June 4Birthdays & History

On this day: June 4 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 713The imperial official Artemius is chosen as Byzantine emperor the day after the blinding of previous emperor Philippicus. Artemisius chooses the name of Anastasius II and announces his adherence to Chalcedonian Christianity.Europe
2. 1411King Charles VI grants a monopoly for the ripening of Roquefort cheese to the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, as they had been doing for centuries.Europe
3. 1525Bayham Abbey riot: Villagers from Kent and Sussex, England riot and occupy Bayham Old Abbey for a week in protest against Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's order to suppress the monastery in order to fund two colleges founded by him.Europe
4. 1561The steeple of St Paul's, the medieval cathedral of London, is destroyed in a fire caused by lightning, and is never rebuilt.Europe
5. 1615Siege of Osaka: Forces under Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan.Asia
6. 1745Battle of Hohenfriedberg: Frederick the Great's Prussian army decisively defeat an Austrian army under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine during the War of the Austrian Succession.Europe
7. 1760Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada, taken from the Acadians.EuropeNorth America
8. 1783The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon).Europe
9. 1784Élisabeth Thible becomes the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon. Her flight covers four kilometres (2.5 mi) in 45 minutes, and reaches an estimated 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) in altitude.Europe
10. 1792Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.North AmericaEurope
11. 1796The siege of Mantua begins when Napoleon Bonaparte lays siege to the fortress of Mantua, the last Austrian stronghold in Northern Italy. It will become the main focus of Napoleon's army for eight months during the Italian campaign of 1796-1797.Europe
12. 1802King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia abdicates his throne in favor of his brother, Victor Emmanuel.Europe
13. 1812Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.North America
14. 1825General Lafayette, a French officer in the American Revolutionary War, speaks at what would become Lafayette Square in Buffalo, New York, during his visit to the United States.EuropeNorth America
15. 1855Major Henry C. Wayne departs New York aboard the USS Supply to procure camels to establish the U.S. Camel Corps.North America
16. 1859Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta, the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army.Europe
17. 1862American Civil War: Confederate troops evacuate Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union troops to take Memphis, Tennessee.North America
18. 1876An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco via the first transcontinental railroad, 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.North America
19. 1878Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title.Middle EastEurope
20. 1896Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and also gives it a successful test run.North America
21. 1912Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.North America
22. 1913Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of King George V's horse at The Derby. She is trampled, never regains consciousness, and dies four days later.Europe
23. 1916World War I: Russia opens the Brusilov Offensive with an artillery barrage of Austro-Hungarian lines in Galicia.Europe
24. 1917The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.EuropeNorth America
25. 1919Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.North America
26. 1919Leon Trotsky bans the planned Fourth Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents.North America
27. 1920Hungary loses 71% of its territory and 63% of its population when the Treaty of Trianon is signed in Paris.Europe
28. 1928The President of the Republic of China, Zhang Zuolin, is assassinated by Japanese agents.AsiaAsia
29. 1932Marmaduke Grove and other Chilean military officers lead a coup d'état establishing the short-lived Socialist Republic of Chile.Latin America
30. 1939The Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 973 German Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.EuropeNorth AmericaLatin America
31. 1940World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends: The British Armed Forces completes evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers, only to the House of Commons, his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.Europe
32. 1942World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. Japanese Admiral Chūichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese Navy.Asia
33. 1942World War II: Gustaf Mannerheim, the Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army, is granted the title of Marshal of Finland by the government on his 75th birthday. On the same day, Adolf Hitler arrives in Finland for a surprise visit to meet Mannerheim.Europe
34. 1943A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.Latin America
35. 1944World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German Kriegsmarine submarine U-505, the first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.North AmericaEurope
36. 1944World War II: The United States Fifth Army captures Rome, although much of the German Fourteenth Army is able to withdraw to the north.North AmericaEurope
37. 1946in Argentina assumes its first presidency Juan Domingo Perón.Latin America
38. 1961Cold War: In the Vienna summit, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sparks the Berlin Crisis by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and ending American, British and French access to East Berlin.EuropeNorth America
39. 1967Seventy-two people are killed when a Canadair C-4 Argonaut crashes at Stockport in England.Europe
40. 1970Tonga gains independence from the British Empire.OceaniaEurope
41. 1975Governor of California Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law, the first law in the United States giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights.North America
42. 1977JVC introduces its VHS videotape at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. It will eventually prevail against Sony's rival Betamax system in a format war to become the predominant home video medium.North AmericaAsia
43. 1979Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.Africa
44. 1983Gordon Kahl, who killed two US Marshals in Medina, North Dakota on February 13, is killed in a shootout in Smithville, Arkansas, along with a local sheriff, after a four-month manhunt.North America
45. 1986Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.North AmericaMiddle East
46. 1988Three cars on a train carrying hexogen to Kazakhstan explode in Arzamas, Gorky Oblast, USSR, killing 91 and injuring about 1,500.AsiaEurope
47. 1989Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia, kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.Europe
48. 1989Solidarity's victory in the 1989 Polish legislative election occurs, the first election since the Communist Polish United Workers' Party abandoned its monopoly of power. It sparks off the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe.Europe
49. 1989In the 1989 Iranian supreme leader election, Ali Khamenei is elected as the new Supreme Leader of Iran after the death and funeral of Ruhollah Khomeini.Middle East
50. 1989The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests are suppressed in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with between 241 and 10,000 dead (an unofficial estimate).Asia
51. 1996The first flight of Ariane 5 explodes after roughly 37 seconds. It was a Cluster mission.World
52. 2005The Civic Forum of the Romanians of Covasna, Harghita and Mureș is founded.Europe
53. 2010Falcon 9 Flight 1 is the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40.World
54. 2020Death of Giovanni López: Protests over the death of Giovanni López Ramírez, who had died on 4 May while in custody, begin in Jalisco following the release of a video of his arrest going viral on social media, and inspired by the George Floyd protests. Later, these spread across Mexico.Latin America
55. 2023Four people are killed when a Cessna Citation V crashes into Mine Bank Mountain in Augusta County, Virginia.North America
56. 2023Protests begin in Poland against the PiS government.Europe
57. 2025Eleven people are killed and 56 people are injured during a crowd crush incident outside M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, India for the celebration of Royal Challengers Bengaluru's Indian Premier League victory.Asia

Source: Wikipedia "June 4" / CC BY-SA 4.0