History for August 4

History for August 4 - On-This-Day.com:
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 - Poet, Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon 1900 - Known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, Louis Armstrong 1901 - Musician, singer


Raoul Wallenberg 1912 - Sweedish humanitarian during World War II, Billy Bob Thornton 1955 - Actor, Barack Hussein Obama 1961 - 44th President of the United States


1735 - Freedom of the press was established with an acquittal of John Peter Zenger. The writer of the New York Weekly Journal had been charged with seditious libel by the royal governor of New York. The jury said that "the truth is not libelous."


1790 - The Revenue Cutter Service was formed. This U.S. naval task force was the beginning of the U.S. Coast Guard.


1914 - Britain declared war on Germany. The U.S. proclaimed its neutrality.


1944 - Nazi police raided a house in Amsterdam and arrested eight people. Anne Frank, a teenager at the time, was one of the people arrested. Her diary would be published after her death.


1958 - The first potato flake plant was completed in Grand Forks, ND.


1972 - Arthur Bremer was found guilty of shooting George Wallace, the governor of Alabama. Bremer was sentenced to 63 years in prison.


1984 - Upper Volta, an African republic, changed its name to Burkina Faso.


1987 - The Fairness Doctrine was rescinded by the Federal Communications Commission. The doctrine had required that radio and TV stations present controversial issues in a balanced fashion.