Patty Hearst Mugshot

1974

Patty Hearst kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army

Born on This Day

Lindbergh in Airplane

Charles Lindbergh

1902 - 1974

Aviator who made the first solo transatlantic flight in 1927 and who later garnered controversy for opposing U.S. involvement in World War II.

Ida Lupino In Publicity Handout

Ida Lupino

1918 - 1995

English-born actress who broke boundaries as one of Hollywood's first female filmmakers. She directed works that tackled social issues, such as "Not Wanted" and "Outrage."

Alice Cooper Performs At Eventim Apollo

Alice Cooper

1948 -

Singer known for his theatrical "shock rock" style on "School's Out" and "I'm Eighteen."

Charles Lindbergh

Getty Images

Ida Lupino

Bettmann Archive

Alice Cooper

Getty Images

1703

FEB

4

In a dramatic tale of loyalty, 47 samurai followers of a regional Japanese lord are forced to commit seppuku, ritually disemboweling themselves. Their crime? Avenging his forced suicide by killing the official who demanded it.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on February 4th

1789

George Washington unanimously elected first U.S. president

George Washington, the commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, is unanimously elected the first president of the United States by all 69 presidential electors who cast their votes. John Adams of Massachusetts, who received 34 votes, was elected vice president. The electors, who represented 10 of the 11 states that had ratified […]

4:14m read read

1826

“The Last of the Mohicans” is published

On February 4, 1826, The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper is published. One of the earliest distinctive American novels, the book is the second of the five-novel series called the “Leatherstocking Tales.” Cooper was born in 1789 in New Jersey and moved the following year to the frontier in upstate New York, […]

1:12m read read

1846

Latter-day Saints begin exodus to Utah

Their leader assassinated and their homes under attack, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons) of Nauvoo, Illinois, begin a long westward migration that eventually brings them to the valley of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints […]

1861

States meet to form Confederacy

In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana convene in Montgomery, Alabama to establish the Confederate States of America. As early as 1858, the ongoing conflict between the North and the South over the issue of slavery led Southern leadership to discuss a unified separation from the United States. By 1860, […]

1:34m read read

1913

Civil rights icon Rosa Parks is born

Rosa Louise McCauley—known to history by her married name, Rosa Parks—is born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913. A lifelong civil rights activist, Parks’ name has become synonymous with her refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus in 1955, a defining moment of the civil rights movement. […]

1915

Germany declares war zone around British Isles

A full two years before Germany’s aggressive naval policy would draw the United States into the war against them, Kaiser Wilhelm announces an important step in the development of that policy, proclaiming the North Sea a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, were liable to be sunk without warning. […]

1922

Ford buys Lincoln

On February 4, 1922, the Ford Motor Company acquires the failing luxury automaker Lincoln Motor Company for $8 million. The acquisition came at a time when Ford, founded in 1903, was losing market share to its competitor General Motors, which offered a range of automobiles while Ford continued to focus on its utilitarian Model T. […]

1938

Disney releases “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”

“See for yourself what the genius of Walt Disney has created in his first full length feature production,” proclaimed the original trailer for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released on February 4, 1938. Based on the famous fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, Snow White opened with the Wicked Queen asking her magic mirror […]

2:52m read read

1945

Yalta Conference foreshadows the Cold War

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin meet to discuss the Allied war effort against Germany and Japan and to try and settle some nagging diplomatic issues. While a number of important agreements were reached at the Yalta conference, tensions over European issues—particularly the fate of Poland—foreshadowed the crumbling […]

3:02m read read

1962

First U.S. helicopter is shot down in Vietnam

The first U.S. helicopter is shot down in Vietnam. It was one of 15 helicopters ferrying South Vietnamese Army troops into battle near the village of Hong My in the Mekong Delta. The first U.S. helicopter unit had arrived in South Vietnam aboard the ferry carrier USNS Core on December 11, 1961. This contingent included […]

0:34m read read

1983

Singer-songwriter Karen Carpenter dies

Karen Carpenter, a singer who long suffered under the burden of the expectations that came with pop stardom, died on February 4, 1983, succumbing to heart failure brought on by her long, unpublicized struggle with anorexia. Carpenter had a fixation with her weight from her earliest days performing with her brother, Richard, in and around […]

1:46m read read

1999

Amadou Diallo killed by police

Plainclothes officers of the New York Police Department’s Street Crime Unit fire 41 shots at unarmed Amadou Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea, killing him on the steps of his apartment building shortly after midnight on February 4, 1999. Diallo’s killing sparked a public outcry and eventually resulted in the shuttering of the SCU, but the […]

2:24m read read

2000

“The Sims” launches

On February 4, 2000, the revolutionary computer game The Sims debuts in North America. Electronic Arts does not have particularly high hopes for its new sandbox game, the brainchild of SimCity designer Will Wright, but The Sims will earn universal critical acclaim, spawning a franchise that remains immensely popular more than two decades later. SimCity, […]

2:26m read read

2004

Facebook launches

On February 4, 2004, a Harvard sophomore named Mark Zuckerberg launches The Facebook, a social media website he had built in order to connect Harvard students with one another. By the next day, over a thousand people had registered, and that was only the beginning. Now known simply as Facebook, the site quickly ballooned into […]

2:16m read read

2007

Tony Dungy becomes first Black head coach to win a Super Bowl

Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts becomes the first Black NFL head coach to win a Super Bowl. The victory marked the first time a Black head coach had reached the National Football League’s championship game—one that featured not just one, but two Black head coaches. Super Bowl XLI pitted Dungy and his Colts against […]

1:58m read read

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