October 4
Today is
World Animal Day, a day of action for animal rights and welfare, celebrated on the feast day of
St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.
World Space Week begins today.
1363 – End of the
Battle of Lake Poyang; the Chinese rebel forces of
Zhu Yuanzhang defeat that of his rival,
Chen Youliang, in one of the
largest naval battles in history, involving around 850,000 men total.
1535 – The first complete English-language Bible (
the Coverdale Bible) is printed, with translations by
William Tyndale and
Myles Coverdale.
1582 –
Pope Gregory XIII implements the
Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
1795 –
Napoleon Bonaparte first rises to national prominence by suppressing armed counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the National Convention.
1876 –
Texas A&M University opens as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, becoming the first public institution of higher education in Texas.
1883 – First run of the
Orient Express.
1883 – First meeting of the
Boys' Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland.
1895 – The first
U.S. Open Men's Golf Championship administered by the United States Golf Association is played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.
1918 – An explosion kills more than 100 and
destroys the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, New Jersey. Rail cars loaded with ammunition exploded, breaking windows over 25 miles away. The totality of the event ranked as one of the largest man-made non-nuclear explosions in history.
1927 –
Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting
Mount Rushmore.
1941 –
Norman Rockwell's
Willie Gillis character debuts on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
1957 – Space Race: Launch of
Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
1957 - Winners at this years Annual
NME readers poll included
Pat Boone who was voted the world's No.1 singer, with
Elvis Presley voted second.
1961 - Bob Dylan played a showcase at New York's Carnegie Hall. To 53 people.
1970 - US singer
Janis Joplin was found dead at the
Landmark Hotel in Hollywood after an accidental heroin overdose. Joplin had the posthumous 1971 US No.1 single '
Me And Bobby McGee', and the 1971 US No.1 album '
Pearl'.
1976 – Official launch of the
InterCity 125 high speed train. Operating at up to 125 mph, with a top speed of 148 mph, it is currently the fastest diesel-powered train in the world.
1978 - Country singer
Tammy Wynette was
abducted, beaten and held in her car for two hours by a kidnapper wearing a ski mask. He held a gun on her and forced her to drive 90 miles. She was later released and the kidnapper escaped.
1983 –
Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 miles per hour (1,019.468 km/h), driving
Thrust2 at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
1985 – The
Free Software Foundation is founded in Massachusetts, United States.
1993 –
Russian Constitutional Crisis: In Moscow, tanks bombard the White House in Moscow, a government building that housed the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rally outside.
1997 – The
second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs at the Charlotte, North Carolina office of
Loomis, Fargo and Company. A FBI investigation eventually results in 24 convictions and the recovery of approximately 95% of the $17.3 million stolen cash.
2001 –
Siberia Airlines Flight 1812: A Sibir Airlines
Tupolev Tu-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian
S-200 missile. Seventy-eight people are killed.
2004 –
SpaceShipOne wins
Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space.
2006 –
Wikileaks is launched by
Julian Assange.
2010 – The
Ajka plant accident in western Hungary releases about a million cubic metres (35 million cubic feet) of liquid
alumina sludge. Nine people are killed and 122 injured, and the
Marcal and
Danube rivers are severely contaminated.
Births
1542 – Robert Bellarmine (namesake of Bellarmine University);
1625 – Jacqueline Pascal; 1626 – Richard Cromwell; 1822 – Rutherford B. Hayes (19th POTUS); 1861 – Frederic Remington
; 1880 – Damon Runyon; 1895 – Buster Keaton; 1916 – Jan Murray; 1923 – Charlton Heston ("...from my cold dead hands."); 1929 – Scotty Beckett (Spanky's best friend before Alfalfa); 1929 – Leroy Van Dyke♪ ♫; 1937 – Jackie Collins; 1941 – Roy Blount, Jr.; 1941 – Anne Rice; 1942 – Christopher Stone; 1943 – H. Rap Brown; 1945 – Clifton Davis (
That's My Mama); 1946 – Chuck Hagel; 1946 – Susan Sarandon; 1947 – Jim Fielder
(Blood, Sweat & Tears); 1948 – Duke Robillard
; 1949 – Armand Assante; 1953 – Gil Moore
(Triumph); 1956 – Christoph Waltz; 1957 – Bill Fagerbakke('Dauber' on
Coach); 1957 – Russell Simmons (founded Def Jam Recordings and Phat Farm); 1959 – Chris Lowe
(Pet Shop Boys); 1962 – Jon Secada♪ ♫; 1965 – Micky Ward
; 1967 – Liev Schreiber; 1976 – Alicia Silverstone; 1977 – Richard Reed Parry♪ ♫(Arcade Fire); 1989 – Dakota Johnson
Deaths
1226 – Francis of Assisi;
1661 – Jacqueline Pascal; 1669 – Rembrandt; 1904 – Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
(designed the Statue of Liberty); 1946 – Barney Oldfield
; 1947 – Max Planck; 1951 –
Henrietta Lacks; 1970 – Janis Joplin♪ ♫; 1989 – Secretariat (race horse); 1989 – Graham Chapman (
Monty Python); 1994 – Danny Gatton
; 1997 – Gunpei Yokoi (created the GameBoy); 2005 - Mike Gibbins
(Badfinger); 2014 – Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier; 2014 - Paul Revere Dick
(Paul Revere & The Raiders)