History of the Day for:
September 4
- 476: The Roman Empire collapsed as the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was removed.
- 1682: English astronomer Edmund Halley saw the comet that would be named after him.
- 1781: Spanish settlers founded Los Angeles.
- 1807: Robert Fulton began operating his steamboat.
- 1833: Ten-year-old Barney Flaherty became the first newsboy when he was hired to sell the New York Sun.
- 1862: Gen. Lee invaded the North with 50,000 Confederate troops.
- 1882: The Pearl Street electric power station, Thomas Edison's steam powered electric plant, began operating in New York City.
- 1886: In the last Indian war, Chief Geronimo and his Apache Indians surrendered to Gen. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Ariz.
- 1888: George Eastman patented his hand?held camera that used rolled film.
- 1893: English author Beatrix Potter told the story of Peter Rabbit for the first time.
- 1894: In New York City, 12,000 tailors went on strike protesting sweat shops.
- 1944: Finland broke diplomatic relations with Nazi-Germany.
- 1945: In World War II, the U.S. took back Wake Island from Japan.
- 1951: President Harry Truman addressed the opening of the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco in the first coast?to?coast television broadcast.
- 1957: Ford Motor Co. began selling the Edsel; the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, called out the National Guard to stop nine black students from entering a Little Rock high school.
- 1963: Swissair Flight 306 crashes near Dürrenäsch, Switzerland, killing all 80 people on board.
- 1964: Scotland's Forth Road Bridge near Edinburgh officially opens.
- 1967: Vietnam War: Operation Swift begins: U.S. Marines engage the North Vietnamese in battle in the Que Son Valley.
- 1971: A Boeing 727 carrying Alaska Airlines Flight 1866 crashes near Juneau, Alaska, killing all 111 people on board.
- 1975: The Sinai Interim Agreement relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict is signed.
- 1984: Brian Mulroney leads the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party to power in the 1984 federal election, ending 20 years of nearly uninterrupted Liberal rule.
- 1995: The Fourth World Conference on Women opens in Beijing with over 4,750 delegates from 181 countries in attendance.
- 1996: War on Drugs: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attack a military base in Guaviare, starting three weeks of guerrilla warfare in which at least 130 Colombians are killed.
- 1998: Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.