March 4 - Definition and Overview

March 4 is the 63rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (64th in leap years). There are 302 days remaining.

Events

up to 18th century

• 303 or 304 - Martyrdom of saint Adrian of Nicomedia.
• 1152 - Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of the Germans.
• 1461 - King Henry VI of England is deposed.
• 1665 - Start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
• 1681 - Charles II of England grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.
• 1789 - In New York City, the first U.S. Congress meets and declares the new Constitution of the United States is in effect.
• 1790 - France is divided into 83 départements, which cut across the former provinces, in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on noble ownership of land.
• 1791 - Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.
• 1793 - George Washington is inaugurated for a second term as the 1st President of the United States.
• 1797 - John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States.

19th century

1800-1849

• 1801 - Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated as the 3rd President of the United States.
• 1804 - The Battle of Vinegar Hill, colony of New South Wales (Australia)
• 1805 - Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• 1809 - James Madison is inaugurated as the 4th President of the United States.
• 1813 - James Madison is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• 1817 - James Monroe is inaugurated as the 5th President of the United States.
• 1825 - John Quincy Adams is inaugurated as the 6th President of the United States, despite losing both the electoral and popular votes in the 1824 presidential election.
• 1829 - Andrew Jackson is inaugurated as the 7th President of the United States.
• 1833 - Andrew Jackson is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• 1837 - Martin Van Buren is inaugurated as the 8th President of the United States.
• 1837 - Chicago, Illinois is granted a city charter by Illinois.
• 1841 - William Henry Harrison is inaugurated as the 9th President of the United States.
• 1845 - James Knox Polk is inaugurated as the 11th President of the United States.
• 1849 - David Rice Atchison is believed by some to have been President of the United States for one day, due to a gap between the expiration of James K. Polk's term and the swearing-in of Zachary Taylor.

1850-1899

• 1853 - Franklin Pierce is inaugurated as the 14th President of the United States.
• 1857 - James Buchanan is inaugurated as the 15th President of the United States.
• 1861 - Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States.
• 1861 - The "Stars and Bars" is adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.
• 1865 - Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• 1869 - Ulysses S. Grant is inaugurated as the 18th President of the United States.
• 1873 - Ulysses S. Grant is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• 1877 - Emile Berliner invents the microphone.
• 1877 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake debuts.
• 1881 - James A. Garfield is inaugurated as the 20th President of the United States.
• 1881 - A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story, begins.
• 1885 - Grover Cleveland is inaugurated as the 22nd President of the United States.
• 1889 - Benjamin Harrison is inaugurated as the 23rd President of the United States.
• 1893 - Grover Cleveland (same as above) is inaugurated as the 24th President of the United States.
• 1897 - William McKinley is inaugurated as the 25th President of the United States.

20th century

1900s-1930s

• 1901 - William McKinley is inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States.
• 1902 - In Chicago, Illinois, the American Automobile Association is established.
• 1904 - Russo-Japanese War: Russian troops in Korea retreat toward Manchuria followed by 100,000 Japanese troops.
• 1905 - Theodore Roosevelt is re-inaugurated as the 26th President of the United States.
• 1909 - William Howard Taft is inaugurated as the 27th President of the United States.
• 1913 - Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated as the 28th President of the United States.
• 1913 - The United States Department of Commerce and United States Department of Labor are established by splitting the duties of the 10-year-old Dept. of Commerce and Labor.
• 1917 - Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives.
• 1921 - Warren G. Harding is inaugurated as the 29th President of the United States.
• 1925 - Calvin Coolidge is re-inaugurated as the 30th President of the United States, the first inauguration broadcasted on radio.
• 1929 - Herbert Hoover is inaugurated as the 31st President of the United States.
• 1933 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated as the 32nd President of the United States and gives his "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself" speech. This is the last inauguration scheduled for March 4.
• 1933 - Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, first female member of the United States Cabinet.

1940s-1980s

• 1941 - Great Britain launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands, during World War II.
• 1944 - In Ossining, New York, Louis Buchalter, the leader of 1930s crime syndicate Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing.
• 1954 - Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston announces the first successful kidney transplant.
• 1963 - In Paris six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle.
• 1966 - John Lennon says, "We (The Beatles) are more popular than Jesus" which later sparked controversy in the United States.
• 1975 - Charlie Chaplin is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England.
• 1977 - An earthquake in southern and eastern Europe kills more than 1,500.
• 1989 - Time, Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger forming Time-Warner.

