June 4

1738 – George William Frederick of the United Kingdom, later King George III of England, is born in London.

1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1783 – The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their Montgolfière, a hot air balloon.

1812 – Following Louisiana’s admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory.

1825 – While on tour of the nation during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the Marquis de La Fayette gives a speech about the war at the Courthouse Square in Buffalo, New York. Later in honor of his service, the city renames the square after him.

1855 – U.S. Army Major Henry C. Wayne departs New York aboard the USS Supply sailing to North Africa to procure camels to establish the U.S. Camel Corps.

1862 – Confederate troops evacuate Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River, leaving the way clear for Union troops to take Memphis, Tennessee.

1876 – The Transcontinental Express train arrives in San Francisco, via the  Transcontinental Railroad, 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.

1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.

1919 – Congress passes the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the States for ratification.

1939 – The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida. With no other nations allowing it to land, the ship is forced to return to Europe with more than 200 of its passengers later dying in Nazi concentration camps.

1940 –  The Allied evacuation at Dunkirk having been completed, French rearguard forces surrender to the Germans.

1942 – The Battle of Midway begins with Imperial Japanese Navy forces under the command of Admiral Chūichi Nagumo launching airstrikes on the island.

1944 – A hunter killer group of the U.S. Navy captures the German submarine U-505: The first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.
The United States Fifth Army captures Rome, although much of the German Fourteenth Army is able to withdraw to the north.

1961 – At the Vienna summit, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sparks the Berlin Crisis by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and ending American, British and French access to East Berlin.

1977 – JVC introduces the VHS videotape at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. It will eventually prevail against Sony’s Betamax system.

1986 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel. Sentenced to Life imprisonment, he is released on parole in 2015.

1997 – NASA’s Mars Pathfinder probe, which is carrying the Sojourner rover, lands on the Chryse Planitia region Mars.

1998 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Federal Building

2010 – The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches on its maiden flight from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 40.