What Happened This Day In History - May 4

Today in History
May 4

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.
Born on May 4
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).