Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 4

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This is a list of selected December 4 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.

Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.

To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.

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Images

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A transit of Venus
Jeremiah Horrocks observing the transit of Venus
Burger King Whopper
Dianne Feinstein
Mary Celeste, 1861

Ineligible

Blurb	Reason
John of Damascus \|d\|749\|	article says this date is only "traditional", hence not reliably sourced as being otd
771 – Austrasian King Carloman I died, leaving his brother Charlemagne king of the now complete Frankish Kingdom.	unreferenced section
1676 – Scanian War: Forces led by Swedish Field Marshal Simon Grundel-Helmfelt defeated the invading army of Denmark–Norway under the command of King Christian V in an area north of Lund, Sweden.	needs more footnotes
1791 – Britain's The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, was first published.	refimprove
1937 – The first issue of The Dandy, the world's longest-running children's comic book, was published.	refimprove
1949 – Duncan Stewart, the British governor of Sarawak, was fatally stabbed in Sibu during his first visit to the colony.	uncertainty over date, see [1]
1954 – The global hamburger fast food chain Burger King, known for its signature item the Whopper, was founded in Miami, Florida, U.S.	Date not in article, good faith research on internet can't turn up source for it.
1956 – Singers Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley, collectively called the "Million Dollar Quartet", recorded an impromptu jam session in the Sun Record Studios in Memphis, Tennessee.	refimprove
1977 – Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the President of the Central African Republic, had himself crowned as Emperor Bokassa I.	refimprove section
1979 – Bruce George Peter Lee set fire to a family home in Hull, England; after his arrest he revealed that he had started nine other fatal fires in the area.	refimprove
1991 – Journalist Terry Anderson, the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon, was released after seven years in captivity.	lots of CN tags in one section
1991 – Pan American World Airways, which was the principal international airline of the United States and which was credited with many innovations, ended operations.	{{prose}}

Eligible

1639 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks made the first successful prediction and observation of a transit of Venus from Earth.
1872 – The American brigantine Mary Celeste was found apparently abandoned under circumstances that remain unknown.
1893 – First Matabele War: A patrol of 34 British South Africa Company soldiers was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors.
1909 – The first Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League, was held in Toronto.
1928 – Cosmo Gordon Lang was enthroned as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the first bachelor to be appointed in 150 years.
1969 – Fred Hampton, the leader of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, and Mark Clark were killed in a raid by Chicago police officers in what many scholars consider an illegal assassination.
1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Navy launched a successful attack against the Pakistan Navy at Karachi, sinking three ships with no Indian casualties.
1978 – Following the murder of Mayor George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco's first female mayor.
1980 – The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
1986 – The MV Amazon Venture oil tanker starts leaking while at the port of Savannah, resulting in an oil spill of approximately 500,000 US gallons (1,900,000 L).
1992 – U.S. president George H. W. Bush ordered American troops into Somalia to help provide humanitarian aid and restore order during the ongoing Somali Civil War.
2006 – Six black teenagers assaulted a white student in Jena, Louisiana; the subsequent court cases became a cause célèbre for perceived racial injustice in the United States.
2012 – "Il Canto degli Italiani" officially became the national anthem of Italy, 66 years after it was provisionally chosen following the birth of the Italian Republic.
Born/died: | John Cotton |b|1585| Maerten de Vos |d|1603| John Leamy |d|1839| Jesse Burkett |b|1868| Agnes Forbes Blackadder |b|1875| Inder Kumar Gujral |b|1919| Hannah Arendt |d|1975| Benjamin Britten |d|1976| Pearl Corkhill |d|1985| Frank Zappa |d|1993

Notes

National Hockey League appears on November 26, so Montreal Canadiens should not appear in the same year
Moscone–Milk assassinations appears on November 27, so Dianne Feinstein should appear in the same year
Droppin Well bombing (1975) and Balcombe Street siege (1982) both appear on December 6, so McGurk's Bar bombing should not appear in the same year

December 4: Navy Day in India

Ram Mohan Roy

1370 – Hundred Years' War: In two separate engagements in the Battle of Pontvallain, French forces wiped out an English army which had split up because of a dispute between the commanders.
1829 – Sati, the Hindu funeral custom of a widow's self-immolation on her husband's pyre, was prohibited by Lord William Bentinck in parts of British India after years of campaigning by Ram Mohan Roy (pictured).
1909 – The Montreal Canadiens, the oldest professional ice hockey club in the world, were founded as a charter member of the National Hockey Association.
1928 – Cosmo Gordon Lang was enthroned as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the first bachelor to be appointed in 150 years.
1971 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force, an Ulster-loyalist paramilitary group, detonated a bomb at a Catholic-owned pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing 15 people.

Pope John XXII (d. 1334)
Gregor MacGregor (d. 1845)
Roberta Bondar (b. 1945)

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