As of today, August 4, 2023

What happened like today in Greece and the world.

1265: At the Battle of Evesham, the army of Prince Edward (the future King Edward I of England) defeats the forces of the rebel barons, killing their leader, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, and many of his allies.

1693: Friar Dom Pérignon makes the first champagne in a Benedictine monastery in Otviers, Campania.

1704: During the War of the Spanish Succession, Gibraltar is occupied by the English and Dutch Fleets and allied with Archduke Charles.

1789: The feudal system is abolished in France.

1821: The Battle of the Cross begins with a victorious outcome for the Greeks.

1865: “Hymn to Freedom” by Dionysios Solomos is established as the National Anthem of Greece. It is composed by Nikolaos Manjaros.

1902: The Greenwich Tunnel, which crosses the Thames underground, is handed over to the London public.

1914: Germany invades Belgium. In response, Great Britain declares war on her.

1920: Politicians, journalists and supporters are arrested after the attempt against Eleftherios Venizelos. The two would-be murderers refuse to discover accomplices.

1936: Ioannis Metaxas imposes a dictatorship on Greece, which will go down in history as the “Status of the 4th of August”. He will rule until his death in January 1941, while he will remain in history for rejecting the Italian ultimatum of October 28, 1940.

1941: The US formally undertakes to supply arms to the Soviets.

1944: The Gestapo locates Anne Frank, her family and four other Jews in Amsterdam, where they have been hiding for the last two years. Her diary, found after the war, will be published in more than 30 languages, and will be followed by a play and a film.

1952: It is decided that Nikos Zachariadis and 46 other members of the KKE will be tried in absentia.

1960: After the intervention of the Greek embassy in Paris, the interpretations of the entry “Grec” (“Greek”) as “fraudster”, “thief”, “old man” are removed from a well-known French dictionary.

1961: The British Parliament approves the government’s application to join the EEC.

1964: The Minister of Finance, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, denies through his statement, persistent rumors that he wants to cooperate with ERE in the future, leaving the Center Union. “I belong to those”, the relevant statement emphasizes, “who, during the 12-year trial of the democratic faction, never wavered, wavered or compromised with Dexian”.

1964: American civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney have been found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.

1965: The government of Georgios Athanasiadis-Nova is voted down in the Parliament and he resigns the next day.

1972: The “winged doctor” and former mayor of Thessaloniki, Vassilis Papageorgopoulos, sets a pan-Hellenic record in the 100 meters with 10.22 during the 31st Balkan Games in Smyrna, which Alexandros Terzian will break after 21 years.

1984: Dimitris Thanopoulos wins the silver medal in the 82 kg category of Greco-Roman wrestling at the Los Angeles Olympics. In the same event, Babis Holidis wins the bronze medal in the 57 kg category.

1991: The Greek cruise ship “Oceanos” sinks off the coast of South Africa.

1992: Morpho Drosidou wins the bronze medal in taekwondo at the Barcelona Olympics.

1993: Half a century after World War II, Japan officially admits that the military government in Tokyo is responsible for forcing women from Korea and other countries to meet the sexual needs of its soldiers.

1993: In Turkey, Kurdish rebels attack two buses, killing 20 of the passengers.

2002: Sofia Bekatorou and Emilia Tsoulfa take first place in the 470 boats at the European Championships in Tallinn, Estonia.

2020: Several explosions at Port of Beirut, in Lebanon, killing more than 70 people, injuring more than 4,000 others and sending shockwaves that damage homes up to 10 kilometers away. Prime Minister Hassan Diab, whose wife and daughter are among the injured, is declaring Wednesday a national day of mourning. The shock wave was felt in some nearby countries.

2021: The trial of Maria Kalesnikava, one of the main organizers of the protests against Lukashenko, begins in Minsk. Kalesnikava faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted of extremism.

2021: The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games confirms the first COVID-19 infection since the start of the Games, after four athletes and an official of the Greek artistic swimming team tested positive. The five people, in addition to the other seven team members who tested negative, were removed from the Olympic village and isolated.

Births

1136 – Umberto III, Count of Savoy

1290 – Leopold I, Duke of Austria

1463 – Laurentius the Younger, Italian politician

1521 – Pope Urban VII

1755 – Nicolas-Jacques Comté, French painter and inventor

1792 – Percy Shelley, English poet

1805 – William Rowan Hamilton, Irish physicist, astronomer and mathematician

1834 – John Venn, English mathematician

1841 – William Henry Hudson, British author

1859 – Knut Hamsun, Norwegian writer

1900 – Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom

1901 – Louis Armstrong, American trumpeter and singer

1904 – Witold Gombrowicz, Polish writer

1905 – Sheikh Abed Amani Karume, president of Zanzibar

1936 – George Zografos, Greek singer

1936 – Andreas Barkoulis, Greek actor

1939 – Betty Arvanitis, Greek actress

1942 – Vangelis Voulgaridis, Greek actor

1947 – Hubert Ingram, Bahamian politician

1949 – Danis Katranidis, Greek actor

1952 – Estanislau da Silva, politician from East Timor

1960 – José Luis Tapatero, Spanish politician

1961 – Barack Obama, 44th president of the USA

1961 – Lauren Tom, American actress

1965 – Fredrik Reinfeld, Swedish politician

1965 – Michael Skibe, German coach

1972 – Predrag Djordjevic, Serbian footballer

1975 – Nikos Lymberopoulos, Greek football player

Deaths

966 – Berengarius II, king of Italy

1060 – Henry I, King of France

1072 – Romanos IV Diogenes, Byzantine emperor

1306 – Wegeslaus III, king of Bohemia

1338 – Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk

1526 – Juan Sebastian Elcano, Spanish explorer

1578 – Sebastian, King of Portugal

1641 – Otto III of Harburg, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg

1834 – Dimitrios Xiros (Panourgia), Greek general

1841 – Johann Friedrich Herbart, German philosopher

1875 – Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author

1900 – Isaac Levitan, Russian painter

1922 – Ismail Ember, Turkish soldier

1927 – Eugene Atze, French photographer

1948 – Mileva Marić, Serbian physicist

1960 – Christos Voskoglou, Greek politician

1964 – Sergios Gyalistras, Greek soldier

1968 – Theoni Dracopoulou, Greek poet

1971 – Evangelos Arvanitakis, Greek politician

1977 – Ernst Bloch, German philosopher

1981 – Melvin Douglas, American actor

1982 – Bruce Goff, American architect

1991 – Nikiforos Vrettakos, Greek writer

1991 – George Moufluzelis, Greek singer

1991 – Don DaGrady, American screenwriter

2006 – Vasilis Kazakos, Greek painter and engraver

2012 – Lavrentia Bernidaki, Greek singer