04 May History
- 1471 - In England, the Yorkists defeat the Landcastians at the battle of Tewkesbury.
- 1626 - Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons.
- 1715 - A French manufacturer debuts the first folding umbrella.
- 1776 - Rhode Island declares independence from England.
- 1795 - Thousands of rioters enter jails in Lyons, France, and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners.
- 1814 - Napoleon Bonaparte disembarks at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.
- 1863 - The Battle of Chancellorsville ends when Union Army retreats.
- 1864 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant's forces cross the Rapidan River and meet Robert E. Lee's Confederate army.
- 1927 - A balloon soars over 40,000 feet for the first time.
- 1930 - Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British.
- 1942 - The Battle of the Coral Sea commences.
- 1942 - The United States begins food rationing.
- 1961 - 13 civil rights activists, dubbed Freedom Riders, begin a bus trip through the South.
- 1970 - Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.
04 May Birthdays
- 1796 - Horace Mann, educator and author.
- 1820 - Joseph Whitaker, bookseller and publisher (Whitaker's Almanac)
- 1825 - Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist.
- 1827 - John Hanning Speke, English explorer.
- 1874 - Frank Conrad, electrical engineer and broadcasting pioneer.
- 1884 - Agnes Fay Morgan, American nutritionist and biochemist.
- 1928 - Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet.
- 1929 - Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten), actress, later U.N. special ambassador.
- 1939 - Amos Oz, Israeli novelist (The Black Box, TheThird State).
- 1949 - Graham Swift, British novelist (The Sweet Shop Owner, Out of this World).