4 January Events

January 4 is the fourth day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 361 days remaining until the end of the year (362 in leap years). This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday (58 in 400 years each) than on Saturday or Sunday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Thursday (56).

Events

46 BC – Julius Caesar fights Titus Labienus in the Battle of Ruspina.
871 – Battle of Reading: Æthelred of Wessex fights, and is defeated by, a Danish invasion army.
1490 – Anne of Brittany announces that all those who would ally with the King of France will be considered guilty of the crime of lèse-majesté.
1642 – King Charles I of England attempts to arrest Five Members of Parliament, commencing England's slide into civil war.
1649 – English Civil War: The Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial.
1717 – The Netherlands, Great Britain, and France sign the Triple Alliance in an attempt to maintain the Treaty of Utrecht , Britain having signed a preliminary alliance with France on November 28 (November 17, 1716).
1762 – Great Britain enters the Seven Years' War against Spain and Naples.
1798 – Constantine Hangerli arrives in Bucharest, Wallachia, as its new Prince, invested by the Ottoman Empire.
1847 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.
1853 – After having been kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South, Solomon Northup regains his freedom; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave later becomes a national bestseller.
1854 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.
1863 – The New Apostolic Church, a Christian and chiliastic church, is established in Hamburg, Germany.
1865 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters near Wall Street in New York City.
1878 – Russo-Turkish War (1877–78): Sofia is liberated from Ottoman rule and becomes capital of Liberated Bulgaria in 1879.
1884 – The Fabian Society is founded in London, England, United Kingdom.
1896 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state.
1903 – Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island. The Edison film company shoots the film Electrocuting an Elephant of Topsy's death.
1912 – The Scout Association is incorporated throughout the British Empire by royal charter.
1918 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Russia, Sweden, Germany and France.
1944 – World War II: Operation Carpetbagger, involving the dropping of arms and supplies to resistance fighters in Europe, begins.
1948 – Burma gains its independence from the United Kingdom becoming an independent republic, named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President and U Nu its first Prime Minister.
1951 – Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul.
1955 – The Greek National Radical Union is formed by Konstantinos Karamanlis.
1958 – Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from orbit.
1959 – Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.
1959 – Gypsy opened and closed on Broadway after 120 performances and four previews
1966 – A military coup takes place in Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso), dissolving the National Parliament and leading to a new national constitution.
1972 – Rose Heilbron becomes the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London, England.
1974 – United States President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
1976 – The Troubles: The Ulster Volunteer Force shoots dead six Irish Catholic civilians in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The next day, gunmen shoot dead ten Protestant civilians nearby in retaliation.
1987 – The Maryland train collision: An Amtrak train en route to Boston from Washington, D.C., collides with Conrail engines in Chase, Maryland, killing 16 people.
1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra incident: A pair of Libyan MiG-23 "Floggers" are shot down by a pair of US Navy F-14 Tomcats during an air-to-air confrontation.
1990 – In Pakistan's deadliest train accident an overloaded passenger train collides with an empty freight train, resulting in 307 deaths and 700 injuries.
1998 – Wilaya of Relizane massacres in Algeria: Over 170 are killed in three remote villages.
1998 – A massive ice storm hits eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, continuing through January 10 and causing widespread destruction.
1999 – Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura is sworn in as governor of Minnesota.
2004 – Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.
2004 – Mikheil Saakashvili is elected President of Georgia following the November 2003 Rose Revolution.
2006 – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel suffers a second, apparently more serious stroke. His authority is transferred to acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
2007 – The 110th United States Congress convenes, electing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history.
2010 - The Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world, officially opens in Dubai.
2013 – A gunman kills eight people in a house-to-house rampage in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines.

Holidays and observances

Christian feast day:
Angela of Foligno
Elizabeth Ann Seton
January 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
The eleventh of the Twelve Days of Christmas. (Western Christianity)
Independence Day (Myanmar), celebrates the independence of Myanmar from the United Kingdom in 1948.
Day of the Fallen against the Colonial Repression (Angola)
Day of the Martyrs (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Dimpled Chad Day (Thomas Roy)
Hwinukan mukee (Okinawa Islands, Japan)
Ogoni Day (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People)
World Braille Day

Source: wikipedia