August 4
367 –
Gratian, son of Roman Emperor
Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus by his father and associated to the throne aged eight.
1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to
Dom Perignon's invention of
champagne; it is not clear whether he actually invented champagne, however he has been credited as an innovator who developed the techniques used to perfect
sparkling wine.
1783 –
Mount Asama erupts in Japan, killing about 1,400 people. The eruption causes a famine, which results in an additional 20,000 deaths.
1790 – A newly passed tariff act creates the
Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the
United States Coast Guard).
1821 – The
Saturday Evening Post is published for the first time as a weekly newspaper.
1873 –
American Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the
United States 7th Cavalry, under
Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer clashes for the first time with the
Cheyenne and
Lakota people near the
Tongue River; only one man on each side is killed.
1889 –
The Great Fire of Spokane, Washington destroys some 32 blocks of the city, prompting a mass rebuilding project.
1892 – The father and stepmother of
Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.
1944 – The Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse, where they find and arrest Jewish diarist
Anne Frank, her family, and four others.
1958 – The
Billboard Hot 100 is published for the first time.
1964 – American civil rights movement: Civil rights workers
Michael Schwerner,
Andrew Goodman and
James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.
1967 -
Pink Floyd released their debut album
The Piper At the Gates of Dawn on which most songs were penned by
Syd Barrett. In subsequent years, the record has been recognized as one of the seminal psychedelic rock albums of the 1960s.
1969 – Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary
Jean Sainteny in Paris, American representative
Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative
Xuân Thuỷ begin secret peace negotiations. The negotiations will eventually fail.
1975 -
Led Zeppelin singer
Robert Plant and his wife were both badly injured when the hire car he was driving spun off the road and crashed on the Greek island of Rhodes. Plant smashed both his ankle and his elbow, and was not fully fit for the best part of two years.
1987 – The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the
Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to present controversial issues "fairly".
1993 – A federal judge sentences Los Angeles Police Department officers
Stacey Koon and
Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist
Rodney King's civil rights.
2005 - American blues singer and guitarist
Little Milton died. Milton had suffered a brain aneurysm on 25th July 2005 and had lapsed into a coma.
Births
1792 – Percy Bysshe Shelley; 1821 – Louis Vuitton; 1834 – John Venn (Venn Diagram); 1898 – Ernesto Maserati

; 1900 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother; 1901 – Louis Armstrong♪ ♫; 1918 –

; 1920 – Helen Thomas (loooong time White House reporter); 1923 – Reg Grundy; 1928 – Gerard Damiano

(porn writer/director); 1939 – Frank Vincent ('Phil Leotardo' on
The Sopranos); 1942 – Don S. Davis (
Stargate SG-1); 1944 – Richard Belzer; 1949 – John Riggins

; 1955 – Billy Bob Thornton; 1956 – Gerry Cooney

; 1959 – Robbin Crosby

(Ratt); 1961 – Barack Hussein Obama (44th POTUS); 1962 – Roger Clemens; 1969 – Max Cavalera♪ ♫(Sepultura); 1969 – Michael DeLuise; 1971 – Jeff Gordon

; 1978 – Kurt Busch

; 1985 – Crystal Bowersox♪ ♫
Deaths
1265 - Peter de Montfort, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, Hugh le Despencer, 1st Baron le Despencer; 1981 – Melvyn Douglas; 1990 – Ettore Maserati; 1999 – Victor Mature

; 2001 –
Lorenzo Music; 2005 - Little Milton♪ ♫; 2007 – Lee Hazlewood♪ ♫; 2014 – James Brady