On this day in history

December 4

28 births · 17 deaths · 5 events

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Anniversary highlights

Event anniversary

2011–2013 Russian protests

14 years ago

Born this day

1875

Rainer Maria Rilke

Would be 150

Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

Oldest record

1991st

Persius

birth anniversary

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Famous births28

AD 34 · 1991 yrs

Persius

Aulus Persius Flaccus (4 December 34 – 24 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satire, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of his poetic contemporaries.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 27

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1795 · 230 yrs

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. Known as the "sage of Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the Victorian era.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScholarshipDied aged 85

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC BY 4.0

1835 · 190 yrs

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler (4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an English novelist and critic, best known for the satirical utopian novel Erewhon (1872) and the semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh (published posthumously in 1903 with substantial revisions and published in its original form in 1964 as Ernest Pontifex…

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 66

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1849 · 176 yrs

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó, lit. 'His-Horse-Is-Crazy'; c. 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band and one of the most renowned Native American figures of the nineteenth century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsDied aged 27

View profile Photo (modified): MOs810 · CC BY-SA 4.0

1853 · 172 yrs

Errico Malatesta

Errico Gaetano Maria Pasquale Malatesta (4 December 1853 – 22 July 1932) was an Italian anarchist, theorist and revolutionary socialist. He edited several radical newspapers and spent much of his life exiled and imprisoned, having been jailed and expelled from Italy, Britain, France, and Switzerland.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismDied aged 78

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1865 · 160 yrs

Edith Cavell

Edith Louisa Cavell ( KAV-əl; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse. She is celebrated for treating wounded soldiers from both sides without discrimination during the First World War and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismDied aged 49

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC BY 4.0

1875 · 150 yrs

Rainer Maria Rilke

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet. Acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as a significant writer in the German language.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureWould be 150

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1892 · 133 yrs

Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco Bahamonde (4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish military general and politician who was the leader of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. He led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

MilitaryWould be 133

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC0

1908 · 117 yrs

Alfred Hershey

Alfred Day Hershey (December 4, 1908 – May 22, 1997) was an American Nobel Prize–winning bacteriologist and geneticist.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 117

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1910 · 115 yrs

R. Venkataraman

Ramaswamy Venkataraman (4 December 1910 – 27 January 2009), also known as R. Venkataraman, was an Indian lawyer, independence activist and politician who served as a union minister and as the vice president of india and president of India.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 115

View profile Photo (modified): Jaisingh rathore at English Wikipedia · CC BY 2.5

1919 · 106 yrs

Inder Kumar Gujral

Inder Kumar Gujral (4 December 1919 – 30 November 2012) was an Indian diplomat, politician, and independence activist, who served as prime minister of India from April 1997 to March 1998.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PoliticsWould be 106

View profile Photo (modified): Biswarup Ganguly · CC BY-SA 3.0

1922 · 103 yrs

Gérard Philipe

Gérard Philipe (French pronunciation:; born Gérard Albert Philip; 4 December 1922 – 25 November 1959) was a prominent French actor who appeared in 32 films between 1944 and 1959 known for his outspoken communist views.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

FilmWould be 103

View profile Photo (modified): Studio Harcourt. · Public domain

Showing 12 of 28

Famous deaths17

1131 · 894 yrs

Omar Khayyám

Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) was a Persian poet and polymath, known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and Persian literature. He was born in Nishapur, Iran and lived during the Seljuk era, around the time of the First Crusade.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 83

View profile Photo (modified): The original uploader was Atilin at French Wikipedia . · CC BY-SA 3.0

1642 · 383 yrs

Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu

Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence in civil and religious affairs.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ReligionDied aged 57

View profile Photo (modified): Philippe de Champaigne · Public domain

1679 · 346 yrs

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes ( HOBZ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher and political theorist, best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PhilosophyDied aged 91

View profile Photo (modified): John Michael Wright · Public domain

1732 · 293 yrs

John Gay

John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera (1728), a ballad opera.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 47

View profile Photo (modified): Godfrey Kneller · Public domain

1798 · 227 yrs

Luigi Galvani

Luigi Galvani ( gal-VAH-nee, US also gahl-; Italian:; Latin: Aloysius Galvanus; 9 September 1737 – 4 December 1798) was an Italian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher who studied animal electricity.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Unidentified painter · Public domain

1893 · 132 yrs

John Tyndall

John Tyndall (2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was an Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 73

View profile Photo (modified): Tucker Collection · Public domain

1923 · 102 yrs

Maurice Barrès

Auguste-Maurice Barrès (French:; 19 August 1862 – 4 December 1923) was an anti-Semitic French novelist, journalist, philosopher, and politician. Spending some time in Italy, he became a figure in French literature with the release of his work The Cult of the Self in 1888.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 61

View profile Photo (modified): Auguste Léon · Public domain

1932 · 93 yrs

Gustav Meyrink

Gustav Meyrink (19 January 1868 – 4 December 1932) was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, novelist, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel The Golem. He has been described as the "most respected German language writer in the field of supernatural fiction".

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

LiteratureDied aged 64

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1945 · 80 yrs

Thomas Hunt Morgan

Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945) was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and embryologist. In 1933, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries on the role of chromosomes in heredity.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceDied aged 79

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · Public domain

1952 · 73 yrs

Karen Horney

Karen Horney (German:; née Danielsen; 16 September 1885 – 4 December 1952) was a German psychoanalyst who practiced in the United States during her later career. Her theories questioned some traditional Freudian views, specifically in theories of sexuality and of the instinct orientation of psychoanalysis.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ScienceWould be 141

View profile Photo (modified): Unknown author · CC BY-SA 3.0

1969 · 56 yrs

Fred Hampton

Fredrick Allen Hampton Sr. (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an African American revolutionary and political activist who served as deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party, a Marxist–Leninist and black power organization from 1966 until his assassination in 1969.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

ActivismWould be 78

View profile Photo (modified): UPI · CC0

1975 · 50 yrs

Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

PhilosophyWould be 120

View profile Photo (modified): Barbara Niggl Radloff · CC BY-SA 4.0

Showing 12 of 17

Events5

1259 · 766 yrs

Treaty of Paris

The Treaty of Paris, also known as the Treaty of Abbeville, was signed on 4 December 1259 by King Louis IX of France and King Henry III of England. It marked a turning point in European politics, leading to new political dynamics, cultural exchanges, and social changes.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

2011 · 14 yrs

2011–2013 Russian protests

The 2011–2013 Russian protests, which some English language media referred to as the Snow Revolution (Russian: Снежная революция, romanised: Snezhnaya revolyutsiya), began in 2011 (as protests against the 2011 Russian legislative election results) and continued into 2012 and 2013.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

2016 · 9 yrs

Italian constitutional referendum, 2016

A constitutional referendum was held in Italy on 4 December 2016.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Politics

2021 · 4 yrs

Solar eclipse of December 4, 2021

A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon’s descending node of orbit on Saturday, December 4, 2021, with a magnitude of 1.0367.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Science

2024 · 1 yrs

Killing of Brian Thompson

On December 4, 2024, Brian Robert Thompson, the CEO of the American health insurance company UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed by 26-year-old Luigi Mangione outside the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan, New York City, where Thompson was heading to attend an investors' meeting.

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Tragedy

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