1990s

• 1993 - Authorities announce the capture of suspected World Trade Center bombing conspirator Mohammad Salameh.
• 1994 - Four terrorists are convicted for their roles in the World Trade Center bombing which killed six and injured more than a thousand.
• 1995 - The World Summit on Social Development begins in Copenhagen.
• 1997 - United States President Bill Clinton bars federal funding for any research on human cloning.
• 1998 - Gay rights: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.
• 1999 - Monica Lewinsky's book detailing her affair with Bill Clinton goes on sale in the United States.
• 1999 - In a military court, Captain Richard Ashby of the United States Marines is acquitted of the charge of reckless flying which resulted in the deaths of 20 skiers in the Italian Alps when his low-flying jet hit a gondola cable.

21st century

• 2003 - Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn redebuts on Comedy Central
• 2004 - The files of Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun are released to the public five years after his death.
• 2004 - FIFA reveals its list of 100 Greatest Living Footballers (otherwise known as the "FIFA 100")

Births

up to 19th century

• 1394 - Prince Henry the Navigator, explorer (d. 1460)
• 1678 - Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (d. 1741)
• 1768 - August Friedrich Wilhelm Holtzhausen, engineer (d. 1827)
• 1793 - Karl Lachmann, philologist (d. 1851)
• 1876 - Léon-Paul Fargue, poet (d. 1947)
• 1877 - Garrett Morgan, inventor (d. 1963)
• 1879 - Josip Murn - Aleksandrov, Slovene poet (d. 1901)
• 1888 - Knute Rockne, American football star, coach (d. 1931)
• 1897 - Lefty O'Doul, baseball star, restaurateur (d. 1969)

20th century

1900s-1950s

• 1901 - Charles Goren, bridge expert
• 1903 - Luis Carrero Blanco, Spanish statesman (d. 1973)
• 1909 - Harry Helmsley, real estate entrepreneur (d. 1997)
• 1913 - John Garfield, actor (d. 1952)
• 1916 - Hans Eysenck, psychologist (d. 1997)
• 1925 - Paul Mauriat, musician
• 1926 - Iñigo Sanz, professor of Law
• 1928 - Alan Sillitoe, writer
• 1929 - Bernard Haitink, Dutch conductor
• 1932 - Miriam Makeba, singer
• 1934 - Janez Strnad, Slovene physicist.
• 1936 - Jim Clark, racing driver (d. 1968)
• 1938 - Don Perkins, American football player
• 1941 - Adrian Lyne, director
• 1942 - Charles C. Krulak, 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps
• 1947 - Jan Garbarek, Norwegian musician
• 1950 - Rick Perry, Governor of Texas
• 1951 - Kenny Dalglish footballer and football manager
• 1951 - Chris Rea, British singer and musician
• 1953 - James Smith, boxer
• 1954 - Willie Thorne, English snooker player
• 1958 - Patricia Heaton, actress (Everybody Loves Raymond)

1960s-1980s

• 1960 - Mykelti Williamson, actor
• 1961 - Ray Mancini, boxer
• 1963 - Jason Newsted, former bassist of Metallica
• 1965 - Gary Helms, Kickboxer
• 1966 - Kevin Johnson, basketball player
• 1967 - Evan Dando, musician
• 1968 - Patsy Kensit, actress
• 1987 - Ding Junhui, Chinese snooker player

Deaths

• 1496 - Sigismund of Austria - Regent of Tyrol and Further Austria
• 1619 - Anne of Denmark, consort of James I of England, (b. 1574)
• 1852 - Nikolai Gogol, writer, (b. 1809)
• 1858 - Matthew Perry, (b. 1794)
• 1868 - Jesse Chisholm, Old West pioneer
• 1959 - Maxey Long, American athlete
• 1963 - William Carlos Williams, writer, (b. 1883)
• 1977 - Andrés Caicedo, Colombian writer (b. 1951)
• 1994 - John Candy, comedian and actor, (b. 1950)
• 1996 - Minnie Pearl, country music performer
• 1999 - Harry Blackmun, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, (b. 1908)
• 1999 - Karel van het Reve, Dutch writer, (b. 1921)
• 2001 - Glenn Hughes, leather dude of popular music group The Village People
• 2001 - Harold Stassen, politician, (b. 1907)
• 2003 - Dschaba Iosseliani, politician

Holidays and observances

• Catholicism - Feast day of St Casimir.

March 3 - March 5 - February 4 - April 4 -- listing of all days