June
4
Independence
Day
Tonga : June 4 1970
June
4 : International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression
On 19 August 1982, at its emergency special session on the question
of Palestine, the General Assembly, “appalled at the great number
of innocent Palestinian and Lebanese children victims of Israel’s
acts of aggression”, decided to commemorate 4 June of each year
as the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression
(resolution ES-7/8).
The purpose
of the day is to acknowledge the pain suffered by children throughout
the world who are the victims of physical, mental and emotional
abuse. This day affirms the UN's commitment to protect the rights
of children.
Events
1039 – Henry
III becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
1411 – King Charles VI granted a monopoly for the ripening of
Roquefort cheese to the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon as they
had been doing for centuries.
1615 – Siege of Osaka: Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu
take Osaka Castle in Japan.
1760 – Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim
land in Nova Scotia, Canada taken from the Acadians.
1783 – The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière
(hot air balloon).
1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom
of Great Britain.
1794 – British troops capture Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
1802 – Grieving over the death of his wife, Marie Clotilde of
France, King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia abdicates his throne
in favor of his brother, Victor Emmanuel.
1812 – Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the
Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.
1825 – French American Revolutionary War General Lafayette speaks
at what would become Lafayette Square, Buffalo, during his visit
to the United States.
1859 – Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta,
the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army.
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate troops evacuate Fort
Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union
troops to take Memphis, Tennessee.
1876 – An express train called the Transcontinental Express
arrives in San Francisco, California, via the First Transcontinental
Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York
City.
1878 – Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to
the United Kingdom but retains nominal title.
1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first
gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test
run.
1912 – Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States
to set a minimum wage.
1913 – Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of King
George V's horse, Anmer, at the Epsom Derby. She is trampled,
never regains consciousness and dies a few days later.
1916 – World War I: Russia opens the Brusilov Offensive with
an artillery barrage of Austro-Hungarian lines in Galicia.
1917 – The first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards,
Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer
for biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives
the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of
Past and Present Days. Herbert B. Swope receives the first Pulitzer
for journalism for his work for the New York World.
1919 – Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment
to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage
to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.
1920 – Hungary loses 71% of its territory and 63% of its population
when the Treaty of Trianon is signed in Paris.
1928 – President of the Republic of China Zhang Zuolin is assassinated
by Japanese agents.
1939 – Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish
refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, United States,
after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return
to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi
concentration camps.
1940 – World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends – British forces
complete evacuation of 300,000 troops from Dunkirk in France.
To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers
his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
1942 – World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. Japanese Admiral
Chuichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the
Imperial Japanese navy.
1943 – A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.
1944 – World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States
Navy captures the German submarine U-505 – the first time a
U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the
19th century.
1944 – World War II: Rome falls to the Allies, the first Axis
capital to fall.
1957 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous Power
of Nonviolence speech at the University of California, Berkeley.
1961 – In the Vienna summit, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev
sparks the Berlin Crisis by threatening to sign a separate peace
treaty with East Germany and ending American, British and French
access to East Berlin.
1965 – Duane Earl Pope robbed the Farmers' State Bank of Big
Springs, Nebraska, killing three people execution style and
severely wounding a fourth. The crime landed Pope on the FBI
Ten Most Wanted list.
1967 – Stockport Air Disaster: British Midland flight G-ALHG
crashes in Hopes Carr, Stockport, killing 72 passengers and
crew.
1970 – Tonga gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1974 – During Ten Cent Beer Night, inebriated Cleveland Indians
fans start a riot, causing the game to be forfeited to the Texas
Rangers.
1975 – Governor of California Jerry Brown signs the California
Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law, the first law in
the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights.
1979 – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana
after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.
1986 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling
top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.
1988 – Three cars on a train carrying hexogen to Kazakhstan
explode in Arzamas, Gorky Oblast, USSR, killing 91 and injuring
about 1,500.
1989 – Ali Khamenei is elected the new Supreme Leader of Islamic
republic of Iran by the Assembly of Experts after the death
of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in
Beijing by the People's Liberation Army.
1989 – Solidarity's victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary
elections in post-war Poland sparks off a succession of peaceful
anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, leads to the creation
of the so-called Contract Sejm and begins the Autumn of Nations.
1989 – Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa,
Russia, kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks
near a leaky pipeline.
1996 – The first flight of Ariane 5 explodes after roughly 20
seconds. It was a Cluster mission.
1998 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his
role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
2001 – Gyanendra, the last King of Nepal, ascends to the throne
after the massacre in the Royal Palace.
2004 – Marvin Heemeyer's (eventually suicidal) protest rampage
with an improvised bulletproofed bulldozer destroys 13 Granby,
Colorado buildings including the town hall.
2010 – Falcon 9 Flight 1 was the maiden flight of the SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket, which launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station Space Launch Complex 40.
Holidays
and observances
Bhagat Puran
Singh's Birthday. (Sikhism)
Birthday of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (Finland)
Christian Feast Day:
Francis Caracciolo
Optatus
Petroc of Cornwall
Quirinus of Sescia
Saturnina
June 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Emancipation Day or Independence Day, commemorates the abolition
of serfdom in Tonga by King George Tupou in 1862, and the independence
of Tonga from the British protectorate in 1970. (Tonga)
Flag Day (Estonia)
International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression
(International)
National Unity Day (Hungary)
For details, contact Datacentre
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