Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/October 4
October 4: Simchat Torah begins at sunset (Judaism, 2007); Independence Day in Lesotho; Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (Catholicism); World Animal Day.
- 1830 – Belgian Revolution: A provisional government in Brussels declared the creation of the independent and neutral state of Belgium, in revolt against the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
- 1910 – Manuel II, the last King of Portugal, fled to Gibraltar when a revolution erupted in Lisbon and his palace was shelled. The Portuguese First Republic was proclaimed the next day.
- 1957 – Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 1 (pictured), the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, was launched by an R-7 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR.
- 1985 – Software developer Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation to support the free software movement.
- 1993 – Russian Constitutional Crisis: Tanks bombarded the White House in Moscow while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rallied outside.
More events on this day... Recent days: October 3 – October 2 – October 1
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