What Happened on May 4th in History
30 historical events on this date
The United Kingdom general strike begins.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It...
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion...
Having been incarcerated at the Cook County Jail since his sentencing on October 24, 1931, mobster Al Capone is transferred to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta after the U.S. Supreme Court denies his appeal for conviction of tax evasion.
The Cook County Jail, located on 96 acres in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. It is sometimes referred to as 26th and Cal or Hotel California, as its...
World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier USSÂ Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.
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: Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg is liberated by the British Army.
Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of...
World War II: The German surrender at LĂŒneburg Heath is signed, coming into effect the following day. It encompasses all Wehrmacht units in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany.
On 4 May 1945, at 18:30 British Double Summer Time, at LĂŒneburg Heath, south of Hamburg, British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of the German forces in the...
In San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines from the nearby Treasure Island Naval Base stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Five people are killed in the riot.
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
The entire Torino football team (except for two players who did not take the trip: Sauro TomĂ , due to an injury and Renato Gandolfi, because of coach request) is killed in a plane crash.
Torino Football Club, colloquially referred to as Toro, is an Italian professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont that currently plays in the Serie A, the highest football league of Italy....
Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized...
The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.
The 1st Annual Grammy Awards, which began as The Gramophone Awards, were held on May 4, 1959. They recognized musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1958. Two separate ceremonies were...
American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South.
The civil rights movement was a social movement in the United States from 1954 to 1968 which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country,...
Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather attain a new altitude record for manned balloon flight ascending in the Strato-Lab V open gondola to 113,740 feet (34.67Â km).
Malcolm David Ross was a captain in the United States Naval Reserve (USNR), an atmospheric scientist, and a balloonist who set several records for altitude and scientific inquiry, with more than 100...
Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.
The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while...
The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to Greenpeace Foundation.
The Don't Make a Wave Committee was the name of the anti-nuclear organization which later evolved into Greenpeace, a global environmental organization. The Don't Make a Wave Committee was founded...
The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet (442Â m) as the world's tallest building.
The Willis Tower, formerly and still commonly referred to as the Sears Tower, is a 110-story, 1,451-foot (442.3Â m) skyscraper in the Loop of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Designed by architect...
The South African Defence Force attacks a SWAPO base at Cassinga in southern Angola, killing about 600 people.
The South African Defence Force (SADF) comprised the armed forces of South Africa from 1957 until 1994. Shortly before the state reconstituted itself as a republic in 1961, the former Union Defence...
Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She...
Twenty sailors are killed when the British Type 42 destroyer HMSÂ Sheffield is hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War.
The Type 42 or Sheffield class was developed to provide the Royal Navy with a cost-effective, medium-sized guided-missile destroyer focused on fleet air defence. Conceived in the late 1960s after...
The PEPCON disaster rocks Henderson, Nevada, as tons of Space Shuttle fuel detonate during a fire.
On May 4, 1988, a fire followed by several explosions occurred at the Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada (PEPCON) chemical plant in Henderson, Nevada, United States. The disaster...
IranâContra affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges; the convictions are later overturned on appeal.
The IranâContra affair, also referred to as the IranâContra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply IranâContra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms...
Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on mission STS-30 to deploy the Venus-bound Magellan space probe.
Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Atlantis was manufactured by the Rockwell...
Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union.
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It...
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord, granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
A prime minister, also known as a chief of cabinet, chief minister, first minister, minister-president or premier, is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch...
A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California. The county seat of Sacramento County, it is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in the Sacramento Valley....
Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London (an office separate from that of the Lord Mayor of London).
Kenneth Robert Livingstone is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as the first mayor of London...
One hundred three people are killed and 51 are injured in a plane crash near Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Nigeria.
EAS Airlines Flight 4226 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Kano to Lagos, Nigeria. On 4 May 2002, the aircraft operating the flight overran the runway on its' takeoff roll and crashed...
Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by the 2007 Greensburg tornado, a 1.7-mile wide EF5 tornado. It was the first-ever tornado to be rated with the new Enhanced Fujita scale.
Greensburg is a city in and the county seat of Kiowa County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population of the city was 740. It is home to the world's largest...
Three people are killed and 62 injured in a pair of bombings on buses in Nairobi, Kenya.
From late 2011 to 2014, Kenya experienced an upsurge in violent terrorist attacks. Kenyan government officials asserted that many of the murders and blasts were carried out by al-Shabaab in...
The inaugural all-female motorsport series, W Series, takes place at Hockenheimring. The race was won by Jamie Chadwick, who would go on to become the inaugural series champion.
W Series was an all-female single-seater racing championship. It was held over a total of three seasons in 2019, 2021 and 2022 before the championship fell into administration and later liquidated,...
Nine people are killed and thirteen injured in a spree shooting in Mladenovac and Smederevo, Serbia. It is the second mass shooting in the country in two days.
On the evening of 4 May 2023, a shooting spree occurred in the villages of Dubona and Malo OraĆĄje, between Mladenovac and Smederevo, Serbia. Armed with an automatic assault rifle, the shooter opened...