August 4

Events

Pre-1600

• 598 - Goguryeo-Sui War: In response to a Goguryeo incursion into Liaoxi, Emperor Wéndi of Sui orders his youngest son, Yang Liang, to conquer Goguryeo during the Manchurian rainy season, with a Chinese army and navy.
• 1265 - Second Barons' War: Battle of Evesham: The army of Prince Edward defeats the forces of rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, killing de Montfort and many of his allies.
• 1327 - First War of Scottish Independence: James Douglas leads a raid into Weardale and almost kills Edward III of England.
• 1578 - Battle of Al Kasr al Kebir: The Moroccans defeat the Portuguese. King Sebastian of Portugal is killed in the battle, leaving his elderly uncle, Cardinal Henry, as his heir. This initiates a succession crisis in Portugal.

  1601–1900

• 1693 - Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon's invention of champagne; it is not clear whether he actually invented champagne, however he has been credited as an innovator who developed the techniques used to perfect sparkling wine.
• 1701 - Great Peace of Montreal between New France and First Nations is signed.
• 1704 - War of the Spanish Succession: Gibraltar is captured by an English and Dutch fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir George Rooke and allied with Archduke Charles.
• 1781 - Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, a fleet of six East India Company ships sets sail from Fort Marlborough to raid the Dutch VOC factories on the West coast of Sumatra including the major port of Padang.
• 1783 - Mount Asama erupts in Japan, killing about 1,400 people. The eruption causes a famine, which results in an additional 20,000 deaths.
• 1789 - France: abolition of feudalism by the National Constituent Assembly.
• 1790 - A newly passed tariff act creates the Revenue Cutter Service.
• 1791 - The Treaty of Sistova is signed, ending the Ottoman–Habsburg wars.
• 1796 - French Revolutionary Wars: Napoleon leads the French Army of Italy to victory in the Battle of Lonato.
• 1814 - War of 1812: The ultimately unsuccessful Siege of Fort Erie begins as British forces attempt to recapture the fort and drive American forces out of Canada.
• 1821 - The Saturday Evening Post is published for the first time as a weekly newspaper.
• 1854 - The Hinomaru is established as the official flag to be flown from Japanese ships.
• 1863 - Matica slovenská, Slovakia's public-law cultural and scientific institution focusing on topics around the Slovak nation, is established in Martin.
• 1873 - American Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the United States 7th Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer clashes for the first time with the Cheyenne and Lakota people near the Tongue River; only one man on each side is killed.
• 1887 - Granny, a sea anemone, died in Edinburgh after nearly 60 years in captivity. Her death was reported in The Scotsman and The New York Times.
• 1889 - The Great Fire of Spokane, Washington destroys some 32 blocks of the city, prompting a mass rebuilding project.
• 1892 - The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home. She will be tried and acquitted for the crimes a year later.

