On this day in History - Feb. 04

• 0211 - Septimius Severus dies (b. 0146), leaving the Roman Empire in the hands of his two quarrelsome sons, Caracalla and Geta.
• 0708 - Pope Sisinnius dies.
• 0784 - Hrabanus Maurus dies. German poet.
• 0856 - Rabanus Maurus dies. Bishop of Mainz.
• 0869 - Saint Cyril, after whom the Cyrillic alphabet is named, dies .
• 1454 - In the Thirteen Years' War, the Secret Council of the Prussian Confederacy sends a formal act of disobedience to the Grand Master.
• 1524 - Luís Vaz de Camões, nasce em Lisboa, poeta épico e soldado português († 1580). Um dos maiores poetas portugueses de sempre. Autor de "Os Lusíadas" e de diversos sonetos, entre os quais o célebre "Amor é um fogo que arde sem se ver...".
• 1575 - Pierre de Bérulle was born (d. 1629). French cardinal and statesman.
• 1590 - Gioseffo Zarlino dies (b. 1517). Italian composer.
• 1615 - Dom Justo Takayama dies (b. 1552). Japanese warlord.
• 1620 - Gustaf Bonde was born (d. 1667). Swedish statesman.
• 1688 - Pierre de Marivaux was born (d. 1763). French writer.
• 1693 - S. João de Brito dies in India (b. 1 Mar 1647). Portuguese martyr.
• 1694 - Nataliya Kyrillovna Naryshkina dies (b. 1651). Tsaritsa of Russia.
• 1703 - In Edo (now Tokyo), 46 of the Forty-Seven Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master's death.
• 1713 - Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury dies (b. 1671)
• 1725 - Dru Drury was born (d. 1804). English entomologist.
• 1774 - Charles Marie de La Condamine dies (b. 1701). French mathematician and geographer.
• 1778 - Augustin Pyrame de Candolle was born (d. 1841). Swiss botanist.
• 1781 - Josef Myslivecek dies (b. 1737). Czech composer.
• 1783 - American Revolutionary War: The United Kingdom formally declares that it will cease hostilities with the United States of America.
• 1789 - George Washington is unanimously elected to be the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
• 1790 - John Bachman, was born (d. 24 Feb 1874). Naturalist and Lutheran minister who published studies of southern animals and works on botany and agriculture.
• 1792 - George Washington is unanimously elected to a second term as President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
• 1794 - French legislature abolishes slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic.
• 1797 - Un terremoto destruye con grandes estragos y muchas víctimas la ciudad de Quito.
• 1799 - Almeida Garrett (João Baptista da Silva Leitão) was born in Porto († 1851) . Portuguese writer.
• 1801 - John Marshall sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.
• 1810 - British Navy seizes Guadeloupe.
• 1817 - Las tropas del general San Martín derrotan a las españolas en el desfiladero de Achupallas, Chile.
• 1819 - Nace en Inglaterra Joshua Abraham Norton, quien en 1859 se proclamó emperador de los EE.UU.
• 1824 - J.W. Goodrich presenta las galochas de goma.
• 1840 - Hiram Stevens Maxim was born (d. 1916). American inventor of the Maxim Gun.
• 1841 - Clément Ader was born (d. 5 Mar 1926). Self-taught French engineer and inventor, best known as a pioneer of flight before the Wright brothers. In 1890 he constructed a steam-powered aircraft with bat-shaped wings. Cabral, que falha por falta de apoio popular e do exército.
• 1846 - Nikolay Umov was born (d. 1915). Russian physicist.
• 1849 - Jean Richepin was born. French poet.
• 1859 - Codex Sinaiticus discovered in Egypt.
• 1861 - American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama the Confederate States of America is formed by delegates from six break-away United States.
• 1862 - Bacardi, one of the world's largest spirits company, was founded as a small distillery in Santiago de Cuba in eastern Cuba.
• 1863 - Alfred Lacroix was born ( d. 12 Mar 1948). French mineralogist and geologist whose Minéraux des roches (1888; "The Minerals of Rocks"), written with the geologist Albert Michel-Lévy, was a pioneer study of the optical properties of rock-forming minerals .
• 1867 - Tropas del emperador Maximiliano vencen a los patriotas mexicanos en La Quemada.
• 1871 - Friedrich Ebert was born (d. 1925). President of the Weimar Republic.
• 1873 - Étienne Desmarteau was born (d. 1905). Canadian athlete.
• 1875 - Ludwig Prandtl was born (d. 15 Aug 1953). German physicist who is remembered for his studies of both aerodynamics and hydrodynamics.
• 1881 - Fernand Léger was born (d. 1955). French painter.
• 1881 - João de Barros was born. Portuguese poet and pedagogue.
• 1884 - Alexander Watson Hutton funda la English High School, pieza clave en la historia fundacional del fútbol argentino.
