Historical Events on Sunday, 4th May

04/05/2023

Nine people are killed and thirteen injured in a spree shooting in Mladenovac and Smederevo, Serbia. It is the second mass shooting in the country in two days.

On the evening of 4 May 2023, a shooting spree occurred in the villages of Dubona and Malo Orašje, between Mladenovac and Smederevo, Serbia. Armed with an automatic assault rifle, the shooter opened fire from a car, resulting in the deaths of nine individuals, including an off-duty police officer, and leaving thirteen others injured. The perpetrator, 20-year-old Uroš Blažić, fled the scene but was apprehended the next day near Kragujevac.

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04/05/2019

The inaugural all-female motorsport series, W Series, takes place at Hockenheimring. The race was won by Jamie Chadwick, who would go on to become the inaugural season's champion.

W Series was an all-female single-seater racing championship. It was held over a total of three seasons in 2019, 2021 and 2022 before the championship fell into administration and later liquidated, with a planned season in 2020 cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All three editions were won by Jamie Chadwick.

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04/05/2014

Three people are killed and 62 injured in a pair of bombings on buses in Nairobi, Kenya.

From late 2011 to 2014, Kenya experienced an upsurge in violent terrorist attacks. Kenyan government officials asserted that many of the murders and blasts were carried out by al-Shabaab in retaliation for Operation Linda Nchi, a coordinated military mission between the Somalian military and Kenyan military that began in October 2011, when troops from Kenya crossed the border into the conflict zones of southern Somalia. According to Kenyan security experts, the bulk of the attacks were increasingly carried out by radicalized Kenyan youth who were hired for the purpose. Kenya security officials also indicated that they were part of death squads, which carried out many of the killings under the orders of a government security council. By mid-2014, the cumulative attacks began affecting Kenya's tourism industry, as Western nations issued travel warnings to their citizens.

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04/05/2007

Greensburg, Kansas is almost completely destroyed by the 2007 Greensburg tornado, a 1.7-mile wide EF5 tornado. It was the first-ever tornado to be rated as such with the new Enhanced Fujita scale.

Greensburg is a city in and the county seat of Kiowa County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population of the city was 740. It is home to the world's largest hand-dug well.

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04/05/2002

One hundred three people are killed and 51 are injured in a plane crash near Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano, Nigeria.

EAS Airlines Flight 4226 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Kano to Lagos, Nigeria. On 4 May 2002, the aircraft serving the route, a BAC One-Eleven 525FT with 69 passengers and 8 crew members on board, crashed into Gwammaja Quarters, a densely populated residential area located approximately three kilometres from the airport, and burst into flames, resulting in the deaths of 66 passengers and 7 crew. In addition, at least 30 civilians on the ground were killed. With a total of 103 fatalities, Flight 4226 is the deadliest aviation accident involving a BAC One-Eleven.

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04/05/2000

Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London (an office separate from that of the Lord Mayor of London).

Kenneth Robert Livingstone is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as the first mayor of London from the creation of the office in 2000 until 2008. He also served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent East from 1987 to 2001. He is a former member of the Labour Party, ideologically identifying as a socialist.

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04/05/1998

A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gives "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.

Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California. The county seat of Sacramento County, it is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in the Sacramento Valley. It is the fourth-most populous city in Northern California, sixth-most populous city in the state, and 35th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 524,943 at the 2020 census. The Sacramento metropolitan area, with 2.46 million residents, is the 27th-largest metropolitan area in the country.

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04/05/1994

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord, granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

A prime minister, also known as a chief of cabinet, chief minister, first minister, minister-president or premier, is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but rather the head of government, serving as the chief of the executive under either a monarch or a president in a republican form of government.

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04/05/1990

Latvia declares independence from the Soviet Union.

Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of 64,573 km2 (24,932 sq mi), with a population of 1.83 million. The country has a temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Riga. Latvians, who are the titular nation and comprise 65.5% of the country's population, belong to the ethnolinguistic group of the Balts and speak Latvian. Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population; 37.7% of the population speak Russian as their native tongue.

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04/05/1989

Iran–Contra affair: Former White House aide Oliver North is convicted of three crimes and acquitted of nine other charges; the convictions are later overturned on appeal.

