Today in History
~ June 4
Old Maid's Day
Events
0780 - BC 1st total solar eclipse reliably recorded by Chinese
1070 - Roquefort cheese created in a cave near Roquefort, France
1133 - Rome-Innocentius II crowns Lotharius III Roman-German emperor
1391 - Mob led by Ferrand Martinez surounds & sets fire to Jewish quarter of Seville Spain, surviving Jews sold into slavery
1647 - British army seizes King Charles I as a prisoner
1745 - Frederick the Great (Prussia) defeats Austrians & Saxons
1756 - Quakers leave assembly of Pennsylvania
1783 - Montgolfier brothers launch 1st hot-air balloon (unmanned)
1784 - Mme. Thible becomes 1st woman to fly (in a balloon)
1789 - US constitution goes into effect
1792 - Capt. George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for Britain
1794 - Congress passes Neutrality Act, bans Americans from serving in armed forces of foreign powers
1794 - Robespierre unanimously elected president of the Convention in French Revolution
1800 - White House completed & President & Mrs John Adams move in
1805 - The First Barbary War Also known as the War with Tripoli, Ends
1812 - The Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory.
1845 - Mexican-US war starts
1850 - Empire Engine Company No 1 organized
1850 - Self deodorizing fertilizer patented in England
1862 - Confederates evacuate Ft Pillow, Tenn
1862 - Southern planters burned cotton shipments on the Yazoo River to keep them from Union hands
1892 - Sierra Club was incorporated in San Francisco.
1896 - At approximately 1:30 A.M. in 1896, Henry Ford wheeled his Quadricycle, the first automobile he ever designed or
drove from a brick shed in Detroit and drove it around the darkened streets on a
trial run.
[H]
1907 - Automatic washer & dryer introduced
1912 - Massachusetts passes 1st US minimum wage law
1917 - American men begin registering for the draft
1917 - The first Pulizter Prizes were awarded in New York City.
1919 - Congress Passes the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote
[H]
1919 - US marines invade Costa Rica
1929 - George Eastman demonstrates 1st technicolor movie (Rochester NY)
1939 - The SS St. Louis, carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees from Germany, was turned away from the Florida coast.
1940 - British complete miracle of Dunkirk. A flotilla of small boats spent
nearly a week recrossing the English Channel to rescue nearly 350,000 British, French
and Belgian troops from advancing German forces. [H]
1940 - German forces enter Paris
1940 - Synthetic rubber tire unveiled
1940 - The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is published
1940 - Winston Churchill says "We shall fight on the seas & oceans"
1941 - Rep of Croatia orders all Jews to wear a star with the letter Z
1942 - The Battle of Midway began during World War II.
1943 - Argentina taken over by Gen Rawson & Col Juan Per˘n
1943 - Race riots in LA
1944 - 1st submarine captured & boarded on high seas - U 505 - in attack led by Admiral Dan Gallery
1944 - 5th Army enters & liberates Rome from Mussolini's Fascist armies
1945 - US, Russia, England & France agree to split occupied Germany
1946 - Largest solar prominence (300 -000 miles) is observed
1946 - Radio fax from the law library in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., to a moving train traveling between Baltimore and Washington. The message, written and signed by President Harry S. Truman's daughter Margaret, was the same message sent by Samuel Morse to inaugurate commercial telegraph service in 1844: "What hath God wrought?"
1947 - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Taft-Hartley Act, revising labor-management
law, despite Truman veto
1954 - French Premier Joseph Laniel and Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc initialed treaties in Paris according "complete independence" to Vietnam.
1956 - Speech by Khrushchev blasting Stalin made public
1957 - 1st commercial coal pipeline placed in operation
1958 - French premier De Gaulle arrives in Algiers
1962 - Lee Harvey Oswald departs Rotterdam on SS Maasdam to US
1963 - British Minister of War John Profumo resigns due to Christine Keeler
1967 - 19th Emmy Awards: Mission Impossible, Monkees, Don Knotts & Lucy Ball
1969 - 22-year-old man sneaks into wheel pod of a jet parked in Havana & survives 9-hr flight to Spain despite thin oxygen levels at 29,000 ft
1970 - Tonga gains independence from Britain (National Day)
1972 - Black militant Angela Y. Davis was acquitted of murder, kidnapping and
criminal conspiracy charges stemming from a California courtroom shootout in
which a judge and three other people were killed.
