June 4
Events
Pre-1600
- 1411 - King 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.
- 1525 - 1525 Bayham 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.
- 1561 - The steeple of St Paul's, the medieval cathedral of London, is destroyed in a fire caused by lightning, and is never rebuilt.
1601–1900
- 1615 - Siege of Osaka: Forces under Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan.
- 1745 - Battle 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.
- 1760 - Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada, taken from the Acadians.
- 1783 - The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière.
- 1784 - Élisabeth Thible becomes the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon. Her flight covers in 45 minutes, and reached an estimated in altitude.
- 1792 - Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.
- 1796 - The 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.
- 1802 - King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia abdicates his throne in favor of his brother, Victor Emmanuel.
- 1812 - Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.
- 1825 - General 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.
- 1855 - Major Henry C. Wayne departs New York aboard the to procure camels to establish the U.S. Camel Corps.
- 1859 - Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta, the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army.
- 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate troops evacuate Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union troops to take Memphis, Tennessee.
- 1876 - An 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.
- 1878 - Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title.
- 1896 - Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile and also gives it a successful test run.
1901–present
- 1912 - Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.
- 1913 - Emily 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.
- 1916 - World War I: Russia opens the Brusilov Offensive with an artillery barrage of Austro-Hungarian lines in Galicia.
- 1917 - The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for biography. 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.
- 1919 - Women'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.
- 1919 - Leon Trotsky bans the Planned Fourth Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents.
- 1920 - Hungary loses 71% of its territory and 63% of its population when the Treaty of Trianon is signed in Paris.
- 1928 - The President of the Republic of China, Zhang Zuolin, is assassinated by Japanese agents.
- 1932 - Marmaduke Grove and other Chilean military officers lead a coup d'état establishing the short-lived Socialist Republic of Chile.
- 1939 - The Holocaust: The, 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.
- 1940 - World 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.
- 1942 - World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. Japanese Admiral Chūichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
- 1942 - World 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.
- 1943 - A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
- 1944 - World 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.
- 1944 - World War II: The United States Fifth Army captures Rome, although much of the German Fourteenth Army is able to withdraw to the north.
- 1961 - Cold 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.
- 1967 - Seventy-two people are killed when a Canadair C-4 Argonaut crashes at Stockport in England.
- 1970 - Tonga gains independence from the British Empire.
- 1975 - Governor 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.
- 1977 - JVC 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.
- 1979 - Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.
- 1983 - Gordon 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.
- 1986 - Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.
- 1988 - Three cars on a train carrying hexogen to Kazakhstan explode in Arzamas, Gorky Oblast, USSR, killing 91 and injuring about 1,500.
- 1989 - In 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.
- 1989 - The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests are suppressed in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with between 241 and 10,000 dead.
- 1989 - Solidarity'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.
- 1989 - Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia, kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.
- 1996 - The first flight of Ariane 5 explodes after roughly 37 seconds. It was a Cluster mission.
- 1998 - Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
- 2005 - The Civic Forum of the Romanians of Covasna, Harghita and Mureș is founded.
- 2010 - Falcon 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.
- 2023 - Protests begin in Poland against the Duda government.
- 2023 - Four people are killed when a Cessna Citation V crashes into Mine Bank Mountain in Augusta County, Virginia.
- 2025 - Eleven 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.
Births
Pre-1600
- 590 - Harsha, Maharajadhiraja of Kannauj
- 1394 - Philippa of England, Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden
- 1489 - Antoine, Duke of Lorraine
- 1563 - George Heriot, Scottish goldsmith
1601–1900
- 1604 - Claudia de' Medici, Italian daughter of Christina of Lorraine
- 1665 - Zacharie Robutel de La Noue, Canadian captain
- 1694 - François Quesnay, French economist and physician
- 1704 - Benjamin Huntsman, English inventor and businessman
- 1738 - George III of the United Kingdom
- 1744 - Patrick Ferguson, Scottish soldier, designed the Ferguson rifle
- 1754 - Miguel de Azcuénaga, Argentinian soldier
- 1754 - Franz Xaver von Zach, Slovak astronomer and academic
- 1787 - Constant Prévost, French geologist and academic
- 1801 - James Pennethorne, English architect, designed Victoria Park
- 1821 - Apollon Maykov, Russian poet and playwright
- 1829 - Jinmaku Kyūgorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 12th Yokozuna
- 1854 - Solko van den Bergh, Dutch target shooter
- 1860 - Alexis Lapointe, Canadian runner
- 1861 - William Propsting, Australian politician, 20th Premier of Tasmania
- 1866 - Miina Sillanpää, Finnish journalist and politician
- 1867 - Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Finnish general and politician, 6th President of Finland
- 1873 - Nictzin Dyalhis, American author
- 1877 - Heinrich Otto Wieland, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1879 - Mabel Lucie Attwell, English author and illustrator
- 1880 - Clara Blandick, American actress
- 1885 - Arturo Rawson, Argentinian general and politician, 26th President of Argentina
- 1889 - Beno Gutenberg, German-American seismologist