[Gravdigr]

March 4

51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth).

1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what is 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.

1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.

1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect.

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.

1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated.

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.

1882 – Britain's first electric trams run in east London.

1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 1,710 feet (520 m) long, is opened by the Prince of Wales.

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.

1908 – The Collinwood school fire, Collinwood near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people.

1917 – Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.

1974 – People magazine is published for the first time in the United States as People Weekly.

1980 – Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.

1985 – The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS infection, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States.

1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley's Comet and the first images of its nucleus.

1998 – Gay rights: Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.

2001 – BBC bombing: A massive car bomb explodes in front of the BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring one person; the attack was attributed to the Real IRA.

2002 – Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers and 200 Al-Qaeda Fighters are killed as American forces attempt to infiltrate the Shah-i-Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.

2009 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.

Births

1678 – Antonio Vivaldi, 1888 – Knute Rockne, 1906 – Avery Fisher, 1909 – Harry Helmsley, 1913 – John Garfield, 1919 – Buck Baker, 1932 – Ed Roth, 1938 – Paula Prentiss, 1942 – Lynn Sherr, 1944 – Bobby Womack, 1948 – Chris Squire, 1948 – Shakin' Stevens, 1950 – Rick Perry, 1954 – Peter Jacobsen, 1957 – Rick Mast, 1958 – Patricia Heaton, 1961 – Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini, 1961 – Steven Weber, 1963 – Jason Newsted, 1968 – Patsy Kensit, 1986 – Mike Krieger

Deaths

1193 – Saladin, 1852 – Nikolai Gogol, 1858 – Matthew C. Perry, 1925 – John Montgomery Ward, 1972 – Charles Biro, 1994 – John Candy, 1996 – Minnie Pearl, 2008 – Gary Gygax, 2009 – Horton Foote, 2013 – Lillian Cahn, 2016 – Pat Conroy