The Iran–Contra affair, also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Contragate, Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Reagan administration. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendments, a series of laws passed by Congress and signed by Ronald Reagan, further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress, but the Reagan administration continued funding them secretly using non-appropriated funds.

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Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on mission STS-30 to deploy the Venus-bound Magellan space probe.

Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Atlantis was manufactured by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985. Atlantis is the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J made from October 3 to 7, 1985.

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04/05/1988

The PEPCON disaster rocks Henderson, Nevada, as tons of Space Shuttle fuel detonate during a fire.

On May 4, 1988, a fire followed by several explosions occurred at the Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada (PEPCON) chemical plant in Henderson, Nevada, United States. The disaster caused two fatalities, 372 injuries, and an estimated $100 million of damage. A large portion of the Las Vegas Valley within a 10-mile (16 km) radius of the plant was affected and several agencies activated disaster plans.

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04/05/1982

Twenty sailors are killed when the British Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield is hit by an Argentinian Exocet missile during the Falklands War.

The Type 42 or Sheffield class was developed to provide the Royal Navy with a cost-effective, medium-sized guided-missile destroyer focused on fleet air defence. Conceived in the late 1960s after the cancellation of the more complex and expensive Type 82, the Type 42 was intended to protect naval task groups against airborne threats using the Sea Dart missile system.

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04/05/1979

Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the office. As prime minister, she implemented policies that came to be known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady," a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

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04/05/1978

The South African Defence Force attacks a SWAPO base at Cassinga in southern Angola, killing about 600 people.

The South African Defence Force (SADF) comprised the armed forces of South Africa from 1957 until 1994. Shortly before the state reconstituted itself as a republic in 1961, the former Union Defence Force was officially succeeded by the SADF, which was established by the Defence Act of 1957. The SADF, in turn, was superseded by the South African National Defence Force in 1994.

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04/05/1973

The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet (442 m) as the world's tallest building.

The Willis Tower, formerly and still commonly referred to as the Sears Tower, is a 110-story, 1,451-foot (442.3 m) skyscraper in the Loop of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), it opened in 1973 as the world's tallest building, a title that it held for nearly 25 years. It is the third-tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the 26th-tallest in the world. Each year, more than 1.7 million people visit the Skydeck, the highest observation deck in the United States, making it one of Chicago's most popular tourist destinations. Due to its height and location, the tower is visible from a great distance. The building has appeared in numerous films and television shows set in Chicago.

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04/05/1972

The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to "Greenpeace Foundation".

The Don't Make a Wave Committee was the name of the anti-nuclear organization which later evolved into Greenpeace, a global environmental organization. The Don't Make a Wave Committee was founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to protest and attempt to halt further underground nuclear testing by the United States in the National Wildlife Refuge at Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The Don't Make a Wave Committee was first formed in October 1969 and officially established in early 1970.

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04/05/1970

Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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04/05/1961

American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South.

The civil rights movement was a social movement in the United States from 1954 to 1968 which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which most commonly affected African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, and modern roots in the 1940s and in Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent movement in India. After years of nonviolent protests and civil disobedience campaigns, the civil rights movement achieved many of its legislative goals in the 1960s, during which it secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

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Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather attain a new altitude record for manned balloon flight ascending in the Strato-Lab V open gondola to 113,740 feet (34.67 km).

Malcolm David Ross was a captain in the United States Naval Reserve (USNR), an atmospheric scientist, and a balloonist who set several records for altitude and scientific inquiry, with more than 100 hours flight time in gas balloons by 1961. Along with Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather (USN), he set the altitude record for a manned balloon flight.

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04/05/1959

The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.

The 1st Annual Grammy Awards, which began as The Gramophone Awards, were held on May 4, 1959. They recognized musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1958. Two separate ceremonies were held simultaneously on the same day: one in the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, and the other in the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City. Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Domenico Modugno, Ross Bagdasarian, and Henry Mancini, each won 2 awards.

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04/05/1953

Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle and outspoken, blunt public image. Some of his seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works have become classics of American literature, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.

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04/05/1949

The entire Torino football team (except for two players who did not take the trip: Sauro Tomà, due to an injury and Renato Gandolfi, because of coach request) is killed in a plane crash.