• 1884 - Ecuador promulga una nueva Constitución y es elegido presidente José Caamaño.
• 1892 - Prince George I was born (d. 1971). Duke of Westrogothia.
• 1892 - Andreu Nin was born (d. 1937). Catalan politician.
• 1893 - Raymond Arthur Dart was born (d. 22 Nov 1988). Australian-born South African physical anthropologist and paleontologist whose discoveries of fossil hominids led to significant insights into the evolutionary origins of human beings.
• 1894 - Adolphe Sax dies (b. 1814). Belgian instrument maker, inventor of the saxophone.
• 1895 - James Owen Dorsey dies (b. 31 Oct 1848). American ethnologist known principally for his linguistic and ethnographic studies of the Siouan Indians.
• 1895 - the first rolling lift bridge opened over the Chicago River at Van Buren Street, Chicago. This type was popular around 1900, designed and patented by William Scherzer of Chicago.
• 1895 - Henrique Galvão was born. Portuguese politician and writer.
• 1896 - Friedrich Hermann Hund was born (d. 31 Mar 1997). German physicist known for his work on the electronic structure of atoms and molecules.
• 1897 - Ludwig Erhard was born (d. 1977). German Bundeskanzler (Federal Chancellor).
• 1897 - El Gobierno español, presidido por Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, promulga un decreto de autonomía para Cuba y Puerto Rico .
• 1899 - The Philippine-American War begins.
• 1902 - Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born (d. 26 Aug 1974). American aviator, one of the best-known figures in aeronautical history, remembered for the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic.
• 1902 - Hartley Shawcross was born (d. 2003). British lawyer and politician.
• 1904 - MacKinlay Kantor was born (d. 1977). American writer.
• 1904 - Um grande número de trabalhadores portuários e metalúrgicos junta-se ao movimento grevista dos metalúrgicos, começado em 7 de Dezembro do ano anterior. O movimento fracassa completamente.
• 1904 - Tem início a Guerra Russo-Japonesa.
• 1905 - Louis-Ernest Barrias dies (b. 1841). French sculptor.
• 1906 - Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born (d. 1945). German theologian.
• 1906 - Clyde Tombaugh was born (d. 17 Jan 1997). American astronomer who discovered the planet Pluto in 1930, the only planet discovered in the twentieth century, after a systematic search instigated by the predictions of other astronomers.
• 1908 - Julian Bell was born (d. 1937). British poet.
• 1912 - Byron Nelson was born. American golfer.
• 1912 - Erich Leinsdorf was born (d. 1993). Austrian conductor.
• 1912 - El inventor del paracaídas se mata al saltar desde la Torre Eiffel experimentándolo.
• 1913 - Rosa Parks was born (d. 2005). American civil rights activist .
• 1914 - Alfred Andersch, was born (d. 1980). German narrator and author of radio drama.
• 1914 - Ida Lupino was born (d. 1995). English actress, director, writer.
• 1914 - EE.UU. concede amplia libertad para exportar a México armas y municiones.
• 1915 - Norman Wisdom, was born, English actor, comedian .
• 1915 - Germany establishes a submarine blockade around the UK and declares any vessel in it a legitimate target.
• 1915 - Experiments began to find the cause of the disease, pellegra. In 1915 more than 10,000 people died of pellagra in the United States alone. The work is conducted by Dr. Joseph Goldberger upon a dozen vounteers from the inmates of a Mississippi state prison at Jackson .
• 1915 - William Talman was born (d. 1968). American actor.
• 1915 - Norman Wisdom was born. English actor and comedian
• 1917 - Yahya Khan was born (d. 1980). President of Pakistan.
• 1918 - Janet Waldo was born. American actress.
• 1921 - Betty Friedan was born. American feminist.
• 1921 - K. R. Narayanan was born (d. 2005). President of India.
• 1923 - Conrad Bain was born. Canadian-born actor.
• 1923 - Belisario Betancur dies. President of Colombia.
• 1924 - Mahatma Gandhi es liberado de la prisión en la India.
• 1925 - Russell Hoban was born. American writer.
• 1925 - Robert Koldewey, dies (b. 10 Sep 1855). German architect and archaeologist who revealed the semilegendary Babylon of the Bible as a geographic and historical reality.
• 1927 - The first talkie is released - The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson.
• 1927 - El Gobierno mexicano levanta a clérigos extranjeros, excepto a españoles, la prohibición de residir en el país.
• 1927 -Rolf William Landauer, was born (d. 27 Apr 1999). German-born American physicist whose discovery of what came to be known as Landauer's principle (that the erasing of computer information causes a loss of energy) led to the development of more efficient computers.
• 1928 - Hendrik Antoon Lorentz dies (b. 18 July 1853). Dutch physicist and joint winner (with Pieter Zeeman) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1902 for his theory of the influence of magnetism upon electromagnetic radiation phenomena.
