1226 Saint Francis of Assisi's feast day is observed on October 4th. Francis died on the evening of October 3, 1226 at the Church of St Mary of the Angels in Portinuncula Assisi. He was pronounced a saint by Pope Gregory IX 20 months later. It has become customary for Catholic and Anglican churches to hold ceremonies blessing animals on his feast day.
World Animal Day is celebrated annually on October 4, the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals. It is a global event dedicated to raising awareness about animal rights and welfare.
1535 The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale, was published on October 4, 1535. It was the first complete translation of the Bible and the Apocrypha to be printed in English. When Henry VIII, at Archbishop Cranmer’s request, authorized that it could be bought and read by all his subjects there was a tremendous widespread excitement. So much the English King was forced to draw back and issue new regulations restricting the reading of the Bible to wealthy merchants and aristocrats.
1582 The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on October 4, 1582. In attempting to eliminate the difference between the date of the birth of Christ as it was then estimated and the errors that have been made and repeated ever since, the Pontiff removed all the days between the 4th and 15th of October of the current year. Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain quickly adopted the new system, but many people were upset as they feel the papacy has taken away 11 days of their lives.
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| Studio of El Greco - Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, |
World Animal Day is celebrated annually on October 4, the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals. It is a global event dedicated to raising awareness about animal rights and welfare.
1535 The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale, was published on October 4, 1535. It was the first complete translation of the Bible and the Apocrypha to be printed in English. When Henry VIII, at Archbishop Cranmer’s request, authorized that it could be bought and read by all his subjects there was a tremendous widespread excitement. So much the English King was forced to draw back and issue new regulations restricting the reading of the Bible to wealthy merchants and aristocrats.
1582 The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on October 4, 1582. In attempting to eliminate the difference between the date of the birth of Christ as it was then estimated and the errors that have been made and repeated ever since, the Pontiff removed all the days between the 4th and 15th of October of the current year. Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain quickly adopted the new system, but many people were upset as they feel the papacy has taken away 11 days of their lives.
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| One of the first printed editions of the new calendar. |
1582 Saint Teresa of Ávila died on the night of October 4, 1582 on her way back from the opening of the sixteenth Carmelite Reformed convent. She passed away in ecstasy at the Convent of Alba, her head supported by Mother Anne of St Bartholomew, her eyes fixed on a crucifix. In 1622, forty years after her death, Teresa of Avila was canonized by Pope Gregory XV.
1669 The Dutch artist Rembrandt had a huge reputation as a young man, between 1632 and 1642 he was reasonably prosperous, but his portraits became too original and truthful for the public and he fell out of favor. He died October 4, 1669, in Amsterdam in poverty and was buried in an unknown grave in the Westerkerk. After twenty years, Rembrandt's remains were taken away and destroyed, as was customary with the remains of poor people at the time.
1777 George Washington ordered a brief ceasefire during the Revolutionary War's Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777. The truce was arranged to return a lost terrier to its owner, Sir William Howe, a British general. The dog was found wandering the battlefield and was fed and cleaned before being returned to Howe.
1802 The poet William Wordsworth married his childhood friend Mary Hutchinson at All Saints' Church in the village of Brompton-by-Sawdon on October 4, 1802. The following year Mary gave birth to the first of five children. Two of them, Thomas and Catherine, died (aged 11 and 12) within months of each other in 1812.
1822 The 19th President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, was born in Delaware, Ohio on October 4, 1822, the son of Rutherford Hayes, Jr. and Sophia Birchard. Hayes's father, a storekeeper, died ten weeks before Rutherford's birth. Sophia took charge of the family, bringing up Hayes and his sister, Fanny, the only two of their four children to survive to adulthood. She never remarried.
1876 Texas A&M University opened as the U.S. state's first public institution of higher education on October 4, 1876 with six faculty members and forty students. As of 2021 enrollment, Texas A&M's student body is the largest in the United States (72,982 in the fall 2021).
1890 Billy Sunday's professional baseball career began with the Chicago White Stockings in 1883. After becoming a Christian in 1886, Sunday became a YMCA teacher-evangelist. At YMCAs across the nation, Sunday drew enormous crowds who clamored to hear the famous baseball player recall his faith journey. Soon, Sunday sensed God’s call to full-time ministry. He played his final Major League Baseball game for Philadelphia Phillies on October 4, 1890.
