January 4

2015 Calendar

January 4 is the fourth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 361 days remaining until the end of the year (362 in leap years).

Events[change | change source]

Up to 1900[change | change source]

46 BC - Julius Caesar defeats Titus Labienus in the Battle of Ruspina.
1490 - Anne of Brittany announces that all those who would ally (go on the same side) with the King of France will be guilty of the crime of lese-majesty.
1642 - Charles I of England sends soldiers in to arrest members of parliament.
1643 - Famous English scientist Isaac Newton is born. In the Julian calendar in use in England at the time, his date of birth was December 25, 1642.
1649 - The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial.
1717 - The Netherlands, Great Britain and France sign a triple alliance.
1762 - Great Britain declares war on Spain and Naples.
1798 - Constantine Hangerli arrives in Bucharest, then-part of Wallachia, as its new prince, invested by the Ottoman Empire.
1847 - Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the US Government.
1852 - British steamer RMS Amazon catches fire and explodes and sinks, killing 104 people.
1854 - The Subantarctic McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald.
1863 - The New Apostolic Church is created in Hamburg.
1865 - The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters on Wall Street.
1878 - The city of Sofia is freed from Ottoman Rule.
1880 - Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is first climbed by Edward Whymper.
1885 – Dr. William W. Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performs what is thought to be the first appendectomy.
1889 - The Oklahoma Land Run opens 2 million square acres of unused Oklahoma Territory to first come-first serve settlers from April 22.
1896 – Utah becomes a state of the US.

1901 – 2000[change | change source]

1904 – In Gonzales v. Williams, the U.S. Supreme Court decides that citizens of Puerto Rico are not aliens and can enter the U.S. freely.
1912 - The Scout Association is officially created throughout the British Commonwealth of Nations by Royal Charter.
1935 - Dry Tortugas National Park in Mexico is created.
1944 - World War II: Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.
1948 – Burma gained independence from Great Britain.
1950 - Israel declares Jerusalem to be its capital city.
1951 – The Communist forces of North Korea and China, seize the city of Seoul.
1958 - Sputnik falls back to Earth.
1958 - Edmund Hillary reaches the South Pole, leading the first overland expedition there since Robert Falcon Scott.
1959 - Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the area near the Moon.
1964 - Pope Paul VI visits Israel.
1965 – During the State of the Union Address, President Lyndon Johnson outlines his plan for "The Great Society".
1966 - A coup occurs in Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso).
1967 - Donald Campbell is killed in an attempt to beat his own water speed record on Coniston Water.
1970 - An earthquake in Yunnan, China, kills around 10,000 people.
1972 - Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit on the Old Bailey in London.
1976 - The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh. On January 5, gunmen shoot dead 10 Protestant civilians nearby.
1981 - Peter Sutcliffe admits being the Yorkshire ripper.
1987 - An Amtrak train travelling from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, DC, collides with Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland, killing 16 people.
1990 - A train accident in Sangi, Pakistan, kills 350 people.
1998 - A massive ice storm in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States causes widespread disruption and power outages.
1999 – Former wrestler, Jesse Ventura, becomes Minnesota's governor.
1999 – The US Mint begins issuing the 50 state quarters.