On this day: April 4

Events on April 4

• 801 King Louis the Pious captures Barcelona from the Moors after a siege of several months. Wikipedia
• 1423 Death of the Venetian Doge Tommaso Mocenigo, under whose rule victories were achieved against the Kingdom of Hungary and against the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Gallipoli (1416). Wikipedia
• 1814 Napoleon abdicated as Emperor of the French and named his son Napoleon II to replace him. Wikipedia
• 1814 Napoleon abdicates (conditionally) for the first time and names his son Napoleon II as Emperor of the French, followed by unconditional abdication two days later. Wikipedia
• 1865 American Civil War: A day after Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln visits the Confederate capital. Wikipedia
• 1866 Alexander II of Russia narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Dmitry Karakozov in the city of Saint Petersburg. Wikipedia
• 1933 U.S. Navy airship USS Akron is wrecked off the New Jersey coast due to severe weather. Wikipedia
• 1944 World War II: First bombardment of oil refineries in Bucharest by Anglo-American forces kills 3,000 civilians. Wikipedia
• 1945 World War II: Soviet Red Army troops liberate Hungary from German occupation. Wikipedia
• 1949 Twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty, establishing NATO, an international military alliance whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. Wikipedia
• 1949 Cold War: Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Wikipedia
• 1958 The CND peace symbol is displayed in public for the first time in London. Wikipedia
• 1960 France agrees to grant independence to the Mali Federation, a union of Senegal and French Sudan. Wikipedia
• 1964 The Beatles occupy the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart. Wikipedia
• 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech in New York City's Riverside Church. Wikipedia
• 1968 American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Wikipedia
• 1975 Vietnam War: A United States Air Force Lockheed C-5A Galaxy transporting orphans, crashes near Saigon, South Vietnam shortly after takeoff, killing 172 people. Wikipedia
• 1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Wikipedia
• 1975 Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Wikipedia
• 1984 President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons. Wikipedia
• 1988 Governor Evan Mecham of Arizona is convicted in his impeachment trial and removed from office. Wikipedia
• 1991 Forty-one people are taken hostage inside a Good Guys! Electronics store in Sacramento, California. Three of the hostage takers and three hostages are killed. Wikipedia
• 1991 Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others are killed when a helicopter collides with their airplane over an elementary school in Merion, Pennsylvania. Wikipedia
• 2009 France announces its return to full participation of its military forces within NATO. Wikipedia
• 2023 Finland becomes a member of NATO after Turkey accepts its membership request. Wikipedia
• 2025 The impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea in response to his declaration of martial law is unanimously upheld by the country's Constitutional Court, ending his presidency. Wikipedia

Born on April 4

• 188 Caracalla, Roman emperor (died 217) Wikipedia
• 1785 Bettina von Arnim, German author, illustrator, and composer (died 1859) Wikipedia
• 1818 Thomas Mayne Reid, Irish-American author and poet (died 1883) Wikipedia
• 1819 Maria II of Portugal (died 1853) Wikipedia
• 1846 Comte de Lautréamont, Uruguayan-French poet and educator (died 1870) Wikipedia
• 1853 Remy de Gourmont, French poet, novelist, and critic (died 1915) Wikipedia
• 1875 Pierre Monteux, Sephardic Jewish French-American viola player and conductor (died 1964) Wikipedia
• 1884 Isoroku Yamamoto, Japanese admiral (died 1943) Wikipedia
• 1913 Muddy Waters, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1983) Wikipedia
• 1914 Marguerite Duras, French novelist, screenwriter, and director (died 1996) Wikipedia
• 1928 Maya Angelou, American memoirist and poet (died 2014) Wikipedia
• 1932 Andrei Tarkovsky, Russian director and producer (died 1986) Wikipedia
• 1932 Anthony Perkins, American actor (died 1992) Wikipedia
• 1945 Daniel Cohn-Bendit, French-German educator and politician Wikipedia
• 1948 Abdullah Öcalan, Turkish activist Wikipedia
• 1952 Gary Moore, Northern Irish singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (died 2011) Wikipedia
• 1957 Aki Kaurismäki, Finnish director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1960 Hugo Weaving, Nigerian-Australian actor and producer Wikipedia
• 1965 Robert Downey Jr., American actor, producer, and screenwriter. Wikipedia
• 1979 Heath Ledger, Australian actor (died 2008) Wikipedia
• 1987 Sami Khedira, German footballer Wikipedia
• 1991 Jamie Lynn Spears, American actress and singer Wikipedia

Died on April 4

• 397 Ambrose, Roman archbishop and saint (born 338) Wikipedia
• 636 Isidore of Seville, Spanish archbishop and saint (born 560) Wikipedia
• 896 Formosus, pope of the Catholic Church (born 816) Wikipedia
• 911 Liu Yin, Chinese warlord and governor (born 874) Wikipedia
• 1284 Alfonso X, king of Castile and León (born 1221) Wikipedia
• 1617 John Napier, Scottish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (born 1550) Wikipedia
• 1774 Oliver Goldsmith, Irish novelist, playwright and poet (born 1728) Wikipedia
• 1841 William Henry Harrison, American general and politician, 9th President of the United States (born 1773) Wikipedia
• 1929 Karl Benz, German engineer and businessman, founded Mercedes-Benz (born 1844) Wikipedia
• 1932 Wilhelm Ostwald, Latvian-German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1853) Wikipedia
• 1968 Martin Luther King Jr., American minister and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (assassinated) (born 1929) Wikipedia
• 1979 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistani lawyer and politician, 4th President of Pakistan (born 1928) Wikipedia
• 1983 Gloria Swanson, American actress (born 1899) Wikipedia
• 2013 Roger Ebert, American journalist, critic, and screenwriter (born 1942) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Children's Day (Hong Kong, Taiwan) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Benedict the Moor Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Gaetano Catanoso Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Isidore of Seville Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Martin Luther King Jr. (Episcopal Church (USA)) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Reginald Heber (Anglican Church of Canada) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Tigernach of Clones Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Plato of Sakkoudion Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: April 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Senegal from France (1960). Wikipedia
• Peace Day (Angola) Wikipedia
• One of the possible days for Qingming Festival. Wikipedia
• NATO Day Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “April 4” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-09 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. We picked the 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths with the widest coverage across Wikipedia's language editions (counted from Wikidata) and sorted them by year; the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures.