Today in History - June 4

Return to home

For Asian History: http://www.asiaobserver.org/2019/06/4

1070        Jun 4, Roquefort cheese was accidentally discovered in a cave near Roquefort, France, when a shepherd found a lunch he had forgotten several days before.
    (HN, 6/4/01)

1133        Jun 4, In Rome Pope Innocentius II crowned German King Lothair II as emperor at the Church of the Lateran.
    (MC, 6/4/02)(PCh, 1992, p.92)

1316        Jun 4, Louis X (26), King of France (1314-16), died.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1391        Jun 4, A mob led by Ferrand Martinez surrounded and set fire to the Jewish quarter of Seville, Spain. The surviving Jews were sold into slavery.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1568        Jun 4, Lamoraal, Count Egmont, prince of Gavere, was beheaded in Brussels for opposition to the Spanish Inquisition. He became a heroic figure in Goethe's play and Beethoven's musical setting.
    (PCh, 1992, p.195)(MC, 6/5/02)

1608        Jun 4, Francesco Caracciolo (44), Italian religious founder, saint, died.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1615        Jun 4, The fortress of Osaka, Japan, fell to shogun Leyasu after a six month siege.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1647        Jun 4, In England Parliamentary forces seized King Charles I as a hostage.
    (AP, 6/4/97)(HN, 6/4/98)

1717        Jun 4, The Freemasons established their Grand Lodge in London. They had begun in the 13th century as a guild of masons, who worked in soft stone called freestone.
    (HN, 6/4/98)(WSJ, 2/6/02, p.A16)

1738        Jun 4, George III was born (d.1820). He was the King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1760-1820, and the King of Hanover from 1815-1820. He was responsible for losing the American colonies. He passed the Royal Marriages Act, which made it unlawful for his children to marry without his consent.
    (HFA, '96, p.32)(AHD, 1971, p.552) (WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-10)

1745        Jun 4, Frederick the Great of Prussia defeated the Austrians & Saxons.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1756        Jun 4, Quakers left the assembly of Pennsylvania.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1783        Jun 4, The Montgolfier brothers launched their 1st hot-air balloon (unmanned) in a 10-minute flight over Annonay, France.
    (http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_2.htm)

1784        Jun 4, Elizabeth Thible became the first woman to fly aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon, over Lyon, France.
    (AP, 6/4/07)

1789        Jun 4, The US constitution, enacted as sovereign law, went into effect.
    (V.D.-H.K.p.300)(MC, 6/4/02)

1792        Jun 4, Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound for Britain.
    (HN, 6/4/98)
1792        Jun 4, John Burgoyne, soldier, playwright, died.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1794        Jun 4, Congress passed a Neutrality Act that banned Americans from serving in armed forces of foreign powers.
    (MC, 6/4/02)
1794        Jun 4, British troops captured Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
    (HN, 6/4/98)
1794        Jun 4, Robespierre was unanimously elected president of the Convention in the French Revolution.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1798        Jun 4, Giovanni Jacopo Casanova (b.1725), fabled Italian seducer, adventurer, spy, librarian, died of prostate cancer in Dux, Bohemia. While at Dux he authored his memoirs: “History of My Life.” The standard English edition runs over 3,600 pages. In 2008 Ian Kelly authored “Casanova: Actor, Lover, Priest, Spy.”
    (www.1911encyclopedia.org/Giovanni_Jacopo_Casanova_de_Seingalt)(WSJ, 10/24/08, p.W5)

1800        Jun 4, The White House was completed and President & Mrs. John Adams moved in. [see Nov 1]
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1805        Jun 4, The US signed a Treaty of Peace and Amity at Tripoli. The US agreed to pay Tripoli $60,000 in war reparations and was in turn absolved of tribute demands. The treaty was ratified by the US on Apr 17, 1806.
    (ON, 2/03, p.4)(www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1805t.htm)

1812        Jun 4, The Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory.
    (AP, 6/4/97)

1826        Jun 4, Karl Maria FE von Weber (39), German composer (Oberon), died.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1843        Jun 4, Charles C. Abbott, American naturalist, was born. He wrote “Days Out of Doors.”
    (HN, 6/4/00)

1850        Jun 4, A self deodorizing fertilizer was patented in England.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1859        Jun 4, The French army under Napoleon III took Magenta from the Austrian army after a bloody battle in northern Italy.
    (HN, 6/4/99)

1862        Jun 4, Confederates evacuated Ft. Pillow, Tenn.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1863        Jun 4, David Batchelder and a group of 27 armed men sailed from San Francisco to the Farallon Islands in 3 boats to challenge the Egg Co. for bird eggs. One man was killed and another died of wounds a few days later. In 1995 Peter White authored “The Farallon Islands: Sentinels of the Golden Gate.”
    (SFC, 5/25/13, p.C3)

1864        Jun 4, With Gen. Sherman again flanking them, Confederates under General Joseph Johnston retreated to the mountains before Marietta, Georgia.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1867        Jun 4, Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, president of Finland, was born.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1872        Jun 4, Kentucky conmen Philip Arnold (40) and John Slack took a party of San Francisco investors, including Asbury Harpending, to a site in Wyoming where diamonds and other precious stones were salted about. The con job took in hundreds of thousands of dollars before geologist Clarence King (30) identified the Wyoming site as a scam.
    (SFC, 4/26/14, p.D2)
1872        Jun 4, Harvey Flint (d.1882) patented his Quaker Bitters, a general cure-all with 21.4% alcohol. He had recently left a family furniture business in Providence, Rhode Island, and began making Quaker Bitters under the name Flint & Co.
    (SFC, 8/8/07, p.G2)(www.bottlebooks.com/temperance/temperance.htm)

1878        Jun 4, The Ottoman Empire turned over control of Cyprus to the British.
    (AP, 6/4/08)

1889        Jun 4, Beno Gutenberg, seismologist, was born.
    (HN, 6/4/01)

1892        Jun 4, The Sierra Club was incorporated in San Francisco.
    (AP, 6/4/97)

1894        Jun 4, Blanch Knopf, publishing CEO (Knopf), was born.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1895        Jun 4, Dino Conte Grandi, Italy's delegate to League of Nations, was born.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1896        Jun 4, Henry Ford made a successful pre-dawn test run of his horseless carriage, called a quadricycle, through the streets of Detroit.
    (AP, 6/4/97)

1904        Jun 4, Alvah Bessie, screenwriter and novelist, was born.
    (HN, 6/4/01)

1907        Jun 4, Automatic washer and dryer was introduced.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1908        Jun 4, Rosalind Russell (d.1976), actress (Mame, Take a Letter Darling), was born in Waterbury, Connecticut.
    (www.filmreference.com/Actors-and-Actresses-Ro-Sc/Russell-Rosalind.html)

1911        Jun 4, Gold was discovered in Alaska's Indian Creek.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1912        Jun 4, Massachusetts passed the 1st US minimum wage law.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1917        Jun 4, Charles Collingwood, news commentator (CBS, Chronicles), was born in Mich.
    (MC, 6/4/02)
1917        Jun 4, American men begin registering for the draft. [see Jun 5]
    (MC, 6/4/02)
1917        Jun 4, The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, a British order of chivalry, was established by King George V. The Order included five classes in civil and military divisions in decreasing order of seniority. These included: Knight Grand Cross (GBE) or Dame Grand Cross (GBE), Knight Commander (KBE) or Dame Commander (DBE), Commander (CBE), Officer (OBE), and Member (MBE).
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire)

1918        Jun 4, French and American troops halted Germany's offensive at Chateau-Thierry, France.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1919        Jun 4, The U.S. Senate passed the Women's Suffrage bill.
    (HN, 6/4/98)
1919        Jun 4, US marines invaded Costa Rica.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1920         Jun 4, The Treaty of Trianon, signed at Versailles, was forced upon Hungary by the victorious Allies after WWII and resulted in Hungary giving up nearly three-fourths of its territory to Romania, Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croat and Slovenes. Hungary lost more than half its population, including some 3 million Hungarians. Hungary ceded the hills of Transylvania to Romania.
    (HNQ, 7/5/98)(WSJ, 1/2/97, p.1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon)

1923        Jun 4, Filippo Smaldone, Italian priest, died. He provided education and assistance for the death and founded the Congregation of the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Heart. In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI named him a saint.
    (SFC, 10/16/06, p.A2)

1928        Jun 4, Ruth Westheimer, sex therapist (WYNY-FM), was born in Germany.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1929        Jun 4, George Eastman demonstrated 1st Technicolor movie in Rochester, NY.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1936        Jun 4, Leon Blum became the first socialist and the first Jew to serve as Prime Minister of France.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Blum)

1937        Jun 4, Robert Fulghrum, American author, was born. He wrote "All I Really need to Know I learned in Kindergarten" and "It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It."
    (HN, 6/4/99)
1937        Jun 4, Freddy Fender, singer, was born as Baldemar Huerta. His songs included: Wasted Days and Wasted Nights and Before the Next Teardrop Falls.
    (www.napster.com/view/artist/index.html?id=11508506)

