Keir Starmer led the Labour Party to a landslide victory in the United Kingdom general election, ending fourteen years of Conservative rule.
4 July 1100
A Wednesday in history
Weekday
Wednesday
Season
Summer (N. Hemisphere)
Century
11th century
Records
472
2024
1998The monster movie Pulgasari, the most-widely-seen North Korean film ever made, premiered in Tokyo, Japan.
1988Kylie Minogue's first album, Kylie, was released, and went on to top the charts in the UK and New Zealand.
- 1982
Four Iranian diplomats were kidnapped after they were stopped at a checkpoint in northern Lebanon by Lebanese Phalange forces; their fates remain unknown.
1976Israeli forces raided Uganda's Entebbe International Airport to free hostages taken by hijackers on Air France Flight 139.
1954In what is known as "The Miracle of Bern", West Germany defeated Hungary 3–2 to win the FIFA World Cup.
1951William Shockley announced the invention of the junction transistor, for which he, John Bardeen, and Walter Houser Brattain later won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
1945The Brazilian cruiser Bahia (pictured) was accidentally sunk by one of its own crewmen, killing more than 300 people.
1943The aircraft carrying Władysław Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile, crashed off Gibraltar, killing him and fifteen others and leading to several conspiracy theories.
1941The Holocaust: During the German occupation of Latvia, a number of synagogues in Riga were set on fire, killing many Jews who were confined within.
1941German AB-Aktion in Poland: After capturing Lwów, the Nazis executed professors of the University of Lwów along with their families.
1918World War I: Allied forces led by the Australian general John Monash won the Battle of Hamel, demonstrating the effectiveness of combined-arms techniques in trench warfare.
1863American Civil War: Confederate forces failed in an attempt to recapture the Union-occupied Helena, Arkansas.
1862In a boat on the River Thames from Oxford to Godstow, author Lewis Carroll told Alice Liddell (pictured) and her sisters a story that later formed the basis for his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
1837The Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway with steam traction, opened between Birmingham and Newton Junction.
1776In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence (signing pictured), announcing that the thirteen American colonies were no longer a part of the British Empire.
1643First English Civil War: Royalist forces defeated the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Burton Bridge, securing a crossing of the River Trent for a convoy of supplies travelling with Queen Henrietta Maria.
1054Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", later identified as the supernova that created the Crab Nebula (pictured).
414Byzantine emperor Theodosius II proclaimed his elder sister Aelia Pulcheria as Augusta.
Photo archive
24 historic images from this day — tap to open the gallery.
What was life like?
Prices, jobs, food, music and everyday routine — the world as it felt to live in.
Sources & fact check
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