What Happened on February 4th in History
30 historical events on this date
The Codex Sinaiticus is discovered in Egypt.
The Codex Sinaiticus, also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonical...
American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six breakaway U.S. states meet and initiate the process that would form the Confederate States of America on February 8.
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the...
The Philippine–American War begins when four Filipino soldiers enter the "American Zone" in Manila, igniting the Battle of Manila.
The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Filipino–American War, Philippine Insurrection, or Tagalog Insurgency, emerged in early 1899 following the United States' annexation of the...
Second Sino-Japanese War: Harbin, Manchuria, falls to Japan.
The Second Sino-Japanese War, known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japan, was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan and its puppet states between 1937 and 1945,...
Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Armed Forces High Command.
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Germany during the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party,...
The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
The United Service Organizations, Inc. (USO) is an American nonprofit-charitable corporation that provides live entertainment, such as comedians, actors and musicians, social facilities, and other...
World War II: Santo Tomas Internment Camp is liberated from Japanese authority.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
World War II: The Yalta Conference between the "Big Three" (Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin) opens at the Livadia Palace in the Crimea.
The Yalta Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar...
World War II: The British Indian Army and Imperial Japanese Army begin a series of battles known as the Battle of Pokoku and Irrawaddy River operations.
The Indian Army during British rule, also referred to as the British Indian Army, was the main military force of India until national independence in 1947. Formed in 1895 by uniting the three...
Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.
The Dominion of Ceylon, officially Ceylon, was an independent country in the Commonwealth of Nations from 1948 to 1972, that shared a monarch with other dominions of the Commonwealth. In 1948, the...
The Angolan War of Independence and the greater Portuguese Colonial War begin.
The Angolan War of Independence, known as the Armed Struggle of National Liberation in Angola, was a war of independence fought by the Angolan nationalist forces of the MPLA, UNITA and FNLA against...
All Nippon Airways Flight 60 plunges into Tokyo Bay, killing 133.
All Nippon Airways Flight 60 was a Boeing 727-81 aircraft making a domestic commercial flight in Japan from Sapporo Chitose Airport to Tokyo Haneda International Airport. On February 4, 1966, all...
Lunar Orbiter program: Lunar Orbiter 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 13 on its mission to identify possible landing sites for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft.
The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five uncrewed Moon-orbiting missions launched by the United States in 1966 and 1967. Intended to help select Apollo landing sites by mapping the Moon's...
The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California.
The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was a small, American far-left militant organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. Six...
M62 coach bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb on a bus carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel in Yorkshire, England. Nine soldiers and three civilians are killed.
On 4 February 1974, a 25-pound bomb planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in a coach on the M62 motorway in northern England exploded, killing twelve people and injuring...
Haicheng earthquake (magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale) occurs in Haicheng, Liaoning, China.
On February 4, 1975, at 19:36 CST, an earthquake of Ms 7.5 and intensity (MMI) IX hit the city of Haicheng, Liaoning, China. The successful early evacuation ordered by Chinese officials, based...
In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake kills more than 22,000.
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in northern Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to...
A Chicago Transit Authority elevated train rear-ends another and derails, killing 11 and injuring 180, the worst accident in the agency's history.
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is a public transit agency in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It operates the Chicago "L" rail system and CTA bus services.
A coup d'état is led by Hugo Chávez against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
The Venezuelan coup attempt of February 1992 was an attempt to seize control of the government of Venezuela by the Hugo Chávez-led Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) that took place on...
En route to Lebanon, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 troop-transport helicopters collide in mid-air over northern Galilee, Israel, killing 73.
Lebanon, officially the Lebanese Republic, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to...
The Bojnurd earthquake measuring Mw 6.5 strikes Iran. With a Mercalli intensity of VIII, it kills at least 88 and damages 173 villages.
The 1997 Bojnurd earthquake occurred on 4 February at 14:07 IRST in Iran. The epicenter of the Mw 6.5 earthquake was in the Kopet Dag mountains of North Khorasan, near the Iran–Turkmenistan border,...
The 5.9 Mw Afghanistan earthquake shakes the Takhar Province with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (Very strong). With 2,323 killed, and 818 injured, damage is considered extreme.
An earthquake occurred on 4 February 1998 at 19:03 local time near the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border. The strike-slip shock had a moment magnitude of 5.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII...
Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot 19 times by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race relations in the city.
In the early hours of February 4, 1999, 23-year-old Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Guinean student, was struck with 19 of 41 rounds fired by four New York City Police Department plainclothes officers:...
The World Summit Against Cancer for the New Millennium, Charter of Paris is signed by the President of France, Jacques Chirac and the Director General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, initiating World Cancer Day which is held on February 4 every year.
Jacques René Chirac was President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia adopts a new constitution, becoming a loose confederacy between Montenegro and Serbia.
The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and commonly referred to as Yugoslavia, was a country in the Balkans in Southeast Europe that...
Facebook, a mainstream online social networking site, is founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin.
Facebook is an American social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms. It was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, along with his Harvard College roommates...
Civic mobilizations in Colombia against FARC, under the name A million voices against the FARC.
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country located in South America, with insular regions in North America. Colombia's mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north,...
TransAsia Airways Flight 235, with 58 people on board, en route from the Taiwanese capital Taipei to Kinmen, crashes into the Keelung River just after takeoff, killing 43 people.
TransAsia Airways Flight 235 was a domestic flight from Taipei to Kinmen, Taiwan. On 4 February 2015, the aircraft serving the flight, a 10-month-old ATR 72, crashed into the Keelung River around...
The COVID-19 pandemic causes all casinos in Macau to be closed down for 15 days.
The global COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It spread to other parts of Asia and...
Ten people are killed in a mass shooting at an adult education centre in Örebro, Sweden.
On 4 February 2025, a school shooting occurred at Campus Risbergska, an adult education center in Örebro, Sweden. The shooter was identified as 35-year-old Rickard Andersson, who killed ten people...