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February 4: Today in History – Historical Events
Early Centuries – February 4 Historic Events – Before the 1700s
1. 4th Feb 1620: Hungarian Prince Bethlen Gabor signs peace with Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.
2. 4th Feb 1657: Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Oliver Cromwell grants residency to Luis Caravajal.
3. 4th Feb 1699: 350 rebellious Streltsi were executed in Moscow.
18th Century – What Happened on February 4 – The 1700s
4. 4th Feb 1782: British garrison surrenders to French and Spanish fleet.
5. 4th Feb 1783: An earthquake in Italy, the worst in eight years struck Calabria, killing about 50,000.
6. 4th Feb 1784: The first unmanned balloon flight was done in Ireland on this day.
7. 4th Feb 1789: The first US Electoral College chose Washington and Adams as President and Vice-President.
8. 4th Feb 1794: Abolishment of slavery was proclaimed by the French National Convention on this day.
9. 4th Feb 1797: Earthquake strikes Ecuador. The earthquake in Quito killed 41000 people.
19th Century – February 4 This Day That Year – The 1800s
10. 4th Feb 1810: Royal Navy seizes Guadeloupe on this day.
11. 4th Feb 1824: J. W. Goodrich introduced rubber galoshes to the public.
12. 4th Feb 1847: It was on this day that the first US telegraph company was established in Maryland.
13. 4th Feb 1849: University of Wisconsin begins on this day. It had one room and twenty students.
14. 4th Feb 1855: Jewish families were shot by soldiers in Coro, Venezuela.
15. 4th Feb 1861: The Confederate constitutional convention meets for the first time on this day in Montgomery, Alabama, Georgia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina and elected Jefferson Davis President of the Confederacy.
16. 4th Feb 1865: Robert E. Lee is named commander-in-chief of the Confederate Army.
17. 4th Feb 1865: The Hawaiian Board of Education was formed on this day.
18. 4th Feb 1880: The Black Donnelly massacre: Members of the Vigilance Committee murder James, Johannah, John, Thomas, and Bridget Donnelly in their home.
19. 4th Feb 1887: The federal regulation of railroads was authorized on this day by the Interstate Commerce Act.
20. 4th Feb 1895: The first rolling bridge opens in Chicago.
21. 4th Feb 1899: There was a revolt against the US occupation of the Philippines.
22. 4th Feb 1899: Marks the beginning of the Philippine-American War. It began with fighting between American and Philippine revolutionary forces.
20th Century – Important Events On This Day February 4th – The 1900s
23. 4th Feb 1901: Emperor Franz Josef I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in his speech, condemns the demands of national groups and calls for economic and social reform.
24. 4th Feb 1913: The National Institute of Arts and Letters was founded on this day.
25. 4th Feb 1913: A demountable auto tire-carrying wheel or the rim was patented on this day by Louis Perlman.
26. 4th Feb 1914: The Burnett-anti-immigration law was approved by the US Congress on this day.
27. 4th Feb 1915: On this day experiments began to find the cause of pellagra at Miss Penitentiary.
28. 4th Feb 1917: The Belgium Council of Flanders was established on this day.
29. 4th Feb 1920: The first flight from London to South Africa took off on this day.
30. 4th Feb 1920: Twenty-one barrels of whiskey which were held in a Pennsylvania brewery were stolen. The person who stole the liquor was sentenced to a fine of $7000. This happened when prohibition was in force.
31. 4th Feb 1922: Japan on this day agreed to return Shantung Province to China yielding to boycotts and international pressure.
32. 4th Feb 1922: Lincoln purchased the Ford Company for $ 8 million on this day. During the time of transition, Henry Ford had taken charge as President of Lincoln.
33. 4th Feb 1924: Closing ceremony of the first Winter Olympic Games at Chamonix, France.
34. 4th Feb 1926: Australian Chancellor Seipel wants to join Germany.
35. 4th Feb 1930: The first tieless, soundless, and shockless streetcar tracks in New Orleans.
