President Lincoln is buried in Springfield, Illinois

On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island, the colony founded by the most radical religious dissenters from the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, becomes the first North American colony to renounce its allegiance to King George III. Ironically, Rhode Island would be the last state to ratify the new American Constitution more than 14 years later […]

A ceremony on May 4, 1905 marks the official beginning of the U.S. acquisition of the Panama Canal. After the French had failed in completing the canal, this second effort will succeed in bridging the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, dramatically altering world trade as well as the physical and geopolitical landscape of Central America. For […]

On May 4, 1924, more than two decades after Paris hosted its first Olympic Games in 1900, the French capital launches its sophomore Olympics, becoming the first city to host the Games twice. The 1924 Paris Olympics, the seventh occurrence of the modern Olympic Games, signals the acceptance of the elite international sporting competition as […]

Twenty-five-year-old Norman Mailer’s first novel, The Naked and the Dead, is published on May 4, 1948. The book is critically acclaimed and widely considered one of the best novels to come out of World War II. Mailer was born in New Jersey in 1923 and raised in Brooklyn. He attended Harvard and joined the Army […]

“First Lady of Song” Ella Fitzgerald becomes the first Black woman to win a Grammy at the Recording Academy’s inaugural awards show on May 4, 1959. During the event at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, Fitzgerald took home two of 28 awards for best jazz and female vocal performances. “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving […]

On May 4, 1966, San Francisco Giants outfielder Willie Mays hits his 512th career home run to break Mel Ott’s National League record for home runs. Mays would finish his career with 660 home runs, good for third on the all-time list at the time of his retirement. Willie Howard Mays was born May 6, […]

Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Party, becomes Britain’s first female prime minister on May 4, 1979. The Oxford-educated chemist and lawyer took office the day after the Conservatives won a 44-seat majority in general parliamentary elections. Margaret Hilda Roberts was born in Grantham, England, in 1925. She was the first woman president of the […]

On May 4, 1994, in a groan-inducing moment on the floor of U.K. Parliament, a lawmaker uses a pun that will spawn its own holiday far, far away from the halls of government. “May the 4th is an appropriate date for a defense debate. My researcher, who is a bit of a wit, said that […]

On May 4, 2002, an EAS Airline plane crashes into the town of Kano, Nigeria, killing 149 people. The Nigerian BAC 1-11-500 aircraft exploded in a densely populated section of the northern Nigerian city. The Executive Airline Services twin-engine plane took off from Kano at about 1:30 p.m. with 77 people on board headed for […]