March 4 is the 63rd day of the year (64th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 302 days remain until the end of the year.
AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).
306 – Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia.
581 – Yang Jian declares himself Emperor Wen of Sui, ending the Northern Zhou and beginning the Sui dynasty.
852 – Croatian Knez Trpimir I issues a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.
938 – Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, Prince of the Czechs.
1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of Germany.
1238 – The Battle of the Sit River begins two centuries of Mongol horde domination of Rus.
1351 – Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam.
1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) is crowned King of Poland.
1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.
1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.
1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth.
1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter.
1665 – English King Charles II declares war on the Netherlands marking the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.
1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.
1686 – After being unofficially established as a settlement in 1678, the Dominican mission of Ilagan is founded in the Philippines.
1769 – Mozart departed Italy after the last of his three tours there.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston.
1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect.
1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.
1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state.
1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress.
1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America, becoming the first President to begin his presidency on March
4.
1804 – Castle Hill Rebellion: Irish convicts rebel against British colonial authority in the Colony of New South Wales.
1813 – Cyril VI of Constantinople is elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
1814 – War of 1812: Americans defeat British forces at the Battle of Longwoods between London, Ontario and Thamesville, near present-day Wardsville, Ontario.
1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated.
1848 – Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will later represent the first constitution of the Regno d'Italia.
1849 – Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States of America and Millard Fillmore, 12th Vice President, did not take their respective oaths of office (they did so the following day), leading to the erroneous theory that outgoing president pro tempore of the United States Senate David Rice Atchison had assumed the role of acting president for one day.
1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the 'Stars and Bars') is adopted.
1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress.
1865 – U.S. politician Andrew Johnson made his drunk vice-presidential inaugural address in Washington, D.C.
1878 – Pope Leo XIII reestablishes the Catholic Church in Scotland, recreating sees and naming bishops for the first time since 1603.[6]
1882 – Britain's first electric trams run in east London.
1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 8,094 feet
(2,467 m) long, is opened by the Duke of Rothesay, later King Edward VII.
1899 – Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metres (39 ft) wave that reaches up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300.
1901 – William McKinley inaugurated president for second time; Theodore Roosevelt is vice president.
1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.
1909 – U.S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism to avoid the restriction of the U.S. Constitution's Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C. Knox as U.S. Secretary of State.
1913 – First Balkan War: The Greek army engages the Turks at Bizani, resulting in victory two days later.
1913 – The United States Department of Labor is formed.
1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.
1918 – A case of influenza was recorded at Camp Funston, Kansas, conventionally marking the beginning of the worldwide Spanish flu pandemic.
1933 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated as the
32nd President of the United States.