This is a list of selected January 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.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Video clip of the execution of Topsy
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Mars Rover, Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Artist's concept of Rover on Mars -
Palace of Whitehall -
Nancy Pelosi
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| 1854 – Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang discovered the McDonald Islands, uninhabited, barren islands located in the Southern Ocean about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica. | unreferenced section |
| 1936 – Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade. | Tagged with {{refimprove}} |
| 1944 – World War II: The U.S. Army Air Forces began Operation Carpetbagger, a military operation involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters across Europe. | {{no footnotes}} |
| 1989 – Two American F-14A Tomcats shot down two Libyan MiG-23 Flogger Es that appeared to be attempting to engage them over the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean Sea. | refimprove |
| 1998 – A massive ice storm struck eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, eventually killing over 30 people, injuring over 340 others, and causing extensive damage to the area's electrical infrastructure. | refimprove section |
Eligible
- 1698 – Most of London's Palace of Whitehall, the main residence of the English monarchs dating from 1530, was destroyed by fire.
- 1847 – American gun inventor Samuel Colt made his first large sale of his revolvers to the Texas Rangers.
- 1884 – The Fabian Society, an intellectual movement whose purpose is to advance the socialist cause by gradualist and reformist methods rather than revolutionary means, was founded in London.
- 1912 – The Boy Scout Association was incorporated throughout the then British Empire by royal charter.
- 1948 – Burma achieved independence from the British Empire, with U Nu of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League as its first Prime Minister.
- 1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean troops captured Seoul.
- 1970 – A magnitude 7.5 Msd earthquake struck Tonghai County, China, killing at least 15,000 people and spurring the creation of the nation's largest earthquake monitoring system.
- 2004 – Spirit, the first of two rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission, landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC.
- 2007 – Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. Government.
- 2010 – The Burj Khalifa skyscraper, the world's tallest structure, officially opened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
January 4: Independence Day in Burma (1948)
- 1885 – Sino-French War: French troops under General François Oscar de Négrier defeated a numerically superior Qing Chinese force at Nui Bop in northern Vietnam.
- 1903 – Topsy, a domesticated elephant with the Forepaugh Circus at Luna Park, Coney Island, was executed by electrocution after she was deemed a threat to people, an event captured on film by inventor Thomas Edison.
- 1973 – Last of the Summer Wine, the longest running sitcom in the world, premiered as an episode of the BBC's Comedy Playhouse.
- 1976 – The Troubles: Volunteers from the Ulster Volunteer Force shot dead five Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland.
- 2006 – Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon (pictured) suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke, leaving Ehud Olmert as Acting Prime Minister.