What Happened Today In History

About October 4

October 4, 2025 is the 277^th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 88 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Saturday.

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Libra is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Opal is the modern birthstone for this month. Jasper is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.

According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 136 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.

What Happened On October 4

• 1582 –
  Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian Calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
• 1693 –
  Battle of Marsaglia: Piedmontese troops are defeated by the French.
• 1777 –
  Battle of Germantown: Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under Sir William Howe.
• 1779 –
  The Fort Wilson Riot takes place.
• 1830 –
  Creation of the state of Belgium after separation from The Netherlands.
• 1876 –
  Texas A&M University opens as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, becoming the first public institution of higher education in Texas.
• 1895 –
  The first U.S. Open Men’s Golf Championship administered by the United States Golf Association is played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.
• 1918 –
  An explosion kills more than 100 and destroys the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, New Jersey. Fires and explosions continue for three days forcing massive evacuations and spreading ordnance over a wide area, pieces of which were still being found as of 2007.
• 1927 –
  Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore.
• 1941 –
  Norman Rockwell’s Willie Gillis character debuts on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
• 1943 –
  World War II: U.S. captures Solomon Islands.
• 1957 –
  Avro Arrow roll-out ceremony at Avro Canada plant in Malton, Ontario.
• 1957 –
  Leave It To Beaver premieres on CBS.
• 1957 –
  Space Race: Launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
• 1957 –
  Sputnik 1 is launched by the Soviet Union.
• 1976 –
  Official launch of the Intercity 125 High Speed Train (HST).
• 1991 –
  The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty is opened for signature.
• 1997 –
  The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs at the Charlotte, North Carolina office of Loomis, Fargo and Company. An FBI investigation eventually results in 24 convictions and the recovery of approximately 95% of the $17.3 million in cash which had been taken.
• 2003 –
  Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel: 21 Israelis, Jews and Arabs, are killed, and 51 others wounded.
• 2010 –
  The Ajka plant accident in western Hungary releases about a million cubic metres (35 million cubic feet) of liquid alumina sludge. Nine people are killed and 122 injured, and the Marcal and Danube rivers are severly contaminated.