1939        Jun 4, During what became known as the "Voyage of the Damned," the SS St. Louis, carrying 907 Jewish refugees from Germany, was turned away from the Florida coast. Also denied permission to dock in Canada and Cuba, the ship eventually returned to Europe. The passengers were divided among England, France, Belgium and Holland and a number of the refugees later died in Nazi concentration camps. By 2003 efforts to track their fates identified 935 out of the 937 passengers. Some 260 ended in Nazi killing centers.
    (AP, 6/4/99)(SFC, 10/4/99, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/7/03, Par p.5)(Econ, 6/24/06, p.44)

1940        Jun 4, A synthetic rubber tire was unveiled.
    (MC, 6/4/02)
1940        Jun 4, The Allied military evacuation of 300,000 troops from Dunkirk, France, ended. Operation Dynamo counted 235 vessels lost as well as 177 aircraft in combat at Dunkirk and the English Channel. French defenders surrendered. Some 30-40,000 French troops became prisoners of war.
    (AP, 6/4/97)(HN, 6/4/98)(ON, 8/12, p.4)
1940        Jun 4, German forces entered Paris.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1941        Jun 4, Republic of Croatia ordered all Jews to wear a star with the letter Z.
    (MC, 6/4/02)
1941        Jun 4, Wilhelm II von Hohenzollern (b.1859), the last German emperor (1888-1918), died in the Netherlands.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor)

1942        Jun 4, The Battle of Midway began. It was Japan’s first major defeat in World War II. Four Japanese carriers were lost. The carrier USS Yorktown was hit by 3 Japanese bombs and put on tow to Pearl Harbor. It was torpedoed three days later and sank in waters 16,650 deep. The Yorktown was found in 1998 by a team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard, who had also found the Titanic and the Bismarck. The story of the Battle of Midway was told by Walter Lord in "Incredible Victory." In 2005 Alvin Kernan authored “The Unknown Battle of Midway.”
    (AP, 6/4/97)(HN, 6/4/98)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A3)(SFEC, 6/4/00, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/29/05, p.D8)

1943        Jun 4, Race riots took place in LA.
    (MC, 6/4/02)
1943        Jun 4, In Argentina, Gen Rawson and Col. Juan Peron led the military coup that overthrew Ramon S. Castillo.
    (HN, 6/4/98)(MC, 6/4/02)

1944        Jun 4, The U-505 became the first enemy submarine captured by the U.S. Navy under Admiral Dan Gallery. The keel for the U-505 was laid on June 12, 1940. It launched from Hamburg the following year. During its career, the U-505 gained the unwelcome but lucky distinction of being the most heavily damaged U-boat to manage to return to port. Under the command of Harald Lange, the boat was attacked by an American task group led by the USS Guadalcanal. Crewmen from the destroyer escort USS Pillsbury managed to capture the U-505 before the submariners could in scuttle her. This represented the first time since 1815 that the US Navy captured an enemy warship on the high seas (the capture remained a secret). After the war, Navy plans to scuttle the U-boat in a gunnery exercise were themselves scrapped when the president of Chicago’s Museum of Science & Industry voiced interest and a plan to use the entire submarine as part of an exhibit. The U-505 was dedicated as a permanent exhibit and war memorial at the museum on September 25, 1954. In 2005 a $35 million project restored the ship and moved it to a specially constructed underground hall.
    (HN, 6/4/98)(HNQ, 3/29/01)(WSJ, 8/5/05, p.W2)
1944        Jun 4, The US Fifth Army under Gen. Mark Clark, entered Rome, beginning the liberation of the Italian capital during World War II.
    (AP, 6/4/97)(Econ, 4/12/08, p.94)

1945        Jun 4, Anthony Braxton, jazz composer and saxophonist, was born.
    (HN, 6/4/01)
1945        Jun 4, US, Russia, England & France agreed to split occupied Germany.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1946        Jun 4, Juan Peron was installed as Argentina's president.
    (HN, 6/4/98)
1946        Jun 4, A giant eruption occurred on the surface of the sun and was photographed by the coronograph of the High Altitude Observatory of the Univ. of Colorado.
    (SCTS, p.84)

1947        Jun 4, The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Labor Management Relations Act also known as the Taft-Hartley Act. It provided for an 80-day injunction against strikes that endangered public health and safety. Pres. [see Jun 20]
    (WUD, 1994 p.1447)(AP, 6/4/97)(SFC, 11/27/99, p.C4)

