4th March

[chenrezig]

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.
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.
1918 – The USS Cyclops departs from Barbados and is never seen again, presumably lost with all hands in the Bermuda Triangle.
1941 – World War II: The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands; the first large scale British Commando raid.
1945 – Lapland War: Finland declares war on Nazi Germany.
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.
1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.
1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus.
2001 – 4 March 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.
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.

Births
1678 – Antonio Vivaldi, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1741)
1921 – Joan Greenwood, English actress (d. 1987)
1923 – Patrick Moore, English astronomer and television host (d. 2012)
1928 – Alan Sillitoe, English author (d. 2010)
1944 – Bobby Womack, American singer-songwriter (The Valentinos) (d. 2014)
1951 – Kenny Dalglish, Scottish footballer and manager
1954 – Willie Thorne, English snooker player
1968 – Patsy Kensit, English actress and singer
1979 – Paul Terry, English footballer
1986 – Mike Krieger, Brazilian businessman, co-founded Instagram

Deaths
1832 – Jean-François Champollion, French philologist and scholar (b. 1790)
1981 – Torin Thatcher, Indian actor (b. 1905)
1984 – Geoffrey Lumsden, English actor (b. 1914)
2002 – Eric Flynn, Chinese-Welsh actor and singer (b. 1939)


If you would like to find out more about any of the events or people click on this link to the Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_4

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