Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

Charles VI, nicknamed the Beloved and in the 19th century, the Mad, was King of France from 1380 until his death in 1422. He is known for his mental illness and psychotic episodes that plagued him throughout his life, including glass delusion.

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.

In architecture, a steeple is a tall tower on a building, topped by a spire and often incorporating a belfry and other components. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a religious structure. They might be stand-alone structures, or incorporated into the entrance or center of the building. In Christianity, steeples serve as a clear marker of a Christian church and are "are an elaborate architectural metaphor—a symbol pointing to heaven", directing the minds of the faithful upward to God.

The steeple of St Paul's, the medieval cathedral of London, is destroyed in a fire caused by lightning and is never rebuilt.

The siege of Osaka was a series of battles undertaken by the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate against the Toyotomi clan, and ending in that clan's destruction. Divided into two stages, the winter campaign and the summer campaign, it lasted from 1614 to 1615. The siege put an end to the last major armed opposition to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The end of the conflict is sometimes called the Genna Armistice , because the era name was changed from Keichō to Genna immediately following the siege.

Siege of Osaka: Forces under Tokugawa Ieyasu take Osaka Castle in Japan.

The Battle of Hohenfriedberg or Hohenfriedeberg, also known as the Battle of Striegau was one of Frederick the Great's most admired victories. Frederick's Prussian army decisively defeated an Austro-Saxon army under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine on June 4, 1745, during the Second Silesian War – part of the War of the Austrian Succession.

Battle of Hohenfriedberg: Frederick the Great's Prussian army decisively defeated an Austrian army under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine during the War of the Austrian Succession.

The Expulsion of the Acadians was the eviction of French colonialists of the North American region historically known as Acadia between 1755 and 1764 by Great Britain. It included the modern Canadian Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, along with part of the US state of Maine. The Expulsion occurred during the French and Indian War, the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War.

Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada, taken from the Acadians.

The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune Annonay in Ardèche, France. They invented the Montgolfière-style hot air balloon, globe aérostatique, which launched the first confirmed piloted ascent by humans in 1783, carrying Jacques-Étienne.

The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon).

Élisabeth Thible, or Elizabeth Tible, was the first woman to make a flight in an untethered hot air balloon. She was born in Lyon, France, on 8 March 1757. On 4 June 1784, eight months after the first crewed balloon flight, Thible flew with a Monsieur Fleurant on board a hot air balloon christened La Gustave in honour of King Gustav III of Sweden's visit to Lyon.

Élisabeth Thible becomes the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon. Her flight covers four kilometres in 45 minutes, and reached 1,500 metres altitude (estimated).

Captain (Capt.) is a senior officer rank of the Royal Navy. It ranks above commander and below commodore and has a NATO ranking code of OF-5. The rank is equivalent to a colonel in the British Army and Royal Marines, and to a group captain in the Royal Air Force. There are similarly named equivalent ranks in the navies of many other countries.

Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Charles Emmanuel IV was King of Sardinia and ruler of the Savoyard states from 16 October 1796 until 1802, when he abdicated in favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel I.

King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia abdicates his throne in favor of his brother, Victor Emmanuel.

Louisiana is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is bordered by Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25th in population, with roughly 4.6 million residents. Reflecting its French heritage, Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties. Baton Rouge is the state's capital, and New Orleans, a French Louisiana region, is its most populous city with a population of about 363,000 people. Louisiana has a coastline with the Gulf of Mexico to the south; a large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River; and the mouth of the Mississippi or delta defines much of its lower topography.

Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, known in the United States as Lafayette, was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Continental Army, led by General George Washington, in the American Revolutionary War. Lafayette commanded Continental Army troops in the decisive siege of Yorktown in 1781, the Revolutionary War's final major battle, which secured American independence. After returning to France, Lafayette became a key figure in the French Revolution of 1789 and the July Revolution of 1830 and continues to be celebrated as a hero in both France and the United States.

General Lafayette, a French officer in the American Revolutionary War, speaks at what would become Lafayette Square, Buffalo, during his visit to the United States.

Henry Constantine Wayne was a United States Army officer, and is known for his commanding the expedition to test the U.S. Camel Corps as part of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis's plan to use camels as a transport in the West. Wayne was also a Confederate adjutant and inspector-general for Georgia and a brigadier general during the American Civil War.

Major Henry C. Wayne departs New York aboard the USS Supply to procure camels to establish the U.S. Camel Corps.

The Second Italian War of Independence was fought by the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia against the Austrian Empire in 1859 and played a crucial part in the process of Italian Unification.

Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta, the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

American Civil War: Confederate troops evacuate Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union troops to take Memphis, Tennessee.

A train is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives, though some are self-propelled, such as multiple units or railcars. Passengers and cargo are carried in railroad cars, also known as wagons or carriages. Trains are designed to a certain gauge, or distance between rails. Most trains operate on steel tracks with steel wheels, the low friction of which makes them more efficient than other forms of transport. Many countries use rail transport.

An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.