36. 4th Feb 1931: Following the stock market crash in 1929, many banks had to close across the US when the depositors asked for their deposits back.
37. 4th Feb 1932: The third Olympic Games were opened in Lake Placid, New York.
38. 4th Feb 1932: Japanese troops occupy Harbin, Manchuria.
39. 4th Feb 1933: Freedom of the press was limited by German President Paul von Hindenburg.
40. 4th Feb 1936: The first radioactive substance, radium E, was produced on this day.
41. 4th Feb 1937: As floods recede, restrictions were lifted on this day from flood quarantine areas. People could return to this area which were originally prohibited from entering without any threat of disease or sickness.
42. 4th Feb 1938: Dictator of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, seizes control of the German army and puts Nazis in key posts.
43. 4th Feb 1938: The animated film Snow White and Seven Dwarfs was released on this day. It was a huge success.
44. 4th Feb 1941: United Service Organization (USO) was founded on this day.
45. 4th Feb 1941: British tanks occupy Maus, Libya.
46. 4th Feb 1942: Clinton Pierce becomes the first US general to be wounded in action in World War II.
47. 4th Feb 1943: Ransom Eli Olds, creator of one of the first internal combustion engines receives his last patent on this day.
48. 4th Feb 1944: The US 7th Infantry Division captures Kwajalein on this day.
49. 4th Feb 1944: Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill meet at Yalta on this day to discuss the final phase of the war.
50. 4th Feb 1948: Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, declared independence from the UK.
51. 4th Feb 1949: There was an assassination attempt on the Shah of Persia which failed.
52. 4th Feb 1950: On this day a British Atomic scientist was arrested on charges of gathering information that would be useful to enemy forces. He had some of the most classified information regarding the atomic bomb.
53. 4th Feb 1957: The first portable electric typewriter was put on sale on this day.
54. 4th Feb 1959: The Barbie Doll was invented this day. This doll was created by Ruth Handler, who was one of the founders of the Mattel Company
55. 4th Feb 1959: Israel begins exporting copper ore on this day.
56. 4th Feb 1961: Russia launches Sputnik 7 into the earth’s orbit.
57. 4th Feb 1962: A Russian newspaper, Izvestia, reports that baseball is an Old Russian game.
58. 4th Feb 1964: As of this day it was no longer legal to charge poll tax for voting. This action was repealed upon the passing of the 24th Amendment.
59. 4th Feb 1965: US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
60. 4th Feb 1966: All-Nippon Airways 727 aircraft crashes off Haneda Airport in Japan killing 133 people.
61. 4th Feb 1967: US launch Lunar Orbiter 3 into space.
62. 4th Feb 1968: The continued persecution of Asians in Kenya is forcing thousands to leave the country. Kenya introduced immigration laws that issue work permits only to Kenyan citizens.
63. 4th Feb 1969: It was on this day that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed to represent the people of Palestine while Yasser Arafat was in office.
64. 4th Feb 1971: The National Guard was mobilized on this day to quell rioting in Wilmington NC.
65. 4th Feb 1971: An under-construction government exhibit collapses in Brazil killing 65 people.
66. 4th Feb 1971: British car maker Rolls Royce declared itself bankrupt on this day.
67. 4th Feb 1971: Lieutenant-General Vernon Erskine-Crum becomes General Officer Commanding of the British Army in Northern Ireland.
68. 4th Feb 1972: The sixth round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in Vienna, Austria, came to an end on this day.
69. 4th Feb 1973: To observe progress on the Paris truce agreement, an international inspection team was on this day sent to Vietnam.
70. 4th Feb 1973: A Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer and three civilians were shot dead by the British Army snipers at the junction in Belfast during the ‘Troubles’ in N Ireland.
71. 4th Feb 1973: An Israeli missile boat “Reshef” was unveiled on this day
72. 4th Feb 1974: Petroleum rationing came to an end in the Netherlands.
73. 4th Feb 1974: The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst in Berkeley, California.