Torino Football Club, colloquially referred to as Toro, is an Italian professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont that currently plays in the Serie A, the highest football league of Italy. Founded in 1906 as Foot-Ball Club Torino, they are historically among the most successful clubs in the nation with seven league titles, many of which coming from the Grande Torino era in the 1940s. Their most recent Serie A title was won in 1976. Torino have won the Coppa Italia five times, and have won one international, now-defunct tournament—the Mitropa Cup—in 1991.

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04/05/1946

In San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines from the nearby Treasure Island Naval Base stop a two-day riot at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Five people are killed in the riot.

San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.

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04/05/1945

World War II: Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg is liberated by the British Army.

Neuengamme was a network of Nazi concentration camps in northern Germany that consisted of the main camp, Neuengamme, and more than 85 satellite camps. Established in 1938 near the village of Neuengamme in the Bergedorf district of Hamburg, the Neuengamme camp became the largest concentration camp in Northwest Germany. Over 100,000 prisoners came through Neuengamme and its subcamps, 24 of which were for women. The verified death toll is 42,900: 14,000 in the main camp, 12,800 in the subcamps, and 16,100 in the death marches and bombings during the final weeks of World War II. Following Germany's defeat in 1945, the British Army used the site as an internment camp for SS and other Nazi officials. In 1948, the British transferred the land to the Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, which summarily demolished the camp's wooden barracks and built in its stead a prison cell block, converting the former concentration camp site into two state prisons operated by the Hamburg authorities from 1950 to 2004. Following protests by various groups of survivors and allies, the site now serves as a memorial. It is situated 15 km southeast of the centre of Hamburg.

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World War II: The German surrender at Lüneburg Heath is signed, coming into effect the following day. It encompasses all Wehrmacht units in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany.

On 4 May 1945, at 18:30 British Double Summer Time, at Lüneburg Heath, south of Hamburg, British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender of the German forces in the Netherlands, northwest Germany including all islands, in Denmark and all naval ships in those areas. The surrender preceded the end of World War II in Europe and was signed in a carpeted tent at Montgomery's headquarters on the Timeloberg hill at Wendisch Evern.

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04/05/1942

World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the United States aircraft carrier USS Yorktown on Japanese naval forces at Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese forces had invaded Tulagi the day before.

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.

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04/05/1932

Having been incarcerated at the Cook County Jail since his sentencing on October 24, 1931, mobster Al Capone is transferred to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta after the U.S. Supreme Court denies his appeal for conviction of tax evasion.

The Cook County Jail, located on 96 acres in South Lawndale, Chicago, Illinois, is operated by the Sheriff of Cook County. It is sometimes referred to as 26th and Cal or Hotel California, as its address is on California Avenue. A city jail has existed on this site since after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, but major County prisoners were not generally collocated here until closure of the old Hubbard Street Criminal Court Building and jail in 1929. Since then, a 1920s neoclassical and art deco courthouse for the criminal division of the Cook County Circuit Court has operated at the South Lawndale complex.

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04/05/1927

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion pictures. The Academy's corporate management and general policies are overseen by a board of governors, which includes representatives from each of the craft branches.

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04/05/1926

The United Kingdom general strike begins.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a population of over 69 million in 2024. The UK includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and most of the smaller islands within the British Isles, covering 94,354 square miles (244,376 km2). It shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea, while maintaining sovereignty over the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. The capital and largest city of England and the UK is London; Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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04/05/1919

May Fourth Movement: Student demonstrations take place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan.

The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese cultural and anti-imperialist political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen to protest the Chinese government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles decision to allow the Empire of Japan to retain territories in Shandong that had been surrendered by the German Empire after the Siege of Tsingtao in 1914. The demonstrations sparked nationwide protests and spurred an upsurge in Chinese nationalism, a shift towards political mobilization, away from cultural activities, and a move towards a populist base, away from traditional intellectual and political elites.

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04/05/1912

Italy occupies the Ottoman island of Rhodes.

Rhodes is the largest of Greece's Dodecanese islands and their historical capital; it is the ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, Rhodes constitutes a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean administrative region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is the city of Rhodes, home to 50,636 inhabitants according to the 2011 census. By 2022, the island’s population had grown to 125,113 people. Located northeast of Crete and southeast of Athens, Rhodes is often referred to by several nicknames: the "Island of the Sun" after its patron sun god Helios; "The Pearl Island"; and "The Island of the Knights", a reference to the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522.

