This is a list of selected December 4 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
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Images
Use only ONE image at a time
A transit of Venus
Jeremiah Horrocks observing the transit of Venus
Burger King Whopper
Dianne Feinstein
Mary Celeste, 1861
Ram Mohan Roy
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| John of Damascus |d|749| | article says this date is only "traditional", hence not reliably sourced as being otd |
| 771 – Austrasian King Carloman I died, leaving his brother Charlemagne king of the now complete Frankish Kingdom. | unreferenced section |
| 1676 – Scanian War: Forces led by Swedish Field Marshal Simon Grundel-Helmfelt defeated the invading army of Denmark–Norway under the command of King Christian V in an area north of Lund, Sweden. | needs more footnotes |
| 1791 – Britain's The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, was first published. | refimprove |
| 1937 – The first issue of The Dandy, the world's longest-running children's comic book, was published. | refimprove |
| 1949 – Duncan Stewart, the British governor of Sarawak, was fatally stabbed in Sibu during his first visit to the colony. | uncertainty over date, see |
| 1954 – The global hamburger fast food chain Burger King, known for its signature item the Whopper, was founded in Miami, Florida, U.S. | Date not in article, good faith research on internet can't turn up source for it. |
| 1956 – Singers Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley, collectively called the "Million Dollar Quartet", recorded an impromptu jam session in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. | refimprove |
| 1977 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the President of the Central African Republic, had himself crowned as Emperor Bokassa I. | refimprove section |
| 1979 – Bruce George Peter Lee set fire to a family home in Hull, England; after his arrest he revealed that he had started nine other fatal fires in the area. | refimprove |
| 1991 – Journalist Terry Anderson, the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon, was released after seven years in captivity. | lots of CN tags in one section |
| 1991 – Pan American World Airways, which was the principal international airline of the United States and which was credited with many innovations, ended operations. | {{prose}} |
Eligible
- 1639 – Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree made the first successful observation of a transit of Venus (example pictured) from Earth.
- 1829 – Sati, the Hindu funeral custom of a widow's self-immolation on her husband's pyre, was prohibited by Lord William Bentinck in parts of British India after years of campaigning by Ram Mohan Roy (pictured).
- 1872 – The American brigantine Mary Celeste was found apparently abandoned under circumstances that remain unknown.
- 1893 – First Matabele War: A patrol of 34 British South Africa Company soldiers was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors.
- 1909 – The Montreal Canadiens, the oldest professional ice hockey club in the world, were founded as a charter member of the National Hockey Association.
- 1909 – The first Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League, was held in Toronto.
- 1928 – Cosmo Gordon Lang was enthroned as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the first bachelor to be appointed in 150 years.
- 1969 – Fred Hampton, the leader of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, and Mark Clark were killed in a raid by Chicago police officers in what many scholars consider an illegal assassination.
- 1971 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force, an Ulster-loyalist paramilitary group, detonated a bomb at a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing 15 people.
- 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Navy launched a successful attack against the Pakistan Navy at Karachi, sinking three ships with no Indian casualties.
- 1978 – Following the murder of Mayor George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco's first female mayor.
- 1980 – The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
- 1986 – The MV Amazon Venture oil tanker starts leaking while at the port of Savannah, resulting in an oil spill of approximately 500,000 US gallons (1,900,000 L).
- 2006 – Six black teenagers assaulted a white student in Jena, Louisiana; the subsequent court cases became a cause célèbre for perceived racial injustice in the United States.
- 2012 – "Il Canto degli Italiani" officially became the national anthem of Italy, 66 years after it was provisionally chosen following the birth of the Italian Republic.
- Born/died: | Pope John XXII |d|1334| Maerten de Vos |d|1603| John Leamy |d|1839| Jesse Burkett |b|1868|Agnes Forbes Blackadder |b|1875|Inder Kumar Gujral |b|1919| Roberta Bondar |b|1945| Maryam Rajavi |b|1953| Benjamin Britten |d|1976| Nancy Mace |b|1977| Pearl Corkhill |d|1985| Frank Zappa |d|1993|
Notes
- National Hockey League appears on November 26, so Montreal Canadiens should not appear in the same year
- Moscone–Milk assassinations appears on November 27, so Dianne Feinstein should appear in the same year
- Droppin Well bombing (1975) and Balcombe Street siege (1982) both appear on December 6, so McGurk's Bar bombing should not appear in the same year
December 4: Navy Day in India
The Battle of Pontvallain
- 1370 – Hundred Years' War: In two separate engagements in the Battle of Pontvallain (depicted), French forces wiped out an English army which had split up because of a dispute between the commanders.
- 1905 – The Great Seimas of Vilnius met to discuss national concerns within Lithuania: they decided to demand wide political autonomy within the Russian Empire.
- 1915 – World War I: Senior British and French figures, including prime ministers H. H. Asquith and Aristide Briand, met at Calais to discuss the future of the Salonika Front.
- 1992 – U.S. president George H. W. Bush ordered American troops into Somalia to help provide humanitarian aid and restore order during the ongoing Somali Civil War.
- John Cotton (b. 1585)
- Gregor MacGregor (d. 1845)
- Gabriel Dessauer (b. 1955)
- Hannah Arendt (d. 1975)
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