Historical Events on February 4

Events 1 - 200 of 220

• 744 Maya King of Tikal, Yik'in Chan K'awiil, besieges rival city of Naranjo, taking its king Yax Mayuy Chan Chaak prisoner (depicted Stela 5 Tikal)

• 1454 In the Thirteen Years' War, the Secret Council of the Prussian Confederation sends a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master

• 1555 Reformer and bible translator John Roger is the first protestant martyr under Mary I, when he is burnt at the stake at Smithfield, London
• 1586 Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, becomes governor-general of the States General of the United Provinces (Netherlands)

• 1670 Battle of Sinhagad, Shivaji commander Tanaji Malusare recaptures fort of Sinhagad from the Mugals, scaling the walls with help of pet monitor lizard
• 1697 Three Dutch East India Company ships anchor at Dirk-Hartogeiland, Australia
• 1699 350 rebellious Streltsi executed in Moscow
• 1783 Worst quake in 8 years kills some 50,000 in Calabria, Italy
• 1784 1st unmanned balloon flight in Ireland
• 1787 1st Anglican bishops of NY & Pennsylvania consecrated in London
• 1787 Shays' Rebellion (of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers) fails

• 1797 Earthquake in Quito, Ecuador kills 41,000
• 1803 William Dunlap adapts French melodrama "Voice of Nature"
• 1810 Royal Navy seizes Guadeloupe.
• 1822 Free American Blacks settle Liberia, West Africa
• 1824 J W Goodrich introduces rubber galoshes to public
• 1846 Mormons leave Nauvoo, Illinois, for settlement in the west
• 1847 1st US telegraph company established in Maryland
• 1849 University of Wisconsin begins in 1 room with 20 students
• 1854 Alvan Bovay proposes name "Republican Party" in Ripon, Wisconsin
• 1855 Soldiers shoot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela

• 1864 Skirmish at Big Black River Bridge, Mississippi
• 1865 Hawaiian Board of Education formed

• 1877 Ludwig Minkus' ballet "La Bayadère", choreographed by Marius Petipa premieres at Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia

• 1880 Steele MacKay's play "Hazel Kirke" premieres in New York City
• 1887 Interstate Commerce Act authorizes federal regulation of railroads
• 1895 1st rolling lift bridge opens in Chicago
• 1899 The Philippine–American War begins with fighting between American and Philippine revolutionary forces

• 1902 Stanley Cup, Winnipeg Auditorium, Winnipeg, Manitoba: Montreal HC beats Winnipeg Victorias, 2-1 for a 2-1 challenge series victory
• 1903 Stanley Cup: Montreal HC beats Winnipeg Victorias, 4-1 for a 2-1 challenge series win
• 1904 John Millington Synge's play "Well of Saints" premieres in Dublin
• 1908 Star #46 was added to US flag for Oklahoma with the addition to the Union of Oklahoma on November 16, 1907
• 1913 Louis Perlman patents demountable auto tire-carrying wheel rim
• 1913 National Institute of Arts & Letters founded
• 1914 US Congress approves Burnett-anti-immigration law
• 1915 Experiments to find cause of pellagra begin at Mississippi State Penitentiary
• 1917 Belgian Council of Flanders established
• 1919 City of Bremen's Soviet Republic overthrown
• 1920 1st flight from London to South Africa departs (takes 1½ months)
• 1922 After boycotts and international pressure, Japan agrees to return Shantung Province to China

• 1922 WGY-AM in Schenectady NY begins radio transmissions
• 1924 George Kelly's play "Show-Off," premieres in New York City

• 1924 Norway sweeps the medals in the Nordic combined event at the inaugural Chamonix Winter Olympics; Thorleif Haug wins his 3rd gold of the Games ahead of teammates Thoralf Strømstad & Johan Grøttumsbråten
• 1926 Austrian chancellor Seipel wants to join Germany
• 1927 KGA-AM in Spokane WA begins radio transmissions
• 1929 Archie Jackson scores 164 in Test Cricket debut v England at Adelaide
• 1930 1st tieless, soundless, shockless streetcar tracks, New Orleans
• 1931 National League adopts a deader baseball
• 1932 III Winter Olympic Games open in Lake Placid, New York
• 1932 Japanese troops occupy Harbin, Manchuria

