What Happened on September 4th in History
30 historical events on this date
Maiden flight of the first U.S. airship, the USSÂ Shenandoah.
An airship, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas...
Spanish Civil War: Largo Caballero forms a war cabinet to direct the republican war effort.
The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalist rebels. Republicans loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic...
World War II: William J. Murphy commands the first Royal Air Force attack on Germany.
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: A German submarine makes the first attack of the war against a United States warship, the USSÂ Greer.
USS Greer (DDâ145) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy, the first ship named for Rear Admiral James A. Greer (1833â1904). In what became known as the "Greer incident," she became...
World War II: The British 11th Armoured Division liberates the Belgian city of Antwerp.
The 11th Armoured Division was an armoured division of the British Army which was created in March 1941 during the Second World War. The division was formed in response to the unanticipated success...
World War II: Finland exits from the war with Soviet Union.
The Continuation War, also known as the Second SovietâFinnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration...
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands abdicates for health reasons.
Wilhelmina was Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 until her abdication in 1948. She reigned for nearly 58 years, making her the longest-reigning monarch in Dutch history, as well as the...
Paul Robeson performs a second concert in Peekskill, New York eight days after the Peekskill riots.
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political...
Darlington Raceway is the site of the inaugural Southern 500, the first 500-mile NASCAR race.
Darlington Raceway is a 1.366Â mi (2.198Â km) egg-shaped oval track in Darlington, South Carolina. The track has hosted racing events since its inaugural season in 1950, primarily races sanctioned by...
The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, United States, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference.
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the fourth-most populous city in California and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with a population of 826,079 in 2025....
American Civil Rights Movement: Little Rock Crisis: The governor of Arkansas calls out the National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling in Little Rock Central High School, resulting in the lawsuit Cooper v. Aaron the following year.
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,...
Swissair Flight 306 crashes near DĂŒrrenĂ€sch, Switzerland, killing all 80 people on board.
Swissair Flight 306, a Sud Aviation Caravelle named Schaffhausen, was a scheduled international flight from Zurich to Rome, via Geneva. It crashed near DĂŒrrenĂ€sch, Aargau, on 4 September 1963,...
Scotland's Forth Road Bridge near Edinburgh officially opens.
The Forth Road Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the Firth of Forth in Scotland. The bridge opened in 1964 and, at the time, was the longest suspension bridge in the world outside the...
Vietnam War: Operation Swift begins when U.S. Marines engage the North Vietnamese in battle in the Que Son Valley.
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...
Salvador Allende is elected President of Chile.
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 29th president of Chile from 1970 until his suicide in 1973. As a socialist committed to democracy, he has...
Alaska Airlines Flight 1866 crashes near Juneau, Alaska, killing all 111 people on board.
Alaska Airlines Flight 1866 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight operated by Alaska Airlines from Anchorage, Alaska, to Seattle, Washington, with several intermediate stops in southeast...
Mark Spitz becomes the first competitor to win seven medals at a single Olympic Games.
Mark Andrew Spitz is an American former competitive swimmer and nine-time Olympic champion. He was the most successful athlete at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, winning seven gold medals, each...
The Price Is Right premieres on CBS. It currently is the longest running game show on American television.
The Price Is Right is an American television game show. A 1972 revival by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman of their 1956â1965 show of the same name, the new version adds many distinctive gameplay...
The Sinai Interim Agreement relating to the ArabâIsraeli conflict is signed.
The Sinai Interim Agreement, also known as the Sinai II Agreement, was a diplomatic agreement signed by Egypt and Israel on September 4, 1975, with the intention of peacefully resolving territorial...
The Golden Dragon massacre takes place in San Francisco.
The Golden Dragon massacre was a gang-related mass shooting that took place on September 4, 1977, inside the Golden Dragon Restaurant at 822 Washington Street in Chinatown, San Francisco,...
The discovery of Buckminsterfullerene, the first fullerene molecule of carbon.
Buckminsterfullerene is a type of fullerene with the formula C60. It has a cage-like fused-ring structure made of twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons, and resembles a football. Each of its 60...
In Leipzig, East Germany, the first of weekly demonstration for the legalisation of opposition groups and democratic reforms takes place.
Leipzig is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 633,592 residents as of 31 December 2025. It is the eighth-largest city in Germany and is part of the...
The 1995 Okinawa rape occurred, when 3 US servicemen abducted and raped a schoolchild. This would cause widespread protest against the US military presence on the prefecture.
The 1995 Okinawa rape incident occurred on September 4, 1995, when three U.S. servicemen, 22-year-old U.S. Navy Seaman Marcus Dion Gill, 21-year-old U.S. Marine Rodrico Harp, and 20-year-old...
Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two PhD students at Stanford University.
Google LLC is an American multinational technology corporation focused on information technology, online advertising, search engine technology, email, cloud computing, software, quantum computing,...
Tokyo DisneySea opens to the public as part of the Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan.
Tokyo DisneySea is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, just next to Tokyo. It opened on 4 September 2001, at a cost of 335 billion yen. The Oriental...
The Oakland Athletics win their 20th consecutive game, an American League record, until the Cleveland Indians surpassed it in 2017.
The Oakland Athletics were an American Major League Baseball (MLB) team based in Oakland, California, from 1968 to 2024. The Athletics were a member club of the American League (AL) West Division...
Three terrorists suspected to be a part of Al-Qaeda are arrested in Germany after allegedly planning attacks on both the Frankfurt International airport and US military installations.
al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Islamist jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a...
Pope Benedict XVI becomes the longest-lived pope, 93 years, four months, 16 days, surpassing Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903.
Pope Benedict XVI was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City from 2005 until his resignation in 2013. Following his resignation, he chose to be known as "pope emeritus", a title...
Ten people are killed and 15 are injured in a stabbing spree in 13 locations on the James Smith Cree Nation and in Weldon, Saskatchewan.
On September 4, 2022, Myles Sanderson killed 11 and injured 17 people in a mass stabbing at 13 locations on the James Smith Cree Nation and in Weldon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Some of the victims are...
A 14-year-old gunman kills four people and injures seven in a mass shooting at Apalachee High School near Winder, Georgia.
On September 4, 2024, a school shooting occurred at Apalachee High School near Winder, Georgia, United States. The suspect, 14-year-old Colt Gray, allegedly fatally shot four people. Two students...