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04/05/1910

The Royal Canadian Navy is created.

The Royal Canadian Navy is the naval force of Canada. The navy is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of February 2024, the RCN operates 12 Halifax-class frigates, 4 Kingston-class coastal defence vessels, 4 Victoria-class submarines, 5 Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessels, 8 Orca-class patrol vessels, and several auxiliary vessels. Officially, the RCN consisted of 7,700 Regular Force and 4,100 Primary Reserve sailors, supported by 3,800 civilians.

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04/05/1904

The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.

The Panama Canal is an artificial 82-kilometer (51-mile) waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a conduit for maritime trade between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Locks at each end lift ships up to Gatun Lake, an artificial fresh water lake 26 meters (85 ft) above sea level, created by damming the Chagres River and Lake Alajuela to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal. Locks then lower the ships at the other end. The original locks are 33.5 meters (110 ft) wide and allow the passage of Panamax ships. A third, wider lane of locks was constructed between September 2007 and May 2016. The expanded waterway began commercial operation on 26 June 2016. The new locks allow for the transit of larger, Neopanamax ships. An average of 200,000,000 litres of fresh water is used in a single passing of a ship. The canal is threatened by low water levels during droughts.

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04/05/1886

Haymarket affair: In Chicago, United States, a homemade bomb is thrown at police officers trying to break up a labor rally, killing one officer. Ensuing gunfire leads to the deaths of a further seven officers and four civilians.

The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886 at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The rally began peacefully in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day; it was held the day after a May 3 rally at a McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant on the West Side of Chicago, during which two demonstrators had been killed and many demonstrators and police had been injured. At the Haymarket Square rally on May 4, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to disperse the meeting, and the bomb blast and ensuing retaliatory gunfire by the police caused the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; dozens of others were wounded.

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04/05/1871

The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (NAPBBP), often known simply as the National Association (NA), was the first fully-professional sports league in baseball. The NA was founded in 1871 and continued through the 1875 season. It incorporated several professional clubs from the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) of 1857–1870, sometimes called "the amateur Association". In turn, several NA clubs created the succeeding National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which joined with the American League of Professional Baseball Clubs in the National Agreement of 1903, a "peace pact" that recognized each other as legitimate "major leagues". Following nearly a century of cooperation, the two leagues eventually merged into one organization in 2000 as Major League Baseball (MLB).

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04/05/1869

The four-day Naval Battle of Hakodate begins. The newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy defeats the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate navy in the Sea of Japan off the city of Hakodate, leading to the surrender of the Ezo Republic on May 17.

The Naval Battle of Hakodate was fought from 4 to 10 May 1869, between the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate navy, consolidated into the armed forces of the rebel Ezo Republic, and the newly formed Imperial Japanese Navy. It was one of the last stages of Battle of Hakodate during the Boshin War, and occurred near Hakodate in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

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04/05/1859

The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking Devon and Cornwall in England.

The Cornwall Railway was a 7 ft 1⁄4 in broad gauge railway from Plymouth in Devon to Falmouth in Cornwall, England, built in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was constantly beset with shortage of capital for the construction, and was eventually forced to sell its line to the dominant Great Western Railway.

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04/05/1836

Formation of Ancient Order of Hibernians.

The Ancient Order of Hibernians is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be male, Catholic, and either born in Ireland or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is in the United States, where it was founded in New York City in 1836.

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04/05/1814

Emperor Napoleon arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile.

Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and North Africa during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe.

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King Ferdinand VII abolishes the Spanish Constitution of 1812, returning Spain to absolutism.

The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy, also known as the Constitution of Cádiz and nicknamed La Pepa, was the first Constitution of Spain and one of the earliest codified constitutions in world history. The Constitution was ratified on 19 March 1812 by the Cortes of Cádiz, the first Spanish legislature that included delegates from the entire nation and its possessions, including Spanish America and the Philippines. "It defined Spanish and Spanish American liberalism for the early 19th century."