• 1936 1st radioactive substance produced synthetically (radium E)
• 1937 Jim Margie, Philadelphia, bowls 900 in 3 (unsanctioned) games

• 1941 British tanks occupy Maus, Libya
• 1941 Former Dutch premier De Geer flies to Berlin
• 1941 United Service Organization (USO) founded
• 1942 Clinton Pierce becomes 1st US general wounded in action in WW II

• 1944 US 7th Infantry Division captures Kwajalein, in the Pacific

• 1946 Garson Kanin's "Born Yesterday" premieres in NYC
• 1948 After winning the men’s downhill, French alpine skier Henri Oreiller takes the combined gold medal at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; becomes most successful athlete at these Games with a slalom bronze
• 1948 Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) declares independence from the United Kingdom

• 1950 IV British Empire Games open in Auckland, New Zealand

• 1956 AL plans to test automatic intentional walk during spring training
• 1956 Soviet Union beats Canada, 2-0 at Cortina d'Ampezzo to clinch their first ever Olympic ice hockey gold medal; US takes silver, Canada bronze
• 1957 1st electric portable typewriter placed on sale (Syracuse NY)
• 1958 MLB Hall of Fame fails to elect anyone for 1st time since 1950
• 1959 Israel begins exporting copper ore
• 1960 Giants move their offices to Candlestick Park
• 1960 Lionel Bart's musical comedy "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be" opens at Garrick Theatre, London; runs for 886 pefromances
• 1960 Voters fail to elect a new Baseball Hall of Fame member

• 1961 Sputnik 7 launches into Earth orbit; probable Venus probe failure
• 1962 Russian newspaper Izvestia reports baseball is an old Russian game
• 1964 FAA begins 6 month test of reactions to sonic booms over Oklahoma City
• 1965 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1966 All-Nippon Airways 727 crashes off Haneda Airport (Japan); kills 133
• 1967 "Wild Thing" cover version by "Senator Bobby" hits #20 on the pop singles chart
• 1967 US launches Lunar Orbiter 3
• 1968 Around 100 Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya arrive in Britain, escaping discrimination

• 1969 41,163, then largest NBA crowd, watches doubleheader Cin-Det, SD-Bost
• 1969 Beatles appoint Eastman & Eastman as general counsel to Apple Records

• 1969 Lonne Elder's "Ceremonies in Dark Old Men" premieres in NYC

• 1970 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1971 Baseball announces a special hall of fame wing for black players and coaches
• 1971 British automobile and aerospace company Rolls Royce Ltd enters voluntary liquidation
• 1971 Government exhibit under construction in Brazil collapses, kills 65
• 1971 Lieutenant-General Vernon Erskine-Crum becomes General Officer Commanding of the British Army in Northern Ireland
• 1971 National Guard mobilized to quell rioting in Wilmington NC
• 1971 The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) stock exchange, the second-largest in the world - behind the New York Stock Exchange - is founded in New York City
• 1972 6th round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks ends in Vienna Austria

• 1973 An International inspection team is sent to Vietnam to observe progress on the Paris truce agreement
• 1973 British Army snipers shoot dead a Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteer and three civilians at the junction in Belfast during the 'Troubles' in N Ireland
• 1973 Comic strip "Hagar The Horrible" by Dik Browne debuts
• 1973 Islanders & Sabres had a penalty free game
• 1973 Manfred Kokot runs world record 50m indoor (5.61 sec)
• 1973 Reshef, Israel's missile boat, unveiled

• 1974 Chimpanzee Nim Chimsky signs his 1st word, at 2½ months
• 1974 Gasoline rationing ends in the Netherlands
• 1974 Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb explodes on a bus in West Yorkshire, England, carrying British Army soldiers and some of their family members
• 1975 Haicheng earthquake, M 7.3, strikes Haicheng, Liaoning, China
• 1976 7.5 earthquake kills 22,778 in Guatemala & Honduras

• 1976 US Federal Judge Oliver upholds Seitz's decision on Andy Messersmith free agency
• 1976 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1976 XII Winter Olympic Games open in Innsbruck, Austria

