he was memorialised at St Cuthbert’s Church at the west side of Edinburgh.
In 1660, Declaration of Breda by King Charles II of England.
In 1721, Sir Robert Walpole takes office as the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom under King George I.
In 1768, In London, England, Great Britain, Philip Astley stages the first modern circus.
In 1792, James Sykes, American lawyer and politician (b. 1725) dies in Dover, Delaware on April 4, 1792 and is buried at Christ Episcopal Church there. His son, James Sykes, Jr., served as Governor of Delaware, and his great-grandson George served as a Major General in the American Civil War. He was an American lawyer and politician from Dover, in Kent County, Delaware. He served in the Delaware General Assembly and was a Continental Congressman from Delaware. Sykes served as a lieutenant under Caesar Rodney in the Dover Militia in 1756. In 1776 he was a delegate to the Delaware State Constitutional Convention held at Dover. From November 7, 1776 until January 10, 1777 Sykes served on the Council of Safety, a body which was appointed to act as the state’s executive until the Delaware General Assembly was able to choose the state’s first President and Privy Council. He served in the Continental Congress most of 1777. Also in 1777, Sykes was appointed Kent County Clerk of the Peace and Kent County Prothonotary. He served in these posts for the remainder of his life. Sykes served on the state’s Privy Council in 1780, and in the state’s second Constitutional Convention in 1792 until his death. He was appointed Judge of the High Court of Errors and Appeals of Delaware in 1792 and served until his death later that year.
In 1796, Georges Cuvier delivered his first paleontological lecture at École Centrale du Pantheon of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle on living and fossil remains of elephants and related species, founding the science of Paleontology.
In 1812, U.S. President James Madison enacts a ninety-day embargo on trade with the United Kingdom.
In 1814, Napoleon abdicates for the first time and names his son Napoleon II as Emperor of the French.
In 1818, The United States Congress adopts the flag of the United States with 13 red and white stripes and one star for each state (then 20), since each new state would keep on shrinking the red and white stripes.
In 1828, Casparus van Wooden patents chocolate milk powder (Amsterdam).
In 1841, William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office, and setting the record for the briefest administration. He was an American military officer and politician, and the last President born as a British subject. He was 68 years, 23 days old when inaugurated, the oldest president to take office until Ronald Reagan in 1981. Harrison died on his 32nd day in office of complications from pneumonia, serving the shortest tenure in United States presidential history. His death sparked a brief constitutional crisis, but its resolution left unsettled many questions following the presidential line of succession in regard to Constitution up until the passage of the 25th Amendment in 1967. He was the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, who was the 23rd President from 1889 to 1893.
Before election as president, Harrison served as the first territorial congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory, governor of the Indiana Territory, and later as a U.S. representative and senator from Ohio. He originally gained national fame for leading U.S. forces against American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where he earned the nickname “Tippecanoe” (or “Old Tippecanoe”). As a general in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable action was in the Battle of the Thames in 1813, which brought an end to hostilities in Upper Canada. This battle resulted in the death of Tecumseh and the dissolution of the Indian coalition which he led.
After the war, Harrison moved to Ohio, where he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. In 1824, the state legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate. He served a truncated term after being appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia in May 1828. In Colombia, he spoke with Simón Bolívar, urging his nation to adopt American-style democracy.
In 1850, A large part of the English village of Cottenham burns to the ground in suspicious circumstances.
In 1850, Los Angeles is incorporated as a city.
In 1859, Bryant’s Minstrels debut “Dixie” in New York City in the finale of a blackface minstrel show.
In 1865, American Civil War: A day after Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln visits the Confederate capital. With “a serious, dreamy expression,” he sits at the desk of Jefferson Davis for a few moments.
In 1866, Alexander II of Russia narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Dmitry Karakozov in the city of Saint Petersburg.
In 1873, The Kennel Club is founded, the oldest and first official registry of purebred dogs in the world.
In 1877, A pianist performed in Philadelphia, and an audience heard the performance in New York. It was an important early demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s new invention, the telephone.
In 1887, Argonia, Kansas elects Susanna M. Salter as the first female mayor in the United States.
In 1896, the Yukon gold rush began with the announcement of a strike in the Northwest Territory of Canada.
In 1897, Campbell’s Soups was introduced.
In 1905, In India, an earthquake hits the Kangra Valley, killing 20,000, and destroying most buildings in Kangra, McLeod Ganj and Dharamsala.
In 1913, First Balkan War: Greek aviator Emmanouil Argyropoulos becomes the first pilot to die in the Hellenic Air Force when his plane crashes.
In 1918, The second Battle of the Somme ended with German gains of some 40 miles at a cost of 150,000 Germans killed or wounded and 160,000 Allied casualties.
In 1925, The Schutzstaffel (SS) is founded in Germany.
In 1928, Professor C.G. King of the University of Pittsburgh isolated vitamin C after five years of research.
In 1930, The Communist Party of Panama is founded.
In 1933, U.S. Navy airship, USS Akron, is wrecked off the New Jersey coast due to severe weather.
In 1939, Faisal II becomes King of Iraq.
In 1944, World War II: First bombardment of oil refineries in Bucharest by Anglo-American forces kills 3000 civilians.
In 1945, World War II: American troops liberate Ohrdruf forced labor camp in Germany.
In 1945, World War II: American troops capture Kassel.
