September 4

c1271 BC Moses is commemorated as a prophet in the respective Calendars of Saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Lutheran churches on September 4th. According to the Orthodox Menaion, September 4th was the day that Moses saw the Land of Promise.

Moses Shown the Promised Land by Benjamin West

476  The fall of the Western Roman Empire is conventionally dated to September 4, 476, when Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain, deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Odoacer then ruled Italy as a puppet king under the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire.

1733 A lioness died of old age in the Royal menagerie at the Tower of London on September 4, 1733. She had produced a litter of cubs every year for several years. A special post of Keeper of the Lion Office had been created for a Mr Martin. the man who looked after her.

1781 Los Angeles was founded by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve and 44 Spanish settlers on September 4, 1781. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo DE Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"-and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size "L.A." In English it is "The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciúncula River". Today the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.

The Plaza and "Old Plaza Church" in 1869

1800 In 1530 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, gave the island of Malta to the Knights of St. John. The Knights of Malta maintained control until Napoleon and the French arrived in 1798. The French rule was unpopular and Maltese rebels invited the English Royal Navy to send her navy, which blockaded the island. Napoleon's French garrison surrendered to British troops on September 4, 1800. In 1814, as part of the Treaty of Paris, Malta officially became a part of the British Empire.

1833 The first paperboy is said to have been 10-year-old Barney Flaherty, who was hired by the New York Sun on September 4, 1833 to deliver newspapers. Barney had responded to an advert in the newspaper, which read "To the Unemployed a number of steady men can find employment by vending this paper." The Oxford Dictionary gives the earliest use of the word 'paperboy' in 1876 and 'papergirl' in 1937.

A paperboy for the Toronto Star in Whitby, Ontario, Canada, 1940

1843 Victor Hugo's 19-yr-old daughter Léopoldine drowned on September 4, 1843, when her boat capsized on the River Seine in Villequier. She died when her wet, heavy skirts pulled her down, and her husband also met his end trying to save her. The writer was traveling with his mistress at the time in the south of France, and first learned about Léopoldine's death from a newspaper he read in a cafe. He dedicated numerous poems to the memory of his daughter, notably "À Villequier. "

1882 At 3pm on September 4, 1882, Thomas Edison flicked a switch to turn on the world’s first electricity power station in Pearl Street, Manhattan. This is considered by many as the day that began the electrical age. Edison designed the Pearl Street power station, which supplied electricity to 59 customers in a square-mile area in lower Manhattan, New York City. 

A sketch of the Pearl Street Station

1888  On September 4, 1888, George Eastman registered the trademark Kodak and received a patent for his roll film camera. The camera was called the Kodak No. 1, and it was a simple, easy-to-use camera that made photography accessible to the masses.

1895 The first time heart surgery was performed was on September 4, 1895 at Rikshospitalet in Kristiania, now Oslo. Norwegian surgeon Axel Cappelen ligated a bleeding coronary artery in a 24-year-old man who had been stabbed in the left axillae. The patient awoke and seemed fine for 24 hours, but became ill with increasing temperature and he ultimately died from what the post mortem proved to be mediastinitis on the third postoperative day.

1907 Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg died on September 4, 1907, aged 64, after a long illness. He had suffered from respiratory problems ever since his student days in Leipzig. More than 40,000 people crowded the streets of Bergen on the day of Grieg's funeral to honor him. Following his wish, his own funeral march for Rikard Nordraak was played, as well as the funeral march by Frederic Chopin. Both Grieg's and his wife's ashes are buried in a mountain crypt near his Troldhaugen house.

1963 The physician and bacteriologist Paul-Félix Armand-Delille died on September 4, 1963. In 1952, Armand-Delille introduced the contagious and deadly myxomatosis virus to kill rabbits on his estate. It spread out of control, killing up to 98% of rabbits in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy and Spain. He was later given a medal by the head of the Department of Rivers and Forests.

1985 The first pictures of the wreck of the Titanic were released on September 4, 1985, 73 years after it sank. The American-French expedition used a submarine 2.5 miles beneath the surface. When oceanographer Robert Ballard announced a mission to find the Titanic, it was a cover story for a classified investigation to search for two wrecked nuclear submarines. They finished before they were due back, so the team spent the extra time looking for the Titanic and actually found it. 

1995 eBay inc was started in 1995 by French-Iranian-American entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar. It was launched on Labor Day, September 4, 1995, under the more basic name “Auction Web.” One of the first items sold on the site was a broken laser pointer. A collector of broken laser pointers bought it for $14.83. The name 'eBay' came later when Omidyar tried to register a domain name for his planned name EchoBay. It was already taken so he shortened the name to 'eBay'.

1998 Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University, California, founded Google in early 1996 to promote the web search engine that they had developed. They incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4, 1998 at a garage they rented in Menlo Park, California. Their landlord, Susan Wojcicki, charged Page and Brin $1,700 per month. Wojcicki later became Google's eighteenth employee, rising to SVP of advertising and commerce before becoming the YouTube CEO.

2010 A 7.1 Mw earthquake struck near Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island on September 4, 2010. The damage bill was around $40 billion NZD, making it the fifth biggest insurance event in the world since 1953.

2010 The official all tackle world record for a perch recognized by the International Game Fish Association stands at 2.9 kg (6 lb 6 oz) for a Finnish European Perch caught September 4, 2010 by Stephan Gockel in the Meuse River, Netherlands. 

2014 In 2013 Garth Brooks announced that he was returning to the spotlight with a world tour after 13 years retirement from touring and performing. The tour kicked off on September 4, 2014, in Chicago.  The tour was a huge success, grossing over $500 million and selling over 7 million tickets. It was the highest-grossing country music tour of all time.

2016 Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa at a ceremony on September 4, 2016 in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. Tens of thousands of people witnessed the ceremony, including 15 government delegations and 1,500 homeless people from across Italy. 

2016 A "devil's advocate" is a person sanctioned by the Vatican to argue against the canonization of a potential new saint by pointing out their flaws and critically evaluating their miracles. The English journalist, literary critic and anti-theist Christopher Hitchens served as a devil's advocate for Mother Teresa.