Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries/April 4
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- 1581 - Francis Drake completes a circumnavigation of the world and is knighted by Elizabeth I.
- 1814 - Napoleon abdicates for the first time.
- 1818 - The United States Congress adopts the flag of the United States as having 13 red and white stripes and one star for each state (20 stars) with additional stars to be added whenever a new state is added to the Union.
- 1841 - President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia becoming the first President of the United States to die in office and at one month, the elected president with the shortest term served.
- 1850 - Los Angeles, California is incorporated as a city.
- 1887 - Argonia, Kansas elects Susanna Medora Salter as the first female mayor in the United States.
- 1905 - In India, an earthquake near Kangra, kills 370,000.
- 1939 - Faisal II becomes King of Iraq.
- 1945 - World War II: American troops liberate Ohrdruf death camp in Germany.
- 1949 - Twelve nations sign The North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
- 1964 - The Beatles occupy all of the top 5 positions on the Billboard singles chart in the United States.
- 1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated.
- 1968 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 6.
- 1969 - Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
- 1975 - A United States Air Force C-5A Galaxy crashes near Saigon, South Vietnam shortly after takeoff, transportnig orphans. 172 people are killed.
- 1976 - Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigns as leader of Cambodia and is placed under house arrest.
- 1979 - President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan is executed.
- 1983 - Space Shuttle Challenger makes its maiden voyage into space.
- 1984 - President Ronald Reagan calls for an international ban on chemical weapons.
- 1991 - Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others are killed when a helicopter collided with their plane over Merion, Pennsylvania.
