Historical events on May 4
MAY 4, 2000
Ken Livingstone took office as the first mayor of London.
Kenneth Robert Livingstone is an English retired politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until
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MAY 4, 1493
Pope Alexander VI (pictured) issued the papal bull Inter caetera, establishing a line of demarcation dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal.
Pope Alexander VI was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 August 1492 until his death in 1503.
MAY 4, 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.
Manaslu is the eighth-highest mountain in the world at 8,163 metres (26,781 ft) above sea level. It is in the Mansiri Himal, part
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MAY 4, 1982
Falklands War: HMS Sheffield was struck by an Exocet missile, killing 20 sailors and leading to its sinking six days later—the first Royal Navy ship sunk in action since World War II.
The Falklands War was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in
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MAY 4, 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.
World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all
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MAY 4, 1677
Trunajaya rebellion: Dutch East India Company forces under Cornelis Speelman began an attack on Surabaya, on the island of Java.
The Trunajaya Rebellion or Trunajaya War was the ultimately unsuccessful rebellion waged during the 1670s by the Madurese prince Trunajaya and fighters
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MAY 4, 1886
During a labor rally in Chicago, a bomb explosion and gunfire led to the deaths of eight police officers and four members of the public.
The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the
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MAY 4, 1776
American Revolution: The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations became the first of the Thirteen Colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown.
The American Revolution (1765–1783) was an ideological and political movement in the Thirteen Colonies in what was then British America. The revolution
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MAY 4, 1979
Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990
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MAY 4, 1789
The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, part of a cultural project initiated by engraver John Boydell, opened in London.
The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and
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