What happened today
1930
Famous birthdays
1929
Get history's greatest tales
Subscribe to our HistoryNet Now! newsletter for a blast from the past each week in your inbox.
more events on May 4
-
1970
Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.
-
1961
13 civil rights activists, dubbed Freedom Riders, begin a bus trip through the South.
-
1949
Graham Swift, British novelist (The Sweet Shop Owner, Out of this World).
-
1942
The United States begins food rationing.
-
The Battle of the Coral Sea commences.
-
1939
Amos Oz, Israeli novelist (The Black Box, TheThird State).
-
1930
Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British.
-
1929
Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston), actress, later U.N. special ambassador.
-
1928
Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet.
-
1927
A balloon soars over 40,000 feet for the first time.
-
1884
Agnes Fay Morgan, American nutritionist and biochemist.
-
1874
Frank Conrad, electrical engineer and broadcasting pioneer.
-
1864
Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s forces cross the Rapidan River and meet Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate army.
-
1863
The Battle of Chancellorsville ends when Union Army retreats.
-
1827
John Hanning Speke, English explorer.