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04/05/1799

Fourth Anglo-Mysore War: The Battle of Seringapatam: The siege of Seringapatam ends when the city is invaded and Tipu Sultan killed by the besieging British army, under the command of General George Harris.

The Fourth Anglo-Mysore War was a conflict in South India between the Mysore State against the East India Company, Maratha Empire and the Hyderabad State in 1798–99.

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04/05/1776

Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.

The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was an English colony on the eastern coast of North America, founded in 1636 on former land of the Narragansett tribe by Puritan minister Roger Williams, at a settlement he originally called Providence Plantations, after his exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Joined by three other settlements soon founded on Narragansett Bay, the colony became a haven for religious dissenters and was known for its commitment to religious freedom and self-governance.

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04/05/1738

The Imperial Theatrical School, the first ballet school in Russia, is founded.

The Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet is a school of classical ballet in St Petersburg, Russia. Established in 1738 during the reign of Empress Anna, the academy was known as the Imperial Ballet School until the Soviet era, when, after a brief hiatus, the school was re-established as the Leningrad State Choreographic Institute. In 1957, the school was renamed in honor of the pedagogue Agrippina Vaganova, who cultivated the method of classical ballet training that has been taught there since the late 1920s. Many of the world's leading ballet schools have adopted elements of the Vaganova method into their own training.

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04/05/1626

Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherland (present day Manhattan Island) aboard the See Meeuw.

Peter Minuit was a Walloon merchant and politician who was the 3rd director of the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1631, and 3rd Governor of New Netherland. He founded the Swedish colony of New Sweden on the Delaware Peninsula in 1638.

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04/05/1493

In the papal bull Inter caetera, Pope Alexander VI divides the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Line of Demarcation.

A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by the pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden seal (bulla) traditionally appended to authenticate it.

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04/05/1471

Wars of the Roses: The Battle of Tewkesbury: Edward IV defeats a Lancastrian Army and kills Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales.

The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, and also the Cousins' War, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought for control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fought between supporters of the House of Lancaster and House of York, two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The conflict resulted in the end of Lancaster's male line in 1471, leaving the Tudor family to inherit, through the female line, the Lancaster claim to the throne. Conflict was largely brought to an end upon the union of the two houses through marriage, creating the Tudor dynasty that would subsequently rule England.

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04/05/1436

Assassination of the Swedish rebel (later national hero) Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson (27 April O.S.).

Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson was a Swedish nobleman, rebel leader and military leader of German ancestry. He was the leader of the Engelbrekt rebellion in 1434 against Eric of Pomerania, king of the Kalmar Union.

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04/05/1415

Religious reformer John Wycliffe is condemned as a heretic at the Council of Constance.

John Wycliffe was an English scholastic philosopher, Christian reformer, Catholic priest, and a theology professor at the University of Oxford. Wycliffe is traditionally believed to have advocated for or made a vernacular translation of the Vulgate Bible into Middle English, though more recent scholarship has minimised the extent of his advocacy or involvement for lack of direct contemporary evidence.

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04/05/1256

The Augustinian monastic order is constituted at the Lecceto Monastery when Pope Alexander IV issues a papal bull Licet ecclesiae catholicae.

Augustinians are members of several religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written about 400 A.D. by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13th centuries:Various congregations of Canons Regular follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, embracing the evangelical counsels and leading a semi-monastic life, while remaining committed to pastoral care appropriate to their primary vocation as priests. They generally form one large community which might serve parishes in the vicinity, and are organized into autonomous congregations. Several orders of friars who live a mixed religious life of contemplation and apostolic ministry. The largest and most familiar is the Order of Saint Augustine (O.S.A.), founded in 1244 and originally known as the Hermits of Saint Augustine (O.E.S.A.). They are commonly known as the Austin Friars in England. Two other orders, the Order of Augustinian Recollects (O.A.R.) and the Discalced Augustinians (O.A.D.), were once part of the original Order under a single Prior General. The Recollects, begun in 1588 as a reform movement in Spain to recover the Order's eremitical roots, became autonomous in 1612. At the 100th General Chapter of the Order held in Rome in May 1592, those seeking reform of their way of life came to be called the Discalced (barefoot) and were authorized to seek their goals as an semi-independent branch. They were raised to the status of a separate mendicant Order in 1610.

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