February 4
| 786 | Harun al-Rashid succeeds his older brother the Abbasid Caliph al-Hadi as Caliph of Baghdad. | |
| 1194 | Richard I, King of England, is freed from captivity in Germany. | |
| 1508 | The Proclamation of Trent is made. | |
| 1787 | Shay’s Rebellion, an uprising of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers against the new U.S. government, fails. | |
| 1795 | France abolishes slavery in her territories and confers slaves to citizens. | |
| 1889 | Harry Longabaugh is released from Sundance Prison in Wyoming, thereby acquiring the famous nickname, “the Sundance Kid.” | |
| 1899 | After an exchange of gunfire, fighting breaks out between American troops and Filipinos near Manila, sparking the Philippine-American War | |
| 1906 | The New York Police Department begins finger print identification. | |
| 1909 | California law segregates Caucasian and Japanese schoolchildren. | |
| 1915 | Germany decrees British waters as part of the war zone; all ships to be sunk without warning. | |
| 1923 | French troops take the territories of Offenburg, Appenweier and Buhl in the Ruhr as a part of the agreement ending World War I. | |
| 1932 | Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurates the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y. | |
| 1941 | The United Service Organization (U.S.O.) is formed to cater to armed forces and defense industries. | |
| 1944 | The Japanese attack the Indian Seventh Army in Burma. | |
| 1945 | The Big Three, American, British and Soviet leaders, meet in Yalta to discuss the war aims. | |
| 1966 | Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins televised hearings on the Vietnam War. | |
| 1974 | Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, beginning one of the most bizarre cases in FBI history. | |
| 1980 | Syria withdraws its peacekeeping force in Beirut. | |
| 1986 | The U.S. Post Office issues a commemorative stamp featuring Sojourner Truth. | |
| Born on February 4 | ||
| 1881 | Fernand Leger, French painter. | |
| 1900 | Jacques Prevert, French poet, screenwriter (The Visitors of the Evening, The Children of Paradise). | |
| 1902 | Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic. | |
| 1906 | Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Protestant theologian. | |
| 1906 | Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer, discovered Pluto. | |
| 1913 | Rosa Lee Parks, civil rights activist. | |
| 1921 | Betty Friedan, writer, feminist, founded the National Organization of Women in 1966. | |
| 1925 | Russell Hoban, artist and writer (Bedtime for Frances, The Mouse and His Child). | |
| 1932 | Robert Coover, novelist & short story writer. | |
| 1947 | Dan Quayle, vice president under President George H.W. Bush. | |
Source: HistoryNet