Inline videos. See also:Category: Articles with embedded Videos..

August 4

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

August 4 is the 216th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (217th in leap years), with 149 days remaining.

Template:AugustCalendar2008

Contents

1 Events

2 Births

3 Deaths

4 Holidays and observances

5 External links

[edit]

Events

1265 - The Battle of Evesham of the Second Barons' War is fought in Worcestershire, with the army of future King Edward I of England defeating the forces of rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester and killing de Montfort and many of his allies. This is sometimes considered the death of chivalry in England.
1578 - Battle of Al Kasr al Kebir - Moroccans defeat Portuguese. King Sebastian of Portugal is defeated and killed in North Africa, leaving his elderly uncle, Cardinal Henry, as his heir. This initiates a succession crisis in Portugal.
1693 - Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon's invention of Champagne.
1704 - During the War of the Spanish Succession an Anglo-Dutch force seizes the rock of Gibraltar.
1735 - Freedom of the press: New York Weekly Journal writer John Peter Zenger is acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, on the basis that what he published was true.
1753 - George Washington, then a young Virginia planter, becomes a Master Mason, the highest basic rank in the secret fraternity of Freemasonry.
1789 - The feudal system is abolished in France.
1790 - A newly passed tariff act creates the Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard).
1821 - Atkinson & Alexander publish the Saturday Evening Post for the first time as a weekly newspaper.
1873 - Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the United States 7th Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, clash for the first time with the Sioux (near the Tongue River; only one man on each side is killed).
1892 - The family of Lizzie Borden is found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.
1902 - Greenwich foot tunnel under the River Thames opens.
1914 - World War I: The United Kingdom declares war on Germany and the United States proclaims neutrality.
1944 - Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family.
1964 - American civil rights movement: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.
1964 - Vietnam War: United States destroyers USS Maddox and USS C. Turner Joy are attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. Air support from the carrier USS Ticonderoga sinks two, possibly three North Vietnamese gunboats.
1969 - Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, US representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. The negotiations will eventually fail.
1977 - US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
1983 - Thomas Sankara become President in Upper Volta.
1984 - The African republic 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 "fairly" present controversial issues.
1991 The Greek cruise ship Oceanos sinks off the coast of South Africa.
1993 - A federal judge sentences LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights.
1997 - 185,000 Teamsters union United Parcel Service drivers walk off the job.

[edit]

Births

1290 - Duke Leopold I of Austria
1521 - Pope Urban VII, (d. 1590)
1792 - Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (d. 1822)
1834 - John Venn, British mathematician (d. 1923)
1840 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, sexologist
1859 - Knut Hamsun, Norwegian writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature 1920 (d. 1952)
1899 - Ezra Taft Benson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1994)
1900 - Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Queen Mother of the United Kingdom (d. 2002)
1901 - Louis Armstrong, jazz musician (d. 1971)
1904 - Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (d. 1969)
1906 - Marie-José Van Sachsen Coburg-Gotha, last Queen of Italy (d. 2001)
1906 - Eugen Schuhmacher, zoologist (d. 1973)
1908 - Kurt Eichhorn, conductor
1909 - Glenn Cunningham, athlete
1909 - Otto Steiger, writer
1910 - William Schuman, composer (d. 1992)
1912 - Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov, mathematician, physicist, philosopher and a mountaineer (d. 1999)
1912 - Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat (d. 1947 presumed)
1913 - Robert Hayden, poet, Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (d. 1980)
1921 - Maurice Richard, hockey player (d. 2000)
1927 - Jess Thomas, American tenor (d. 1993)
1929 - Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (d. 2004)
1929 - Kishore Kumar, Indian singer and actor (d. 1987)
1930 - Götz Friedrich, opera director (d. 2000)
1932 - Hans Jürgen Fröhlich, writer
1932 - Guillermo Mordillo, graphic artist and cartoonist
1936 - Assia Djebar, member of the Académie française
1937 - David Bedford, musician
1943 - Bjørn Wirkola, Norwegian ski jumper
1944 - Richard Belzer, actor and comedian
1947 - Klaus Schulze, composer, perforner
1955 - Billy Bob Thornton, actor, writer
1958 - Mary Decker Slaney, track star
1960 - Dean Malenko, professional wrestler
1961 - Barack Obama, American politician
1962 - Roger Clemens, baseball player
1967 - Mike Marsh, American athlete
1968 - Marcus Schenkenberg, model
1970 - Michael DeLuise, American actor
1971 - Jeff Gordon, race car driver

[edit]

Deaths

1060 - King Henry I of France (b. 1008)
1265 - Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester (b. 1208)
1265 - Hugh le Despencer, 1st Baron le Despencer
1265 - Henry de Montfort
1306 - Wenceslaus III of Bohemia (b. 1289)
1526 - Juan Sebastián Elcano, Spanish explorer (b. 1476)
1875 - Hans Christian Andersen, Danish writer
1938 - Pearl White, actress
1976 - Roy Herbert Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet, publisher
1981 - Melvyn Douglas, actor
1997 - Jeanne Calment, oldest documanted human being (b. 1875)
1998 - Yuri Artyukhin, cosmonaut
1999 - Victor Mature, actor
2001 - Lorenzo Music, actor, writer, producer
2002 - Carmen Silvera, British actress
2002 - Murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman

[edit]

Holidays and observances

Burkina Faso - Anniversary of the Revolution
Cook Islands - Constitution Day (celebrations begin on the last Friday in July and last up to 2 weeks.)
El Salvador - Transfiguration Bank Holiday
Ancient Egypt - Jubilation of the Heart of Re

[edit]