August 4 in History

Historical Events on August 4

1789 France: members of the National Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.

1854 The Hinomaru is established as the official flag to be flown from Japanese ships.

1915 World War I: The German 12th Army occupies Warsaw during the Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive and the Great Retreat of 1915.

1944 The Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse, where they find and arrest Jewish diarist Anne Frank, her family, and four others.

1964 Civil Rights Movement: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.

1969 Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, American representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuân Thuỷ begin secret peace negotiations. The negotiations will eventually fail.

1977 U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.

1995 Operation Storm begins in Croatia.

2007 NASA's Phoenix spacecraft is launched.

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Famous Birthdays on August 4

1955 Alberto Gonzales

1961 Barack Obama

1971 Jeff Gordon

1978 Kurt Busch

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Famous Deaths on August 4

1875 Hans Christian Andersen

1886 Samuel J. Tilden

1922 Enver Pasha

1940 Ze'ev Jabotinsky

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