In 1945, U.S. troops on Okinawa encountered the first significant resistance from Japanese forces.
In 1945, World War II: Soviet troops liberate Hungary from German occupation and occupy the country itself.
In 1949, Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In 1958, The CND peace symbol is displayed in public for the first time in London.
In 1960, France agrees to grant independence to the Mali Federation, a union of Senegal and French Sudan.
In 1964, The Beatles occupy the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.
In 1965, The first model of the new Saab Viggen fighter aircraft is unveiled.
In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” speech in New York City’s Riverside Church.
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support a strike by sanitation workers. He was 39 years old. He was assasinated by sniper James Earl Ray as he stood on a motel balcony. James Brown appeared on television nationwide while he asked the viewers to refrain from violence. He was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination in 1968. Born in Atlanta, King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.
In 1968, Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 6.
In 1968, A.E.K. Athens B.C. becomes the first Greek team to win the European Basketball Cup.
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr., American minister and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1929)
In 1969, Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
In 1972, the first electric power was fueled by garbage.
In 1972, The Soviet Union refused a visa to the Swedish Academy secretary who was to deliver the Nobel Prize to Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
In 1973, The World Trade Center in New York is officially dedicated.
In 1973, A Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, dubbed the Hanoi Taxi, makes the last flight of Operation Homecoming.
In 1975, Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico
In 1975, A United States Air Force Lockheed C-5A Galaxy transporting orphans, crashes near Saigon, South Vietnam shortly after takeoff, killing 172 people, most of them children. The U.S. Air Force transport plane was evacuating Vietnamese orphans crashed shortly after take-off from Saigon. The end is near.
In 1976, Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigns as leader of Cambodia and is placed under house arrest.
In 1979, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan is executed.
In 1981, The Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force mounts an attack on H-3 Airbase and destroys about 50 Iraqi aircraft.
In 1983, Space Shuttle Challenger makes its maiden voyage into space.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
In 1984, Winston Smith in Orwell’s “1984” begins his secret diary writing “Down With Big Brother”.
In 1988, Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona is convicted in his impeachment trial and removed from office.
In 1991, Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others are killed when a helicopter collides with their airplane over an elementary school in Merion, Pennsylvania.
In 1991, The current flag of Hong Kong is adopted for post-colonial Hong Kong during the Third Session of the Seventh National People’s Congress.
In 1992, small-town billionaire Sam Moore Walton, whose Wal-Mart retail store chain helped make him one of the world’s richest men, died.
In 1992, His campaign acknowledged that Bill Clinton had received an induction notice in April 1969 while attending college in Oxford, England; Clinton said the notice arrived after he was due to report, and that his local draft board had told him he could complete the school term.
In 1994, Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark found Netscape Communications Corporation under the name Mosaic Communications Corporation.
In 1996, Comet Hyakutake is imaged by the USA Asteroid Orbiter Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous.
In 2002, The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign a peace treaty ending the Angolan Civil War.
In 2007, Fifteen British Royal Navy personnel held in Iran are released by the Iranian President.
In 2008, A Polk County Iowa judge has ordered Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro to stop using languages other than English in the state’s official voter-registration forms, ruling in favor of U.S. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who sued state officials the previous year contending they were violating the state’s English-language law.
In 2008, Sponsors of an initiative to make the King County Washington executive and Metropolitan King County Council nonpartisan offices said they have turned in enough signatures to put the issue before voters. The Municipal League of King County, League of Women Voters and county charter-review commissions have proposed making the races nonpartisan, but the county council refused to put those proposals before voters.
In 2008, According to a new Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll in Pennsylvania, Sen. Hillary Clinton holds an 11-point lead over Sen. Barack Obama, 49% to 38%. In February, Clinton held a 14 points lead. The survey “is the latest sign of a tightening race in the state, where Clinton has led by wide margins since the primary fight got under way 15 months ago.” “In another sign that John McCain is moving toward accepting public financing this fall, the Republican’s campaign is returning about $3 million in checks to contributors who have given money for his general election campaign, funds he could not use if he opts into the public system,” the Boston Globe reports. “The move is largely procedural, and McCain’s campaign said yesterday that it has not yet decided whether to accept public funding or to raise money on its own for the November presidential election. But the decision to return checks – which was made as the Democratic candidates announced raising $60 million combined in March, nearly as much as McCain had raised for the entire campaign through February – indicates that McCain is laying the groundwork for doing so.”
In 2009, Three police officers are shot and killed during a shootout in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In 2013, More than 70 people are killed in a building collapse in Thane, India.
In 2014, David Letterman announces retirement. After more than 30 years on air, late-night talk show host David Letterman announced his retirement. He’ll remain on the air at CBS until 2015. While Letterman’s Late Show saw its ratings decline over the last three months, the veteran comedian is still considered one of the most influential talk-show hosts in television history. [Forbes]
In 2014, Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich resigned under pressure after gay rights activists demanded that he step down or recant his support of traditional marriage laws. Eich donated $1,000 to support Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that amended the state’s constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Tolerance from the left……
In 2017, Republican Rep. Jerry Sexton berated his colleagues on the House floor about what he calls rules violations and manipulations to advance Gov. Bill Haslam’s transportation funding proposal that would include the state’s first gas tax hike since 1989.
In 2020, China holds a national mourning day for martyrs who died in the fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19)