• 1977 Elevated train jumps track, crashes onto Chicago st (11 die, 200 hurt)
• 1977 Wings release their single "Maybe I'm Amazed"

• 1979 "Co-Ed Fever," TV Comedy, debut & cancelled that outing on CBS
• 1979 End of last 3+day D/N game for 15 yrs (WSC, SCG)
• 1980 Bani Sadr sworn in as premier of Iran
• 1980 Studio 54 holds its grand closing party on its last night in business
• 1982 Indoor distance record for a paper airplane (47m) Tacoma Wash
• 1982 Suriname premier Chin A Sen flees
• 1983 Jose Happart becomes mayor of Voeren Belgium
• 1984 "Backstage Magic" opens at CommuniCore
• 1984 Frank Aquilera sets world frisbee distance record (168m) Las Vegas
• 1985 20 countries (but not US) sign UN treaty outlawing torture
• 1985 Naval exercises canceled when US refuses to tell NZ if nuclear weapons aboard USS Buchanan
• 1986 Israeli fighters intercept Libyan passenger airliner
• 1987 Sacramento Kings score only 4 points 1st quarter against Lakers; fewest in a period since introduction of 24 second shot-clock in 1954
• 1987 San Diego Yacht Club's 'Stars & Stripes' captained by Dennis Conner beats Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia's 'Kookaburra III' to capture the America's Cup at Freemantle, Western Australia
• 1987 Stars & Stripes beats Australia's Kookaburra 3, sweeps America's Cup

• 1988 Despite union calls to end the strike, rank-and-file seamen at major British ports refuse to return to work

• 1989 Australian cricketer Dean Jones scores 216 v WI at the Adelaide Oval
• 1990 10 Israeli tourists murdered near Cairo
• 1990 Anders Holmertz swims world record 400 m freestyle (3:40.81)
• 1990 Danny Everett runs world record 400m indoor (45:04)
• 1990 Lyudmila Narozhilenko runs world record 60m hurdles indoor (7.69)

• 1990 St Petersburg Pelicans beat West Palm Beach Tropics 12-4 to win 1st Senior Professional Baseball Association Championship

• 1991 US postage raises from 25 cents to 29 cents
• 1993 Admiral William Studeman ends term as acting director of CIA
• 1993 Russian space agency tests a 82-foot wide space mirror
• 1994 20 die in armed assault on mosque in Khartoum, Sudan
• 1994 Merlene Ottey runs world record 50 m indoor (6.00 sec)
• 1994 Russian team beats ladies world record 4x800 m indoor (8:18.71)
• 1995 Archaeologist Kent R. Weeks crawls inside KV5, the tomb of the sons of Ramases II, to discover the largest tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings [1]
• 1995 Australian cricketer Dean Jones completes 324* for Victoria v South Australia
• 1995 Sandra Volker swims female European record 50m backstroke (27.77)
• 1995 Zimbabwe's 1st Test Cricket victory, over Pakistan by an inning

• 1997 En route to Lebanon, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 troop-transport helicopters collide in mid-air over northern Galilee, Israel killing 73.

• 1998 An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000

• 1999 MV New Carissa runs aground near Coos Bay, Oregon
• 1999 Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, inflaming race-relations in the city.
• 2000 German extortionist Klaus-Peter Sabotta is jailed for life for attempted murder and extortion in connection with the sabotage of German railway lines.
• 2000 Simulation video game "The Sims" developed by Maxis released in North America
• 2003 The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is officially renamed Serbia and Montenegro and adopts a new constitution.

• 2006 A stampede occurs in the ULTRA Stadium near Manila killing 71

• 2012 Tens of thousands of people are stranded by floods in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland
• 2013 20 people are killed after an apartment building was struck by a rocket in Aleppo, Syria
• 2013 22 people are killed and 24 are injured after a bus and a truck collide in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
• 2013 22 people are killed and 44 are injured after a suicide bombing in Taji, Iraq
• 2013 8 people are killed and 30 are injured after a bus collides with two vehicles and flips in Yucaipa, California
• 2013 Europol announces it will investigate over 680 football matches alleged to involve match fixing

• Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next