1975 - Oldest animal fossils in US discovered in NC
1977 - Violence during Puerto Rican Day in Chicago kills two
1979 - South-African pres Vorster resigns due to scandal
1982 - Israel attacks targets in south Lebanon
1984 - DNA is successfully cloned from an extinct animal
1985 - Supreme Court strikes down Alabama "moment of silence" law as
specifically fostering classroom prayer.
1986 - Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former Navy intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty in Washington to espionage for selling top secret U.S. military intelligence information to Israel.
He is serving a life prison term.
1988 - 42nd Tony Awards: M Butterfly & Phantom of the Opera win
1989 - Chinese troops opened fire against unarmed protesters in Tiananmen Square,
at least hundreds of pro-democracy students were killed and thousands wounded in
what became known as the Tiananmen Square massacre.
1989 - Eastern Europe's 1st somewhat free election in 40 years held in Poland
1989 - Largest parade in Bronx history honors 350th anniversary
1990 - Mayor Marion Barry's drug trial opened in U.S. District Court in
Washington, D.C.
1990 - An Oregon woman, Janet Adkins, killed herself in Michigan using a
"suicide machine" developed by "Dr. Death" Jack Kevorkian, beginning a national debate over the right to die
1991 - Data Discman debuts
1991 - Lesbian priest Elizabeth Carl is ordained in Episcopal Church
1991 - President Bush tapped former Democratic national chairman Robert S. Strauss to be the new U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.
1991 - The government of China announced the death of Jiang Qing, the 77-year-old widow of Mao Tse-tung, saying she had committed suicide on May 14.
1992 - U.S. Postal officials announced that the young, 1950s-era Elvis Presley
portrait was chosen overwhelmingly over the older, Las Vegas-style Elvis in a
nationwide vote for a new postage stamp honoring "The King."
1992 - President George H.W. Bush held a news conference in which he said he
understood Americans' fascination with Ross Perot, but predicted that voters
would eventually ask, "How are you going to do it?"
1994 - Bangladesh ordered the arrest of renowned writer Taslima Nasreen for speaking in defense of women's rights.
1994 - Iran-Contra figure Oliver North won the nomination of the Virginia
Republican Party for the U.S. Senate. He would lose the November general
election.
1996 - Microsoft licenses Visual Basic for Applications
1996 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin, campaigning for re-election, indulged in a bit of onstage boogie at a pop concert for young voters.
1997 - At the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors urged the jury to
sentence Timothy McVeigh to death, calling relatives of the victims to testify
about their agonizing loss.
1998 - A federal judge sentenced Terry Nichols to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
1998 - The five major nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, China, France
and Great Britain) renewed
their appeal for India and Pakistan to stop development of nuclear arms and
offered to help the two antagonists resolve their conflict over the Kashmir
region.
1999 - The Yugoslav government approved a plan, proposed by Finland and Russia
and supported by the major Western nations, which would end NATO's bombing
campaign against Yugoslavia.
2000 - "Copenhagen" was chosen best play, "Contact" best musical and "Kiss Me, Kate" best musical revival at the Tony Awards.
2000 - A powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing at least 100 people.
2000 - President Clinton and Russian President Putin ended their summit by conceding differences on missile defense, agreeing to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium and pledging early warning of missile and space launches.
2001 - Nepal's King Dipendra died, three days after he reportedly shot and
killed most members of the royal family before turning the gun on himself; he
was succeeded by his uncle, Prince Gyanendra.
2002 - Tensions eased between India and Pakistan which had appeared to be on the
brink of nuclear war.