  1901–present

• 1914 - World War I: In response to the German invasion of Belgium, Belgium and the British Empire declare war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.
• 1915 - World War I: The German 12th Army occupies Warsaw during the Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive and the Great Retreat of 1915.
• 1921 - Bolshevik–Makhnovist conflict: Mikhail Frunze declares victory over the Makhnovshchina.
• 1924 - Diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Soviet Union are established.
• 1936 - Prime Minister of Greece Ioannis Metaxas suspends parliament and the Constitution and establishes the 4th of August Regime.
• 1944 - The Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse, where they find and arrest Jewish diarist Anne Frank, her family, and four others.
• 1944 - Under the state of emergency law, the Finnish Parliament elects Marshal C. G. E. Mannerheim as the President of Finland to replace the resigned Risto Ryti.
• 1946 - An earthquake of magnitude 8.0 hits northern Dominican Republic. One hundred are killed and 20,000 are left homeless.
• 1947 - The Supreme Court of Japan is established.
• 1964 - Civil rights movement: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.
• 1964 - Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident: U.S. destroyers and mistakenly report coming under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.
• 1965 - The Constitution of the Cook Islands comes into force, giving the Cook Islands self-governing status within New Zealand.
• 1969 - Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, American representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuân Thuỷ begin secret peace negotiations. The negotiations will eventually fail.
• 1972 - Ugandan President Idi Amin announces that Uganda is no longer responsible for the care of British subjects of Asian origin, beginning the expulsions of Ugandan Asians.
• 1974 - A bomb explodes in the Italicus Express train at San Benedetto Val di Sambro, Italy, killing 12 people and wounding 22.
• 1975 - The Japanese Red Army takes more than 50 hostages at the AIA Building housing several embassies in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The hostages include the U.S. consul and the Swedish Chargé d'affaires. The gunmen win the release of five imprisoned comrades and fly with them to Libya.
• 1977 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
• 1983 - Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, president of the military government of Upper Volta, is ousted from power in a coup d'état led by Captain Thomas Sankara.
• 1984 - The Republic of 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 give equal time to opposing views.
• 1995 - Operation Storm, the last major battle of the Croatian War of Independence begins.
• 2006 - A massacre is carried out by Sri Lankan government forces, killing 17 employees of the French INGO Action Against Hunger.
• 2007 - NASA's Phoenix Mars lander is launched.
• 2018 - Syrian civil war: The Syrian Democratic Forces expel the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from the Iraq–Syria border, concluding the second phase of the Deir ez-Zor campaign.
• 2018 - Crisis in Venezuela: Seven people are injured when two drones detonate explosives on Avenida Bolívar, Caracas while president Nicolás Maduro is giving a speech to the Venezuelan National Guard.
• 2019 - Nine people are killed and 26 injured in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio. This comes only 13 hours after another mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, where 23 people were killed.
• 2020 - Beirut Port explosion: At least 220 people are killed and over 5,000 are wounded when 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate explodes in Beirut, Lebanon.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 1222 - Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester, English soldier
• 1281 - Külüg Khan, Emperor Wuzong of Yuan
• 1290 - Leopold I, Duke of Austria
• 1463 - Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, Florentine patron of the arts
• 1469 - Margaret of Saxony, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg
• 1470 - Bernardo Dovizi, Italian cardinal
• 1470 - Lucrezia de' Medici, Italian noblewoman
• 1521 - Pope Urban VII
• 1522 - Udai Singh II, King of Mewar

  1601–1900

• 1604 - François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac, French cleric and author
• 1623 - Friedrich Casimir, Count of Hanau-Lichtenberg and Hanau-Münzenberg
• 1701 - Thomas Blackwell, Scottish historian and scholar
• 1704 - Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans
• 1719 - Johann Gottlob Lehmann, German mineralogist and geologist
• 1721 - Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, English politician, Lord President of the Council
• 1755 - Nicolas-Jacques Conté, French soldier, painter, balloonist, and inventor
• 1792 - Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet and playwright
• 1805 - William Rowan Hamilton, Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician
• 1821 - Louis Vuitton, French fashion designer, founded Louis Vuitton
• 1821 - James Springer White, American religious leader, co-founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church
• 1834 - John Venn, English mathematician and philosopher
• 1836 - Jens Vilhelm Dahlerup, Danish architect
• 1839 - Walter Pater, English author, critic, and academic
• 1844 - Henri Berger, German composer and bandleader
• 1853 - John Henry Twachtman, American painter, etcher, and academic
• 1859 - Knut Hamsun, Norwegian novelist, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1861 - Daniel Edward Howard, 16th president of Liberia
• 1867 - Jake Beckley, American baseball player and coach
• 1868 - Master C. V. V., Indian philosopher, yogi and guru
• 1870 - Harry Lauder, Scottish actor and singer
• 1871 - William Holman, English-Australian politician, 19th Premier of New South Wales
• 1876 - Giovanni Giuriati, Italian lawyer and politician
• 1876 - John Scaddan, Australian politician, 10th Premier of Western Australia
• 1877 - Dame Laura Knight, English artist
• 1884 - Béla Balázs, Hungarian poet and critic
• 1884 - Henri Cornet, French cyclist
• 1887 - Albert M. Greenfield, Ukrainian-American businessman and philanthropist
• 1888 - Taher Saifuddin, Indian religious leader, 51st Da'i al-Mutlaq
• 1890 - Dolf Luque, Cuban baseball player and manager
• 1893 - Fritz Gause, German historian and curator
• 1898 - Ernesto Maserati, Italian race car driver and engineer
• 1899 - Ezra Taft Benson, American religious leader, 13th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• 1900 - Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother of the United Kingdom