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Explore the historical events that shaped our world on October 4th. From major milestones to cultural achievements, see what happened on this day in history. Dates for earlier events may be approximate.
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Otto IV is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Innocent III on October 4, 1209 in Rome. The event relied on Otto's promise to the Pope to keep the crowns of the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Sicily separate.
He broke his promise the following year, leading to his excommunication in November 1210 and loss of support which led to his eventual abdication 1n 1215.
The Orient Express train makes its inaugural run leaving Paris with 40 passengers for Constantinople, (as the city of Istanbul was still commonly called in the west) and ending in Giurgiu, Romania, with stops in Munich and Vienna.
At Giurgiu, passengers were ferried across the Danube to Ruse, Bulgaria, to pick up another train to Varna where they were then ferried by steamship across the Black Sea to Constantinople. With this one trip, the notion of long-distance travel was completely redefined. All original Orient Express routes finally retired in 2009 after almost 100 years of the most famous train journeys in the world. More
German Chancellor Max von Baden, sends a telegraph message to President Woodrow Wilson requesting an armistice between Germany and the Allied powers in World War I. a few days later, Wilson responded to Baden’s armistice request (and a subsequent German communiqué on October 12) with a note that quickly deflated German expectations.
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Artist and sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, begins sculpting Mount Rushmore. Work on the monument finished 14 years later on October 31, 1941: when due to WWII, federal funding was pulled from Mount Rushmore and it was declared complete, although it did not match the original models made by Gutzon Borglum. Construction involved the efforts of nearly 400 men and women. The duties involved varied greatly from the call boy to drillers to the blacksmith to the housekeepers. More
Despite the colossal proportion and difficult nature of the project, there were no worker fatalities. Borglum died 7 months before the project was declared completed. His son Lincoln Borglum supervised the completion. More
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, marking the start of the space age. The artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit Earth on its elliptical path.
That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race. The image is of a replica ,stored in the National Air and Space Museum. More
Lesotho Independence day from the UK. Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho (Basutoland), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, Lesotho is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest peak in Southern Africa. Its capital city is Maseru. Lesothos population is about 2.3 million.
An Israel El Al Airlines Boeing 747 cargo plane, flight 1862 nose-dives into two high-rise apartment complexes in the Bijlmermeer neighborhood in Amsterdam - Netherlands; minutes after takeoff. It exploded on impact causing the building to partially collapse. The explosion and fire made the identification of those on the ground difficult to make, but it was estimated that about 100 people were dead as well as the plane captain, two other pilots and a passenger. More
The Battle of Mogadishu, also known as the Black Hawk Down Incident, ends in South Mogadishu, Somalia. It was fought on 3–4 October between forces of the United States—supported by UNOSOM II—against Somali insurgents who shot down three American Black Hawk helicopters using RPG-7s.
The encounter resulted in 18 dead American soldiers and 73 wounded, with Malaysian forces suffering one death and seven wounded, and Pakistani forces two injuries. Somali casualties, a mixture of insurgents and civilians, were far higher; with estimates between 133 and 700 dead. More
The first official World Space Week was celebrated in the year 2000, following the United Nations General Assembly's declaring it an annual event in 1999. The annual celebration runs from October 4th to 10th to commemorate the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, and the Outer Space Treaty's entry into force on October 10, 1967.
Hurricane Matthew, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history, strikes the Caribbean making landfall in western Haiti on October 4, 2016, as a Category 4 and proceeds to the southeastern United States.
