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August 4 is the 216th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (217th in leap years), with 149 days
remaining.
Events
- 1578 - Battle of Al Kasr al Kebir - Moroccans defeat Portuguese. King Sebastian of Portugal
is defeated and killed in North Africa, leaving his elderly uncle, Cardinal Henry, as his heir.
This initiates a succession crisis in Portugal.
- 1735 - Freedom of the
press: New
York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of
seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he published was true.
- 1789 - The feudal system is abolished in France.
- 1790 - A newly passed tariff act creates the
Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the
United States Coast Guard).
- 1821 - Atkinson & Alexander publish the Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper.
- 1873 - Indian Wars: While
protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the United States 7th Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, clash for the first time with the Sioux (near the Tongue River; only one
man on each side is killed).
- 1892 - The family of Lizzie
Borden is found murdered in their Fall River,
Massachusetts home.
- 1902 - Greenwich
foot tunnel under the River Thames opens.
- 1914 - World War I: The United Kingdom declares war on Germany and the United States proclaims neutrality.
- 1944 - Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a
sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family.
- 1964 - American civil rights movement: Civil
rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney found dead in Mississippi
after disappearing on June 21.
- 1964 - Vietnam War: United States destroyers USS Maddox and USS C. Turner Joy are attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. Air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga sinks two, possibly three North Vietnamese gunboats.
- 1969 - Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, US representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. The
negotiations will eventually fail.
- 1977 - US President Jimmy Carter
signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
- 1983 - Thomas Sankara become
President in Upper Volta.
- 1984 - The African republic Upper Volta
changes its name to Burkina Faso.
- 1987 - The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to "fairly" present controversial issues.
- 1991 The Greek cruise ship Oceanos sinks off the coast of South
Africa.
- 1993 - A federal judge sentences LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights.
- 1997 - 185,000 Teamsters union United Parcel Service drivers walk off the job.
Births
- 1521 - Pope Urban VII, (d.
1590)
- 1792 - Percy Bysshe
Shelley, poet (d. 1822)
- 1840 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, sexologist
- 1859 - Knut Hamsun, writer,
recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature
1920 (d. 1952)
- 1900 - Elizabeth
Bowes-Lyon, The Queen Mother of the United Kingdom (d. 2002)
- 1901 - Louis Armstrong,
jazz musician (d. 1971)
- 1906 - Marie-José Van Sachsen Coburg-Gotha, last Queen of Italy (d. 2001)
- 1906 - Eugen Schuhmacher, zoologist (d. 1973)
- 1908 - Kurt Eichhorn,
conductor
- 1909 - Glenn Cunningham, track and field
star
- 1909 - Otto Steiger,
writer
- 1910 - William Schuman,
composer (d. 1992)
- 1912 - Raoul Wallenberg,
Swedish diplomat (d. 1947 presumed)
- 1921 - Maurice Richard,
professional ice hockey player (d. 2000)
- 1929 - Yasser Arafat, Chairman
of the Palestine Liberation
Organization
- 1930 - Götz Friedrich, opera director (d. 2000)
- 1932 - Hans Jürgen Fröhlich, writer
- 1932 - Guillermo Mordillo, graphic artist and cartoonist
- 1937 - David Bedford,
musician
- 1944 - Richard Belzer, actor,
comedian (Homicide: Life on the
Street, Law &
Order: Special Victims Unit)
- 1947 - Klaus Schulze, composer,
perforner
- 1955 - Billy Bob
Thornton, actor, writer
- 1958 - Mary Decker Slaney, track
star
- 1962 - Roger Clemens, baseball
player
- 1963 - Steve Silverman,
teacher, spermologer
- 1967 - Mike Marsh, American
athlete
- 1968 - Marcus
Schenkenberg, male model
- 1971 - Jeff Gordon, NASCAR driver
Deaths
- 1060 - King Henry I of
France
- 1265 - Simon de
Montfort, English baron
- 1526 - Juan Sebastian Cano, Spanish explorer
- 1873 - General George Armstrong Custer
- 1875 - Hans
Christian Andersen, Writer
- 1938 - Pearl White, actress
- 1976 - Roy Herbert
Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, publisher
- 1981 - Melvyn Douglas,
actor
- 1998 - Yuri Artyukhin,
cosmonaut
- 1999 - Victor Mature,
actor
- 2001 - Lorenzo Music, actor,
writer, producer
- 2002 - Murder of
Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman
Holidays and observances
- Burkina Faso - Anniversary of the Revolution
- Cook Islands - Constitution Day (celebrations begin on the last Friday
in July and last up to 2 weeks.)
- El Salvador - Transfiguration Bank Holiday
August 3 - August 5 - July 4 - September 4 -- listing of all days
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