74. 4th Feb 1974: Eleven soldiers and children were killed when the coach they were traveling in was blown up by a bomb. The bomb is believed to have been set by the IRA.
75. 4th Feb 1976: A massive earthquake of magnitude 7.5 strikes Guatemala and Honduras centered around 160 km from Guatemala City. It killed about 22,000 people.
76. 4th Feb 1976: The twelfth Winter Olympic Games opens in Innsbruck, Austria.
77. 4th Feb 1976: US performs nuclear test at its Nevada test site.
78. 4th Feb 1977: An elevated train jumps tracks and crashes into a Chicago street. Eleven died and over 200 were hurt.
79. 4th Feb 1980: Bani Sadr was sworn in as Premier of Iran on this day.
80. 4th Feb 1985: Twenty countries sign UN treaty outlawing torture. The United States of America was not a signatory to this treaty.
81. 4th Feb 1987: US Congress overrides US President Reagan’s veto of the Clean Water Act.
82. 4th Feb 1988: Panamanian President Manuel Noriega was on this day indicted on drug charges.
83. 4th Feb 1988: Despite the union giving a call to end the strike, rank-and-file seamen at British ports refused to return to work.
84. 4th Feb 1990: On this day New Zealand bowler Richard Hadlee takes his 400th test wicket. Sanjay Manjrekar of India was the victim.
85. 4th Feb 1991: New Zealand batsmen Martin Crow and Andrew Jones create a world record with their 467-run stand.
86. 4th Feb 1998: Microsoft founder Bill Gates gets a pie thrown in his face in Brussels, Belgium.
87. 4th Feb 1998: Earthquake strikes Afghanistan on this day. An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 strikes Afghanistan killing about 4000 people.
21st Century – February 4 This Day In History – The 2000s
88. 4th Feb 2003: Lawmakers formally dissolve Yugoslavia and replace it with the union of Serbia and Montenegro.
89. 4th Feb 2004: The Massachusetts high court on this day ruled that gays are entitled to get married.
90. 4th Feb 2004: Mark Zuckerberg on this day founded Facebook, a mainstream online social network.
91. 4th Feb 2006: Protesting against the caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, Muslim protestors burnt down Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus. In Gaza, Palestinians marched through the streets storming European buildings and burning German and Danish flags.
92. 4th Feb 2007: Three former military officers on this day warned against a military strike on Iran and said that such action could result in disastrous consequences for the security of the middle. They favored diplomatic intervention.
93. 4th Feb 2008: On this day China was hit by the worst snow storms in 50 years. Most of the people affected were poor farmers, without modern machinery to weather these conditions.
94. 4th Feb 2008: A Federal judge ruled on this day that the Navy must follow environmental laws by placing limits on its mid-frequency sonar. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruled that the Navy is not exempt from compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act.
95. 4th Feb 2009: On this day the new African Union Chairman, Libya’s Gaddafi said that multi-party democracy leads to bloodshed in Africa. He said in a tribal environment, political parties get tribalised which leads to bloodshed. He said the model of his own country where opposition parties are not allowed is best suited for Africa.
96. 4th Feb 2010: Legal action was started against Bank of America and its former executives on this day. They were accused of duping investors and taxpayers during their takeover of Merrill Lynch.
97. 4th Feb 2010: The Department of Justice on this day said that it was not satisfied with a deal that allowed the search engine Google to build a vast digital library. It said that antitrust copyright concerns were not addressed.
98. 4th Feb 2011: The Philippines on this day announced a nationwide ban on logging following floods and mudslides. This was announced by President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines.
99. 4th Feb 2012: It was announced by the Mexican Police that the suspected leader of the Gente Nueva gang, a part of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo was arrested by them along with his bodyguard in Leon.
100. 4th Feb 2013: The government of France on this day overturned a two-hundred-year law that banned women from wearing trousers. The law was out of use for several years and was just ignored. However, it is now legal for women to wear trousers in France.
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