4 March 2023 (MIA)

51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).

306 – Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia.

852 – Croatian Knez Trpimir I issues a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.

932 – Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, Prince of the Czechs.

1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of Germany.

1238 – The Battle of the Sit River is fought in the northern part of the present-day Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia between the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal during the Mongol invasion of Rus’.

1351 – Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam.

1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) is crowned King of Poland.

1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.

1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what is now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.

1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth.

1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter.

1665 – English King Charles II declares war on the Netherlands marking the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.

1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.

1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston.

1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect. The United States Bill of Rights is written and proposed to Congress.

1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.

1791 – The Constitutional Act of 1791 is introduced by the British House of Commons in London which envisages the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario).

1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state.

1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress.

1804 – Castle Hill Rebellion: Irish convicts rebel against British colonial authority in the Colony of New South Wales.

1813 – Cyril VI of Constantinople is elected Ecumenical Patriarch.

1814 – Americans defeat British forces at the Battle of Longwoods between London, Ontario and Thamesville, near present-day Wardsville, Ontario.

1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated.

1848 – Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will later represent the first constitution of the Regno d’Italia.

1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the “Stars and Bars”) is adopted.

1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress.

1882 – Britain’s first electric trams run in east London.

1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 1,710 feet (520 m) long, is opened by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.

1899 – Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metres (39 ft) wave that reaches up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300.

1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.

1909 – U.S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism to avoid the restriction of the U.S. Constitution’s Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C. Knox as U.S. Secretary of State

1913 – First Balkan War: The Greek army engages the Turks at Bizani, resulting in victory two days later.

1913 – The United States Department of Labor is formed.

1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.

1918 – The USS Cyclops departs from Barbados and is never seen again, presumably lost with all hands in the Bermuda Triangle.

1933 – Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet.

1933 – The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure – Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates an authoritarian rule by decree.

1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands; the first large scale British Commando raid.

1942 – Bulgarian police arrested poet and Communist activist Nikola Jonkov Vapcarov. He was shot after four months in prison. Born in Bansko in 1909, Vapcarov was a leading author from the left with of the Macedonian national movement.

1943 – World War II: The Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the south-west Pacific comes to an end.

1944 – World War II: After the success of Big Week, the USAAF begins a daylight bombing campaign of Berlin.

1945 – Lapland War: Finland declares war on Nazi Germany.

1945 – The first Free Church Assembly was held in Skopje. Over 300 delegates, including priests and delegates expressed their desire to renew the Macedonian Orthodox Church, abolished in 1767 by the Turkish Sultan Mustafa III. The Assembly informed the Serbian Orthodox Church of the intention to declare an independent Macedonian Orthodox Church, which was eventually done in 1967.

1957 – The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.

1958 – Smile Vojdanov, a Macedonian teacher and military commander, died in Pontiac, MI. Vojdanov took part in the 1903 Ilinden Uprising as commander in the region of Debar and Ohrid. He was one of the first promoters of Macedonia’s independence in the United States.

1960 – The French freighter La Coubre explodes in Havana, Cuba killing 100.

1962 – A Caledonian Airways Douglas DC-7 crashes shortly after takeoff from Cameroon, killing 111 – the worst crash of a DC-7.

1965 – The Macedonian Children Drama Theater was promoted in the contemporary Drama Theater. The new theater opened with a premiere of the Bogomil Balad, based on the novel by Vlado Maleski, directed by Todorka Kondova.

1966 – A Canadian Pacific Air Lines DC-8-43 explodes on landing at Tokyo International Airport, killing 64 people.

1970 – French submarine Eurydice explodes underwater, resulting in the loss of the entire 57-man crew.

1974 – People magazine is published for the first time in the United States as People Weekly.

1976 – The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London by the British parliament.

1977 – The 1977 Vrancea earthquake in eastern and southern Europe kills more than 1,500, mostly in the seriously damaged city of Bucharest, Romania.

1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister.

1983 – Bertha Wilson is appointed the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada.

1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States.

1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley’s Comet and the first images of its nucleus.

1991 – Sheikh Saad Al-Salim Al-Sabah, the Prime Minister of Kuwait, returns to his country for the first time since Iraq’s invasion.

1996 – A derailed train in Weyauwega, Wisconsin, US, causes the emergency evacuation of 2,300 people for 16 days.

1996 – Archbishop Gavril died in Skopje. Born as Gjorgji Milosev, he was the third Archbishop of Macedonian Orthodox Church since its re-establishment. Gavril first translated the Bible in the contemporary Macedonian language, and was the first dean of the Theological Faculty in Skopje.

1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.

2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person. The attack was attributed to the Real IRA.

2001 – Hintze Ribeiro disaster: A bridge collapses in northern Portugal, killing up to 70 people.

2002 – Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah-i-Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.

2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.

2013 – A plane crash in Democratic Republic of the Congo kills 6 people.

2015 – At least 34 miners die in a suspected gas explosion at the Zasyadko coal mine in rebel-held Donetsk region of Ukraine.