History of the Day for:
March 4
- 1461: In the English Wars of the Roses, Edward of York took the English throne as Edward IV.
- 1678: Composer Antonio Vivaldi ("The Four Seasons") was born.
- 1681: King Charles II granted William Penn by charter almost all of what is now Pennsylvania.
- 1789: The first U.S. Congress convened in New York City until Sept. 29; 28 senators and 65 representatives sat for the 13 states.
- 1791: Vermont became the 14th state in the Union.
- 1801: Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as the third president of the United States; he was the first to be inaugurated in the new capital of Washington.
- 1877: Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" was first performed, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow; Emile Berliner invented the microphone.
- 1902: The American Automobile Association (AAA) was founded in Chicago.
- 1930: Sportscaster Red Barber, made his debut on radio.
- 1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in as 32nd U.S. president and the first to be elected for a third and fourth term. He vowed to lead the U.S. out of the Great Depression.
1941: World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands.
- 1944: World War II: After the success of Big Week, the USAAF begins a daylight bombing campaign of Berlin.
- 1945: In the United Kingdom, Princess Elizabeth, later to become Queen Elizabeth II, joins the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service as a driver.
- 1945: Lapland War: Finland declares war on Nazi Germany.
- 1954: Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, announces the first successful kidney transplant.
- 1957: The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.
- 1962: The United States Atomic Energy Commission announces that the first atomic power plant at McMurdo Station in Antarctica is in operation.
- 1966: John Lennon said that "We're (The Beatles) more popular than Jesus now."
- 1984: The Television Academy Hall of Fame was established.
- 1985: The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States.
- 1986: The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Comet Halley and the first images ever of its nucleus.
- 1991: Sheikh Saad Al-Abdallah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, the Prime Minister of Kuwait, returns to his country for the first time since Iraq's invasion.
- 1994: Space shuttle STS-62 (Columbia 16) launches into orbit.
- 1994: Bosnia's Bosniaks and Croats sign an agreement to form a federation in a loose economic union with Croatia.
- 1997: U.S. President Bill Clinton bans federally funded human cloning research.
- 1998: Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.
- 2001: 4 March 2001 BBC bombing: a massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring 11 people. The attack was attributed to the Real IRA.
- 2001: Hintze Ribeiro disaster, a bridge collapses in northern Portugal, killing up to 70 people.
- 2002: Canada bans human embryo cloning but permits government-funded scientists to use embryos left over from fertility treatment or abortions.
- 2002: Multinational Force in Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers are killed as they attempt to infiltrate the Shahi Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.
- 2005: The car of released Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena is fired on by US soldiers after it ran a roadblock in Iraq, causing the death of an Italian Secret Service Agent and injuring two passengers.
- 2005: The United Nations warns that about 90 million Africans could be infected by the HIV virus in the future without further action against the spread of the disease.
- 2006: Final contact attempt with Pioneer 10 by the Deep Space Network. No response is received.
- 2007: Estonian parliamentary election, 2007: Approximately 30,000 voters take advantage of electronic voting in Estonia, the world's first nationwide voting where part of the votecasting is allowed in the form of remote electronic voting via the Internet.
- 2009: The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.