Birthdays
Today
1694 - Fran‡ois Quesnay, French economist leader of the Physiocrats
1738 - King George III (ruler of England during the time of the American Revolutionary War against the British)
1867 - Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, Finnish military hero president (1944-46)
1894 - Blanch Knopf, publishing CEO (Knopf)
1907, 1908 or 1912 - Rosalind Russell (actress: My Sister Eileen, Sister Kenny, Auntie Mame, Mourning Becomes Electra, China Seas, Picnic, Gypsy)
1917 - Charles Collingwood (journalist: CBS news correspondent from WWII thru Viet Nam)
1917 - Howard Metzenbaum, (D) Ohio sen
1919 - Robert Merrill (Morris Miller) (Metropolitan Opera singing star)
1920 - Russell Train (environmentalist)
1921 - Bobby Wanzer (basketball)
1924 - Dennis Weaver (Emmy Award-winning actor: Chester in Gunsmoke [1958-59]; McCloud, Gentle Ben, Disaster at Silo
7, Duel)
1926 - Robert Earl Hughes, became heaviest known human (486 kg)
1928 - Dr. Ruth Westheimer (sex therapist; author; TV celeb)
1928 - Dr. Ruth Westheimer (sex therapist; author; TV celeb)
1930 - Morgana King (jazz singer, actress: The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, A Time to Remember)
1932 - John Barrymore Jr., actor
1936 - Bruce Dern (actor: Black Sunday, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Coming Home, The 'Burbs, They Shoot Horses Don't They?, Middle Age Crazy)
1937 - Freddy Fender (Baldemar Huerta) (singer: Wasted Days and Wasted Nights, Before the Next Teardrop Falls)
1937 - Robert Fulghum (author: It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
1938 - Pat Studstill (football)
1943 - Sandra Haynie (golf champion: U.S. Open [1974, 1975], Du Maurier Classic [1982], LPGA [1974])
1945 - Gordon Waller (singer: group: Peter and Gordon: World Without Love, Nobody I Know, I Don't Want to See You Again, I Go to Pieces, Lady Godiva; actor: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat)
1946 - Bettina Gregory, News woman
1948 - Rosemary Joyce,
1951 - Ed Newman (football: Miami Dolphins guard: Super Bowls VIII, XIX)
1951 - Ron Mabra (football)
1952 - Parker Stevenson (actor: The Hardy Boys Mysteries, Baywatch, Melrose Place, Falcon Crest)
1953 - Larry Demery (baseball)
1965 - Andrea Jagger, in Chicago Tennis player
Famous
deaths
1316 - Louis X, King of France (1314-16), dies at 26
1608 - Francesco Caracciolo, Italian religious founder/saint, dies at 44
1792 - John Burgoyne, soldier/playwright, dies
1798 - Giovanni Jacopo Casanova, fabled Italian seducer/adventurer/spy/librarian, dies of prostate cancer in Dux, Bohemia at 73
1826 - Karl Maria FE von Weber, German composer (Oberon), dies at 39
1941 - Wilhelm II von Hohenzollern, emperor (Germany, 1888-1918), dies
1951 - Serge Koussevitsky, conductor/composer, dies at 76
1962 - William Beebe, US biologist/explorer, dies at 84
1970 - Hjalmar Schcacht, [Horace Greeley], Nazi minister, dies
1990 - Jack Gilford, comedic actor (Cocoon II), dies at 82 of stomach cancer
1990 - Janet Adkins, killed herself in Michigan using a "suicide
machine" becoming "Dr. Death" Jack Kevorkian's. first "medicide"
patient. She would not be the last.
1994 - Sophie Winter, actress (She's a Good Fighter), dies at 33
1994 - Toto Bissainthe, voodoo poet, dies at 59
1997 - Kurt Adler, therapist/writer, dies at 92
2001 - Nepal's King Dipendra died, three days after he reportedly shot and
killed most members of the royal family before turning the gun on himself.
If
you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please
E-mail me
 |
Yesterday |
|
Tomorrow |
 |