• 1929 - Carlos Alonso was born. Argentinean paintor, ilustrator y dibujantem VER.
• 1931 - Isabel Martínez de Perón was born. Third wife of Argentine dictator Juan Perón and President of Argentine .
• 1932 - Comienzan en Lake Placid, NY, EE.UU., los I Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno.
• 1932 - World War II: Japan occupies Harbin, China.
• 1932 - 1932 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York.
• 1932 - Asteroid 1239 Queteleta discovered by Eugène Joseph Delporte.
• 1933 - 50 mil pessoas fazem uma manifestação contra o desemprego, no Hyde Park, em Londres.
• 1933 - Archibald Sayce dies (b. 1846). English educator.
• 1934 - Asteroid 2824 Franke discovered by Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth.
• 1934 - Ernesto Júlio Nazareth was born. Brazilian musician.
• 1935 - Martti Talvela was born (d. 1989). Finnish bass.
• 1936 - David Brenner was born. American comedian.
• 1936 - Gary Conway was born. American actor.
• 1936 - Radium E. becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.
• 1936 - Wilhelm Gustloff dies (b. 1895). German leader of the Swiss Nazi party.
• 1938 - Thornton Wilder's play Our Town opens (New York City).
• 1938 - Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released, and it went on to become a major box-office success, making more money than any other motion picture in 1938.
• 1939 - Edward Sapir dies (born 26 Jan 1884). American linguist and anthropologist, one of the foremost of his time, who is most widely known for his contributions to the study of North American Indian languages.
• 1940 - George Romero was born. American horror movie writer, producer, director.
• 1940 - John Schuck was born. American actor.
• 1941 - Roy Plunkett received a U.S. patent for "Tetrafluoro-ethylene Polymers" - Teflon.
• 1941 - World War II: The United Service Organization (USO) is created to entertain American troops.
• 1943 - Battle of Stalingrad ends.
• 1943 - Alberto João Jardim was born. Portuguese politician.
• 1943 - Ken Thompson was born. American computer scientist.
• 1944 - Yvette Guilbert was born (b. 1867). French singer and actress.
• 1944 - Arsen Kotsoyev was born (d. 1872). Russian writer.
• 1945 - World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin begin the Yalta Conference.
• 1945 - Maria João Avillez was born. Portuguese journalist.
• 1947 - Dan Quayle was born. Vice President of the United States
• 1948 - Alice Cooper was born. American rock musician .
• 1948 - Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.
• 1949 - João de Melo was born in Achadinha, Nordeste, São Miguel, Azores. Portuguese poet and essayst.
• 1949 - Michael Beck was born. American actor.
• 1950 - Pamela Franklin was born. British actress.
• 1951 - Patrick Bergin was born. Irish actor
• 1952 - Abdala Bucaram was born. President of Ecuador.
• 1953 - Kitaro was born. Japanese composer.
• 1957 - Don Davis was born. American composer
• 1957 - Miguel Covarrubias dies. Mexican ilustrator.
• 1957 - USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, logged her 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".
• 1958 - Tomasz Pacyński was born. Polish writer.
• 1958 - Henry Kuttner was born (d. 1915). American author.
• 1959 - Pamelyn Ferdin was born. American actress.
• 1959 - Lawrence Taylor was born. American football star.
• 1959 - Una O'Connor dies (b. 1880). Irish actress.
• 1960 - Lorraine, Quebec is founded.
• 1960 - Jonathan Larson was born (d. 1996). American composer.
• 1961 - Stewart O'Nan was born. American author.
• 1961 - Tem início a Guerra de Libertação de Angola, com o ataque do MPLA à Casa de Reclusão Militar, ao quartel da PSP e à delegação da Emissora Nacional em Luanda e da UPA no Norte da província.
• 1962 - Ian Fleming's The Living Daylights first published
• 1962 - Clint Black was born. American country musician.
• 1962 - Francisco Orlich Bolmarich es electo presidente de Costa Rica.
• 1962 - Ian Fleming's The Living Daylights first published.
• 1963 - Pirmin Zurbriggen was born. Swiss skier.
• 1964 - Noodles was born. American guitarist (The Offspring) .
• 1966 - All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 jet plunges into Tokyo Bay killing 133 .
• 1967 - Sergei Grinkov was born (d. 1995). Russian figure skater.
• 1968 - Bowie Kuhn becomes the fifth commissioner of Major League Baseball, replacing William Eckert.
• 1968 - Marko Matvere was born. Estonian actor.
• 1968 - Neal Cassady dies (b. 1926). American writer.
• 1968 - Gilbert H. Grosvenor dies (b. 1875). American president of the National Geographic Society
• 1969 - Duncan Coutts was born. Canadian bassist (Our Lady Peace)
• 1969 - Thelma Ritter dies (b. 1905). American actress.