The Cyprus Convention of 4 June 1878 was a secret agreement reached between the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire which granted administrative control of Cyprus to Britain, in exchange for its support of the Ottomans during the Congress of Berlin. Provisions in the Convention retained Ottoman rights over the territory of Cyprus.

Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom but retains nominal title.

Henry Ford was an American industrialist and business magnate. As the founder of the Ford Motor Company, he is credited as a pioneer in making automobiles affordable for middle-class Americans through the system that came to be known as Fordism. In 1911, he was awarded a patent for the transmission mechanism that would be used in the Ford Model T and other automobiles.

Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.

Massachusetts, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode Island to its south, New Hampshire and Vermont to its north, and New York to its west. Massachusetts is the seventh-smallest state by land area. With an estimated population of over 7.1 million, it is the most populous state in New England, the 16th-most-populous in the United States, and the third-most densely populated U.S. state after New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.

Emily Wilding Davison was an English suffragette who fought for votes for women in Britain in the early twentieth century. A member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) and a militant fighter for her cause, she was arrested on nine occasions, went on hunger strike seven times and was force-fed on forty-nine occasions. She died after being hit by King George V's horse Anmer at the 1913 Derby when she walked onto the track during the race.

Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of King George V's horse at The Derby. She is trampled, never regains consciousness, and dies four days later.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Major areas of conflict included Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific. The war saw important developments in weaponry including tanks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, it resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million military and civilian casualties and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic.

World War I: Russia opens the Brusilov Offensive with an artillery barrage of Austro-Hungarian lines in Galicia.

The Pulitzer Prizes are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher.

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.

Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior, whereas in others, they are ignored and suppressed. They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls, in favor of men and boys.

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.

The Treaty of Trianon, often referred to in Hungary as the Peace Dictate of Trianon or Dictate of Trianon, was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference. It was signed on the one side by Hungary and, on the other, by the Allied and Associated Powers, in the Grand Trianon at Versailles on 4 June 1920. It formally terminated the state of war issued from World War I between most of the Allies of World War I and the Kingdom of Hungary. The treaty is famous primarily due to the territorial changes imposed on Hungary and recognition of its new international borders after the First World War.

Hungary loses 71% of its territory and 63% of its population when the Treaty of Trianon is signed in Paris.

The president of the Republic of China, also known as the president of Taiwan, is the head of state of the Republic of China (Taiwan), as well as the commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Armed Forces. Before 1949 the position had the authority of ruling over mainland China, but losing control of it after communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, the remaining jurisdictions of the ROC have been limited to Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and smaller islands.

The President of the Republic of China, Zhang Zuolin, is assassinated by Japanese agents.

Marmaduke Grove Vallejo, was a Chilean Air Force officer, political figure and member of the Government Junta of the Socialist Republic of Chile in 1932.

Marmaduke Grove and other Chilean military officers lead a coup d'état establishing the short-lived Socialist Republic of Chile.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

The Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the 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.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides, including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends: British forces complete evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers, only to the House of Commons, his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.

The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese Combined Fleet under the command of Isoroku Yamamoto suffered a decisive defeat by two carrier strike groups of the U.S. Pacific Fleet near Midway Atoll, about 1,300 mi northwest of Oahu. Yamamoto had intended to capture Midway and lure out and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet, especially the aircraft carriers which had escaped damage at Pearl Harbor.

World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. The Japanese Admiral Chūichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The 1943 Argentine Revolution was a coup d'état on 4 June 1943 that ended the government of Ramón Castillo, who had been fraudulently elected to the office of vice-president before succeeding to the presidency in 1942 as part of the period known as the Infamous Decade. The coup d'état was launched by the lodge "United Officers' Group" (GOU), a secret military organization of nationalist nature. Although its soldiers shared different views of nationalism: there were Catholic nationalists, Radicals, military with a more pragmatic approach, and even fascists. The military was opposed to Governor Robustiano Patrón Costas, Castillo's hand-picked successor, a major landowner in Salta Province and a primary stockholder in the sugar industry. The only serious resistance to the military coup came from the Argentine Navy, which confronted the advancing army columns at the Navy Petty-Officers School of Mechanics.

A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo.

U-505 is a German Type IXC submarine built for Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. She was captured by the United States Navy on 4 June 1944 and survives as a museum ship in Chicago.

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.

The Allies, or Allied powers, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during World War II (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers. Its principal members were the "Big Four" — the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, and China.

World War II: Rome falls to the Allies, the first Axis capital to fall.

The Vienna Summit was a summit meeting held on June 4, 1961, in Vienna, Austria, between President of the United States John F. Kennedy and the leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. The leaders of the two superpowers of the Cold War era discussed many issues in the relationship between their countries.

In the Vienna summit, the 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.

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. England shares a land border with Scotland to the north and another land border with Wales to the west, and is surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to the south-west, and the Irish Sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. In the 2021 census, the population was 56,490,048. London is both the largest city and the capital.

England: 72 people are killed when a Canadair C-4 Argonaut crashes at Stockport.

Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about 750 km2 (290 sq mi), scattered over 700,000 km2 (270,000 sq mi) in the southern Pacific Ocean. As of 2021, according to Johnson's Tribune, Tonga has a population of 104,494, 70% of whom reside on the main island, Tongatapu. The country stretches approximately 800 km north-south. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the west, Niue to the east and Kermadec to the southwest. Tonga is about 1,800 km from New Zealand's North Island.

Tonga gains independence from the United Kingdom.

The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard.

The 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.

Flight lieutenant is a junior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank originated in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) in 1914. It fell into abeyance when the RNAS merged with the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War but was revived in 1919 in the post-war RAF. The rank is used by air forces of many countries that have historical British influence.

Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which General Fred Akuffo is overthrown.

Three Iranian diplomats as well as a reporter for Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) were abducted in Lebanon on 4 July 1982. None of them have been seen since. The missing individuals are Ahmad Motevaselian, military attaché for Iran's embassy in Beirut; Seyed Mohsen Mousavi, chargé d'affaires at the embassy; Taghi Rastegar Moghadam, an embassy employee; and Kazem Akhavan, IRNA photojournalist. Motevaselian was also an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) member in command of an Iranian expeditionary force in Lebanon.

Four Iranian diplomats were kidnapped in Lebanon after they were stopped at a check point in northern Lebanon by Lebanese Phalange forces. None of them has been seen since.

Gordon Wendell Kahl was an American World War II veteran, farmer and tax protester who was known for being a one-time member of the Posse Comitatus movement and for his involvement in two fatal shootouts with law enforcement officers in the United States in 1983.

Gordon Kahl, who killed two US Marshals in Medina, North Dakota on February 13, is killed in a shootout in Smithville, Arkansas, along with a local sheriff, after a four-month manhunt.

Jonathan Jay Pollard is an American-born Israeli spy and former intelligence analyst who was jailed for spying for Israel.

Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.

RDX (Research Department Explosive or Royal Demolition Explosive), or hexogen, also known by other names, is an organic compound with the formula (CH2N2O2)3. It is white, odorless, tasteless, and widely used as an explosive. Chemically, it is classified as a nitroamine alongside HMX, which is a more energetic explosive than trinitrotoluene (TNT). It was used widely in World War II and remains common in military applications. It is lower performing and more toxic than modern replacements like TKX-50.

Three cars on a train carrying hexogen to Kazakhstan explode in Arzamas, Gorky Oblast, USSR, killing 91 and injuring about 1,500.

Ali Hosseini Khamenei was an Iranian politician and Shia cleric who served as the second supreme leader of Iran from 1989 until his assassination in the 2026 Iran war. A member of the Khamenei family, he previously served as the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. He held the title Grand Ayatollah, and his tenure as supreme leader, spanning 36 years and six months, made him the longest-serving head of state in West Asia at the time of his death.

Ali Khamenei is elected as the new Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Assembly of Experts after the death and funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Protests led by students and workers, known in China as the June Fourth Incident, were held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts between the demonstrators and the Chinese government to find a peaceful resolution, the Chinese government initiated martial law in late May and deployed troops to occupy the square on the night of 3 June in what is referred to as the Tiananmen Square massacre. The events are sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement, the Tiananmen Square Incident, or the Tiananmen uprising. The Chinese government terms the events as the political turmoil between the spring and summer of 1989.

The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.

Solidarity, full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity", is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state.

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.

The Ufa train disaster was a railway accident that occurred in the Iglinsky District of the Bashkir ASSR, Soviet Union on 4 June 1989, killing 575 people and injuring 800 more. It is the second-deadliest rail disaster in Soviet/Russian history after the 1944 Vereshchyovka train disaster, and the deadliest to occur during peacetime.

Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia, kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline.

Ariane 5 is a retired European heavy-lift space launch vehicle operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was launched from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana. It was used to deliver payloads into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), low Earth orbit (LEO) or further into space. The launch vehicle had a streak of 82 consecutive successful launches between 9 April 2003 and 12 December 2017. In development since 2014, Ariane 6, a direct successor system was first launched in 2024.

The first flight of Ariane 5 explodes after roughly 37 seconds. It was a Cluster mission.

Terry Lynn Nichols is an American domestic terrorist who was convicted for conspiring with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing plot.

Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

The Dragon Spacecraft Qualification Unit was a boilerplate version of the Dragon spacecraft manufactured by SpaceX. After using it for ground tests to rate Dragon's shape and mass in various tests, SpaceX launched it into low Earth orbit on the maiden flight of the Falcon 9 rocket, on June 4, 2010. SpaceX used the launch to evaluate the aerodynamic conditions on the spacecraft and performance of the carrier rocket in a real-world launch scenario, ahead of Dragon flights for NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The spacecraft orbited the Earth over 300 times before decaying from orbit and reentering the atmosphere on 27 June.

Falcon 9 Flight 1 is the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40.

On June 3, 2015, an explosion and a fire occurred at a petrol station in Ghana's capital city Accra, killing over 250 people.

An explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana, killing more than 200 people.