1895 The first US Open Men's Golf Championship was played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island on October 4, 1895. It was a one-day event played immediately after the three-day U.S. Amateur, which received much more attention at the time. The Championship was won by English professional golfer Horace Thomas Rawlins whose prize was $150 plus a $50 gold medal and the Open Championship Cup.
1911 The "Cup of Solid Gold" was adopted by the Qing dynasty on October 4, 1911, as the first official national anthem of China. Six days after the anthem was adopted, the Wuchang Uprising took place and quickly led to the fall of the Qing. The "Cup of Solid Gold" was never performed publicly.
1890 Billy Sunday's professional baseball career began with the Chicago White Stockings in 1883. After becoming a Christian in 1886, Sunday became a YMCA teacher-evangelist. At YMCAs across the nation, Sunday drew enormous crowds who clamored to hear the famous baseball player recall his faith journey. Soon, Sunday sensed God’s call to full-time ministry. He played his final Major League Baseball game for Philadelphia Phillies on October 4, 1890.
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| Billy Sunday, Center Fielder, Chicago White Stockings, c. 1887 |
1895 The first US Open Men's Golf Championship was played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island on October 4, 1895. It was a one-day event played immediately after the three-day U.S. Amateur, which received much more attention at the time. The Championship was won by English professional golfer Horace Thomas Rawlins whose prize was $150 plus a $50 gold medal and the Open Championship Cup.
1911 The "Cup of Solid Gold" was adopted by the Qing dynasty on October 4, 1911, as the first official national anthem of China. Six days after the anthem was adopted, the Wuchang Uprising took place and quickly led to the fall of the Qing. The "Cup of Solid Gold" was never performed publicly.
1911 When London Underground’s first escalator was installed at Earl's Court tube station on October 4, 1911 a one-legged man -William ‘Bumper’ Harris - was employed to ride the escalators and demonstrate to a skeptical public the safety of the new machines. Ironically he had lost his leg in an earlier underground accident.
1927 Gutzon Borglum and his team began work on the face of Mount Rushmore on October 4, 1927.
South Dakota historian Doane Robinson is credited with conceiving the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region of South Dakota in order to promote tourism in the region. The carving of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore was completed after 14 years of construction by 400 stone masons.
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| Construction of the Mount Rushmore monument |
1951 Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman from Baltimore, who died on October 4, 1951 from a rare form of cancer. Her tumors and cells continued to live and grow after she passed away and the subsequent research resulted in the remarkably durable HeLa cell line, named for her first and last initials.
1957 On October 4, 1957, the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. Sputnik 1 was about the size of a beach ball and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth. Sputnik's launch is marked every year by International Space Week from October 4-10, a “celebration of science and technology, and their contribution to the betterment of the human condition”.
1965 Pope Paul VI arrived in New York City on October 4, 1965 to commence the first visit by a reigning pope to the Western Hemisphere. Paul VI was known as the "flying pope" because he was the first pontiff to travel widely--70,000 miles--and to go by airplane.
1984 The flag of Saint Helena was adopted on October 4, 1984. The shield from the coat of arms of Saint Helena is centered on the outer half of the flag. The shield features a rocky coastline and three-masted sailing ship, with a Saint Helena plover, also known as a wirebird, atop.
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| St Helena flag |
1989 The American Thoroughbred racehorse Secretariat died on October 4, 1989. In 1973, Secretariat became the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years. He was such a dominant race horse partly because his heart weighed roughly two and a half times that of an average horse's. Secretariat's ample girth, long back and well made neck contributed to his heart-lung efficiency.
2013 The heaviest ever watermelon weighed 350.5 pounds (159 kg) and was grown by Chris Kent of Sevierville, Tennessee, USA, in 2013. It was a Carolina Cross watermelon, which is the largest of all watermelon varieties by natural genetics. Kent's watermelon was weighed at the Operation Pumpkin festival in Hamilton, Ohio, on October 4, 2013. It was so heavy that it had to be lifted onto a scale with a forklift!
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