• 1969 - Yasser Arafat takes over as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
• 1970 - Gabrielle Anwar was born. English actress.
• 1971 - Rob Corddry was born. American actor and comedian.
• 1972 - Giovanni Silva De Oliveira was born. Brazilian footballer.
• 1972 - La sonda estadounidense "Mariner IX" transmite fotos desde Marte.
• 1973 - Oscar De La Hoya was born. Mexican-American boxing champion .
• 1974 - The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California.
• 1974 - Satyendra Nath Bose dies (b. 1 Jan 1894). Indian mathematician and physicist who collaborated with Albert Einstein to develop a theory of statistical quantum mechanics, now called Bose-Einstein statistics.
• 1974 - Secuestro de Patricia Hearst, hija del magnate de la Prensa estadounidense, que después se unió a sus captores.
• 1974 - Satyendra Nath Bose dies (b. 1894). Indian physicist.
• 1975 - Natalie Imbruglia was born. Australian musician .
• 1975 - Louis Jordan dies (b. 1908). American musician.
• 1976 - In Guatemala and Honduras an earthquake 7,5º kills more than 22,000.
• 1976 - 1976 Winter Olympics open in Innsbruck, Austria.
• 1977 - Fleetwood Mac releases one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, Rumours.
• 1977 - Brett Halliday dies (b. 1904). American writer.
• 1978 - Elecciones municipales en Nicaragua. Los sandinistas anuncian la guerra civil.
• 1978 - Bergen Evans, dies, television host .
• 1980 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini names Abolhassan Banisadr as president of Iran.
• 1982 - Efraim Huerta Romo dies. Mexican poet.
• 1982 - O PCP apresenta na Assembleia da República três projectos de diplomas: protecção e defesa da maternidade, garantia do direito ao planeamento familiar e educação sexual, interrupção voluntária da gravidez. A Lei de do Aborto será aprovada em 14 de Fevereiro de 1984.
• 1983 - Karen Carpenter dies (b. 1950). American singer, musician (Carpenters).
• 1984 - Una mujer estéril da a luz tras la implantación de un óvulo fertilizado en otra mujer, en Long Beach (California, EEUU).
• 1984 - The Youth of the Left Socialists (VSU) founded in Denmark.
• 1984 - Anna Anderson dies. Claimant to the throne of Russia
• 1987 - Lucie Safarová was born. Czech tennis player .
• 1987 - Carl Rogers dies (b. 8 Jan 1902). American psychologist who founded humanistic psychology.
• 1987 - Liberace dies (b. 1919). American musician.
• 1988 - Carly Patterson was born. American artistic gymnast .
• 1991 - The Baseball Hall of Fame votes to ban Pete Rose.
• 1992 - Se produce un intento militar frustrado para derrocar al presidente venezolano, Carlos Andrés Pérez.
• 1992 - Lisa Fonssagrives dies (b. 1911). Swedish model.
• 1995 - Patricia Highsmith dies (b. 1921). American author.
• 1995 - Godfrey Brown dies (b. 1915). British athlete and teacher.
• 1996 - Major snowstorm paralyzes Midwestern United States, Milwaukee, Wisconsin ties all-time record low temperature at -26°F. (-32°C) .
• 1996 - El presidente guatemalteco, Álvaro Arzú, sale ileso de un atentado en Antigua Guatemala.
• 1997 - O. J. Simpson is found to be civilly liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
• 1997 - Enroute to Lebanon, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 troop-transport helicopters collide in mid-air over northern Galilee, Israel killing 73.
• 1997 - After at first contesting the results, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic recognizes opposition victories in the November 1996 elections.
• 1998 - An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000.
• 1999 - Hugo Chávez Frías, Venezuelan military and politician, is elected President of Venezuela.
• 1999 - Unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo is shot dead by four plainclothes New York City police officers on an unrelated stake-out, enflaming race-relations in the city.
• 2000 - USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) launched.
• 2000 - Australian backpacker Kelvin Bourke murdered in Thailand.
• 2000 - Doris Coley dies (b. 1941). American singer, member of the Shirelles.
• 2000 - Carl Albert dies (b. 1908). Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
• 2001 - J. J. Johnson dies (b. 1924). American jazz trombonist and composer.
• 2001 - Iannis Xenakis dies (b. 1922). Greek-born French composer.
• 2003 - The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is officially renamed to Serbia and Montenegro and adopts a new constitution.
• 2005 - Ossie Davis dies (b. 1917). American actor.
• Ancient Latvia - Biezputras Diena observed
• Saint Paul of Tarsus
• Independence Day in Sri Lanka (1948)
• Angolan Anniversary of the Outbreak of Armed Struggle against Portuguese Colonialism