On this day: May 4

Events on May 4

• 1626 Having been appointed the director-general of New Netherland, Peter Minuit arrived in Manhattan. Wikipedia
• 1626 Having been appointed the director-general of New Netherland, Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in present day Manhattan Island aboard the See Meeuw. Wikipedia
• 1677 Trunajaya rebellion: Dutch East India Company forces under Cornelis Speelman began an attack on Surabaya, on the island of Java. Wikipedia
• 1814 Emperor Napoleon arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile. Wikipedia
• 1823 Brazilian War of Independence: A Brazilian squadron led by Lord Cochrane engages a Portuguese squadron under João de Campos off Salvador, Bahia. Wikipedia
• 1869 The four-day Naval Battle of Hakodate begins. The newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy defeats the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate navy in the Sea of Japan off the city of Hakodate, leading to the surrender of the Ezo Republic on May 17. Wikipedia
• 1904 The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal. Wikipedia
• 1919 The May Fourth Movement began in China with large-scale student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Wikipedia
• 1926 The United Kingdom general strike begins. Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: Aircraft from Imperial Japanese Navy vessels attacked Allied naval forces, beginning the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval action in which the participating ships never sighted or fired directly at each other. Wikipedia
• 1942 World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier USS Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before. Wikipedia
• 1945 World War II: Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg is liberated by the British Army. Wikipedia
• 1953 Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea. Wikipedia
• 1970 Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam. Wikipedia
• 1974 An all-female Japanese team reached the summit of Manaslu in the Himalayas, becoming the first women to climb a peak higher than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) above sea level. Wikipedia
• 1978 The South African Defence Force attacks a SWAPO base at Cassinga in southern Angola, killing about 600 people. Wikipedia
• 1979 Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom. Wikipedia
• 1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Wikipedia
• 1982 Twenty sailors are killed when the British Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield is hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War. Wikipedia
• 1989 Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on mission STS-30 to deploy the Venus-bound Magellan space probe. Wikipedia
• 1989 Iran–Contra affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges; the convictions are later overturned on appeal. Wikipedia
• 1990 Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union. Wikipedia
• 1994 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord, granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho. Wikipedia
• 1998 A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty. Wikipedia
• 2007 Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by the 2007 Greensburg tornado, a 1.7-mile wide EF5 tornado. It was the first-ever tornado to be rated with the new Enhanced Fujita scale. Wikipedia
• 2014 Three people are killed and 62 injured in a pair of bombings on buses in Nairobi, Kenya. Wikipedia

Born on May 4

• 1655 Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian instrument maker, invented the piano (died 1731) Wikipedia
• 1796 William Pennington, American lawyer and politician, 13th Governor of New Jersey, 23rd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (died 1862) Wikipedia
• 1820 Julia Gardiner Tyler, American wife of John Tyler, 11th First Lady of the United States (died 1889) Wikipedia
• 1825 Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist, anatomist, and academic (died 1895) Wikipedia
• 1826 Frederic Edwin Church, American painter (died 1900) Wikipedia
• 1827 John Hanning Speke, English soldier and explorer (died 1864) Wikipedia
• 1883 Wang Jingwei, Chinese politician (died 1944) Wikipedia
• 1898 Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer-songwriter and actress, known as Kawkab al-Sharq, Star of the East (died 1975) Wikipedia
• 1918 Kakuei Tanaka, Japanese soldier and politician, 64th Prime Minister of Japan (died 1993) Wikipedia
• 1928 Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian air marshal and politician, 4th President of Egypt (died 2020) Wikipedia
• 1929 Audrey Hepburn, Belgian-British actress and humanitarian (died 1993) Wikipedia
• 1939 Amos Oz, Israeli journalist and author (died 2018) Wikipedia
• 1948 King George Tupou V of Tonga (died 2012) Wikipedia
• 1952 Belinda Green, Australian beauty queen and 1972 Miss World Wikipedia
• 1958 Keith Haring, American painter (died 1990) Wikipedia
• 1960 Werner Faymann, Austrian politician, 28th Chancellor of Austria Wikipedia
• 1972 Mike Dirnt, American bass player and songwriter Wikipedia
• 1981 Ruth Negga, Ethiopian-Irish actress Wikipedia
• 1985 Fernandinho, Brazilian footballer Wikipedia
• 1987 Cesc Fàbregas, Spanish footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1987 Jorge Lorenzo, Spanish motorcycle racer Wikipedia
• 1988 Radja Nainggolan, Belgian footballer Wikipedia

Died on May 4

• 1471 Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, son and heir of Henry VI of England (born 1453) Wikipedia
• 1677 Isaac Barrow, English mathematician and theologian (born 1630) Wikipedia
• 1799 Tipu, ruler of Mysore (born 1750) Wikipedia
• 1824 Joseph Joubert, French author (born 1754) Wikipedia
• 1912 Nettie Stevens, American geneticist credited with discovering sex chromosomes (born 1861) Wikipedia
• 1924 E. Nesbit, English author and poet (born 1858) Wikipedia
• 1938 Kanō Jigorō, Japanese founder of judo (born 1860) Wikipedia
• 1938 Carl von Ossietzky, German journalist and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1889) Wikipedia
• 1945 Fedor von Bock, German field marshal (born 1880) Wikipedia
• 1955 George Enescu, Romanian pianist, composer, and conductor (born 1881) Wikipedia
• 1972 Edward Calvin Kendall, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1886) Wikipedia
• 1980 Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav field marshal and politician, 1st President of Yugoslavia (born 1892) Wikipedia
• 2008 Fred Baur, American chemist and founder of Pringles (born 1918) Wikipedia
• 2013 Christian de Duve, English-Belgian cytologist and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1917) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Anti-Bullying Day (United Nations) Wikipedia
• Bird Day (United States) Wikipedia
• Cassinga Day (Namibia) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Ceferino Giménez Malla Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Michał Giedroyć Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: English Saints and Martyrs of the Reformation Era (Church of England) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: F. C. D. Wyneken (Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Florian Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Jean-Martin Moye Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: John Houghton, Robert Lawrence and Augustine Webster Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Judas Cyriacus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Monica of Hippo (1960 Roman Catholic Calendar) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Silvanus of Gaza Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: May 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Coal Miners Day (India) Wikipedia
• Dave Brubeck Day (United States) Wikipedia
• Death of Milan Rastislav Štefánik Day (Slovakia) Wikipedia
• Greenery Day (Japan) Wikipedia
• International Firefighters' Day Wikipedia
• May Fourth Movement commemorations: Literary Day (Republic of China) Wikipedia
• May Fourth Movement commemorations: Youth Day (China) Wikipedia
• Remembrance Day for Martyrs and Disabled (Afghanistan) Wikipedia
• Remembrance of the Dead (Netherlands) Wikipedia
• Restoration of Independence Day (Latvia) Wikipedia

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “May 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.