May 4
Events
Pre-1600
- 1256 - The Augustinian monastic order is constituted at the Lecceto Monastery when Pope Alexander IV issues a papal bull Licet ecclesiae catholicae.
- 1415 - Religious reformer John Wycliffe is condemned as a heretic at the Council of Constance.
- 1436 - Assassination of the Swedish rebel Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson.
- 1471 - Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Tewkesbury: Edward IV defeats a Lancastrian Army and kills Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales.
- 1493 - In the papal bull Inter caetera, Pope Alexander VI divides the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Line of Demarcation.
1601–1900
- 1626 - Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherland aboard the See Meeuw.
- 1738 - The Imperial Theatrical School, the first ballet school in Russia, is founded.
- 1776 - Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.
- 1799 - Fourth Anglo-Mysore War: The Battle of Seringapatam: The siege of Seringapatam ends when the city is invaded and Tipu Sultan killed by the besieging British army, under the command of General George Harris.
- 1814 - Emperor Napoleon arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile.
- 1814 - King Ferdinand VII abolishes the Spanish Constitution of 1812, returning Spain to absolutism.
- 1836 - Formation of Ancient Order of Hibernians.
- 1859 - The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking Devon and Cornwall in England.
- 1869 - The four-day Naval Battle of Hakodate begins. The newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy defeats the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate navy in the Sea of Japan off the city of Hakodate, leading to the surrender of the Ezo Republic on May 17.
- 1871 - The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
- 1886 - Haymarket affair: In Chicago, United States, a homemade bomb is thrown at police officers trying to break up a labor rally, killing one officer. Ensuing gunfire leads to the deaths of a further seven officers and four civilians.
1901–present
- 1904 - The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.
- 1910 - The Royal Canadian Navy is created.
- 1912 - Italy occupies the Ottoman island of Rhodes.
- 1919 - May Fourth Movement: Student demonstrations take place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan.
- 1926 - The United Kingdom general strike begins.
- 1927 - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated.
- 1932 - Having been incarcerated at the Cook County Jail since his sentencing on October 24, 1931, mobster Al Capone is transferred to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta after the U.S. Supreme Court denies his appeal for conviction of tax evasion.
- 1942 - World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.
- 1945 - World War II: Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg is liberated by the British Army.
- 1945 - World War II: The German surrender at Lüneburg Heath is signed, coming into effect the following day. It encompasses all Wehrmacht units in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany.
- 1946 - In San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines from the nearby Treasure Island Naval Base stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Five people are killed in the riot.
- 1949 - The entire Torino football team is killed in a plane crash.
- 1953 - Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
- 1959 - The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.
- 1961 - American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South.
- 1961 - Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather attain a new altitude record for manned balloon flight ascending in the Strato-Lab V open gondola to.
- 1970 - Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.
- 1972 - The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to "Greenpeace Foundation".
- 1973 - The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at as the world's tallest building.
- 1978 - The South African Defence Force attacks a SWAPO base at Cassinga in southern Angola, killing about 600 people.
- 1979 - Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- 1982 - Twenty sailors are killed when the British Type 42 destroyer is hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War.
- 1988 - The PEPCON disaster rocks Henderson, Nevada, as tons of Space Shuttle fuel detonate during a fire.
- 1989 - Iran–Contra affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges; the convictions are later overturned on appeal.
- 1989 - Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on mission STS-30 to deploy the Venus-bound Magellan space probe.
- 1990 - Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union.
- 1994 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord, granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
- 1998 - A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.
- 2000 - Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London.
- 2002 - One hundred three people are killed and 51 are injured in a plane crash near Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Nigeria.
- 2007 - Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by the 2007 Greensburg tornado, a 1.7-mile wide EF5 tornado. It was the first-ever tornado to be rated as such with the new Enhanced Fujita scale.
- 2014 - Three people are killed and 62 injured in a pair of bombings on buses in Nairobi, Kenya.
- 2019 - The inaugural all-female motorsport series, W Series, takes place at Hockenheimring. The race was won by Jamie Chadwick, who would go on to become the inaugural season's champion.
- 2023 - Nine people are killed and thirteen injured in a spree shooting in Mladenovac and Smederevo, Serbia. It is the second mass shooting in the country in two days.
Births
Pre-1600
- 1006 - Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, Persian mystic and poet
- 1559 - Alice Spencer, English noblewoman
1601–1900
- 1634 - Katherine Ferrers, English aristocrat and heiress
- 1649 - Chhatrasal, Indian ruler
- 1655 - Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian instrument maker, invented the piano
- 1677 - Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, French noblewoman
- 1715 - Richard Graves, English minister and author
- 1733 - Jean-Charles de Borda, French mathematician, physicist, and sailor
- 1752 - John Brooks, American soldier and politician, 11th Governor of Massachusetts
- 1757 - Manuel Tolsá, Spanish sculptor and first director of the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City
- 1767 - Tyagaraja, Indian composer
- 1770 - François Gérard, French painter
- 1772 - Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus, German publisher
- 1796 - Horace Mann, American educator and politician
- 1796 - William Pennington, American lawyer and politician, 13th Governor of New Jersey, 23rd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
- 1796 - William H. Prescott, American historian and scholar
- 1820 - Julia Gardiner Tyler, American wife of John Tyler, 11th First Lady of the United States
- 1820 - John Whiteaker, American soldier, judge, and politician, 1st Governor of Oregon
- 1822 - Charles Boucher de Boucherville, Canadian physician and politician, 3rd Premier of Quebec
- 1825 - Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist, anatomist, and academic
- 1825 - Augustus Le Plongeon, English-American historian, photographer, and academic
- 1826 - Frederic Edwin Church, American painter
- 1827 - John Hanning Speke, English soldier and explorer
- 1843 - Bianka Blume, German opera singer
- 1851 - Thomas Dewing, American painter
- 1852 - Alice Liddell, English model
- 1883 - Wang Jingwei, Chinese politician
- 1884 - Richard Baggallay, English army officer and cricketer
- 1887 - Andrew Dasburg, French-American painter
- 1889 - Francis Spellman, American cardinal
- 1890 - Franklin Carmichael, Canadian painter
1901–present
- 1902 - Ronnie Aird, English cricketer and administrator
- 1903 - Luther Adler, American actor
- 1905 - Al Dexter, American country singer-songwriter and guitarist
- 1907 - Lincoln Kirstein, American soldier and playwright, co-founded the New York City Ballet
- 1907 - Walter Walsh, American target shooter and FBI agent
- 1913 - Princess Katherine of Greece and Denmark
- 1914 - Maedayama Eigorō, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 39th Yokozuna
- 1916 - Jane Jacobs, American-Canadian journalist, author, and activist
- 1916 - Richard Proenneke, American soldier, carpenter, and meteorologist
- 1917 - Nick Joaquin, Filipino writer, journalist and historian
- 1918 - Kakuei Tanaka, Japanese soldier and politician, 64th Prime Minister of Japan
- 1921 - Edo Murtić, Croatian painter, sculptor, and illustrator
- 1922 - Eugenie Clark, American biologist and academic
- 1923 - Eric Sykes, British actor and comedian
- 1925 - Maurice R. Greenberg, American businessman and philanthropist
- 1928 - Maynard Ferguson, Canadian trumpet player and bandleader
- 1928 - Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian air marshal and politician, 4th President of Egypt
- 1928 - Betsy Rawls, American golfer
- 1929 - Manuel Contreras, Chilean general
- 1929 - Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-British actress and humanitarian
- 1930 - Katherine Jackson, matriarch of the Jackson family
- 1932 - Harlon Hill, American football player and coach
- 1937 - Ron Carter, American bassist and educator
- 1937 - Dick Dale, American surf-rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter
- 1938 - Carlos Monsiváis, Mexican journalist, author, and critic
- 1939 - Amos Oz, Israeli journalist and author
- 1940 - Robin Cook, American physician and author
- 1941 - George Will, American journalist and author
- 1943 - Georgi Asparuhov, Bulgarian footballer
- 1944 - Russi Taylor, American voice actress
- 1945 - Robert Machray, American actor
- 1946 - John Barnard, English car designer
- 1946 - Gary Bauer, American political activist
- 1946 - John Watson, British race car driver
- 1948 - King George Tupou V of Tonga,
- 1951 - Colin Bass, English bass player, songwriter, and producer
- 1951 - Colleen Hanabusa, American lawyer and politician
- 1951 - Jackie Jackson, American singer-songwriter and dancer
- 1952 - Belinda Green, Australian beauty queen and 1972 Miss World
- 1953 - Pia Zadora, American actress and singer
- 1954 - Ryan Cayabyab, Filipino pianist, composer, and conductor
- 1956 - Ken Oberkfell, American baseball player and coach
- 1957 - Kathy Kreiner, Canadian skier
- 1958 - Keith Haring, American painter
- 1958 - Caroline Spelman, English politician, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
- 1959 - Randy Travis, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor
- 1960 - Werner Faymann, Austrian politician, 28th Chancellor of Austria
- 1961 - Jay Aston, English singer-songwriter and dancer
- 1967 - Kate Garraway, English journalist
- 1967 - Ana Gasteyer, American actress and singer
- 1970 - Will Arnett, Canadian actor and producer
- 1970 - Dawn Staley, American basketball player
- 1972 - Mike Dirnt, American bass player and songwriter
- 1972 - Chris Tomlin, American singer-songwriter
- 1973 - Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Argentinian footballer and coach
- 1973 - John Madden, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
- 1974 - Tony McCoy, Northern Irish jockey and sportscaster
- 1975 - Kimora Lee Simmons, American model
- 1978 - Erin Andrews, American sportscaster and journalist
- 1978 - Igor Biscan, Croatian footballer and manager
- 1978 - James Harrison, American football player
- 1979 - Lance Bass, American singer, dancer, and producer
- 1979 - Lesley Vainikolo, Tongan rugby player
- 1980 - Andrew Raycroft, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1981 - Eric Djemba-Djemba, Cameroon footballer
- 1981 - Ruth Negga, Ethiopian-Irish actress
- 1981 - Dallon Weekes, American singer-songwriter and musician
- 1983 - Derek Roy, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1984 - Brad Maddox, American wrestler and referee
- 1985 - Ravi Bopara, English cricketer
- 1985 - Fernandinho, Brazilian footballer
- 1985 - Jamie Adenuga, English MC and rapper
- 1986 - Devan Dubnyk, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1986 - George Hill, American basketball player
- 1987 - Cesc Fàbregas, Spanish footballer and manager
- 1987 - Jorge Lorenzo, Spanish motorcycle racer
- 1988 - Radja Nainggolan, Belgian footballer
- 1989 - Rory McIlroy, Northern Irish golfer
- 1989 - James van Riemsdyk, American ice hockey player
- 1991 - Brianne Jenner, Canadian women's ice hockey player
- 1992 - Victor Oladipo, American basketball player
- 1994 - Abi Masatora, Japanese sumo wrestler
- 1994 - Joseph Tapine, New Zealand rugby league player
- 1995 - Shameik Moore, American actor and musician
- 1998 - Alexander O'Connor, English musician
- 2001 - Joan García, Spanish footballer