1948        Jun 4, Hugh Kenner (d.2003 at 80) met for the 1st time with Ezra Pound in a Washington-area mental facility. Pound became his mentor and directed him in a number of literary efforts. In 1951 Kenner turned his thesis into the book: "The Poetry of Ezra Pound." In 1971 Kenner authored "The Pound Era."
    (SSFC, 11/30/03, p.A31)

1951        Jun 4, Serge Koussevitsky (76), conductor, composer, died.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1952        Jun 4, Parker Stevenson, actor (The Hardy Boys Mysteries, Baywatch, Melrose Place, Falcon Crest), was born.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1953        Jun 4, An atomic bomb test explosion took place at Yucca Flats, Nevada, equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT. This was double the 1945 blast over Hiroshima.
    (SFC, 5/30/03, p.E7)
1953        Jun 4, North Koreans accepted UN proposals in all major respects.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1954        Jun 4, French Premier Joseph Laniel and Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc initialed treaties in Paris according "complete independence" to Vietnam.
    (AP, 6/4/97)

1958        Jun 4, French premier De Gaulle arrived in Algiers.
    (MC, 6/4/02)

1959        Jun 4, The Soviet Union’s Bolshoi Ballet company arrived in San Francisco following performances in New York and Los Angeles. They were scheduled for 4 performances at the War Memorial House. In LA troupe members bought furs, rugs, china and curtain rods.
    (SSFC, 5/31/09, DB p.50)

1960        Jun 4, The Taiwan island of Quemoy was hit by 500 artillery shells fired from the coast of Communist China.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1961        Jun 4, A Soviet K-19 nuclear submarine with 139 crew members experienced a nuclear accident. 22 later died from radiation poisoning. In 2001 the US film “K-19: The Widowmaker” loosely depicted the accident.
    (SFC, 4/20/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 4/3/02, p.A20)

1962        Jun 4, Lee Harvey Oswald departed Rotterdam on SS Maasdam to US.
    (MC, 6/4/02)
1962        Jun 4, William Beebe (b.1877), US biologist, explorer, died. In 2004 Carol Grant Gould authored “The Remarkable Life of William Beebe: Explorer and Naturalist.”
    (NH, 2/05, p.54)(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9014090)

1967        Jun 4, American actor and comedian Bill Cosby (b.1937) received an Emmy Award for his work in the television series "I Spy." Cosby won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in the Drama Series in 1966, 1967 and 1968. In the 19th Emmy Awards: Mission Impossible, Monkees, Don Knotts & Lucy Ball were among the winners.
    (HN, 6/4/00)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Spy)

1968        Jun 4, Robert Kennedy won the California democratic Presidential Primary whose candidates included Eugene McCarthy. Vice-Pres. Hubert Humphrey had declined to enter the California primary. Kennedy was shot the next day in LA by Sirhan Sirhan and died on June 6.
    (SFEM, 11/17/96, p.26)
1968        Jun 4, Alexandre Kojeve (b.1902), French-Russian philosopher, died in Brussels. He was suspected of serving as a Soviet spy from 1938 to his death.
    (WSJ, 10/11/01, p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Koj%C3%A8ve)

1969        Jun 4, Armando Socarras Ramirez (22) sneaked into wheel pod of a jet parked in Havana & survived a 9-hr flight to Spain despite thin oxygen levels at 29,000 ft.
    (http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/168489/an/0/page/25)

1972        Jun 4, Black militant Angela Davis was found not guilty of murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy.
    (HN, 6/4/98)

1974        Jun 4, Ten Cent Beer Night was an ill-fated promotion held by the American League's Cleveland Indians during a game against the Texas Rangers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Cent_Beer_Night)

1975        Jun 4, In San Francisco Harald Gullberg was found stabbed to death in the area of Golden Gate Park. He was the 5th gay man stabbed to death by the Doodler serial killer over the last year and a half.
    (SFC, 2/7/19, p.A9)
1975        Jun 4, The oldest animal fossils to date in the US were discovered in North Carolina.
    (www.todayinsci.com/6/6_04.htm)

1979        Jun 4, Joe Clark of the Progressive Conservatives became the 16th prime minister of Canada.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
1979        Jun 4, In Ghana friends of J.J. Rawlings (b.1947), led by Major Boakye Djan, overthrew the military government of General Fred Akuffo in a bloody coup.
    (SFC, 12/6/96, p.B1)
1979        Jun 4, South African Pres. Vorster resigned due to scandal. Marais Viljoen became the last non-executive State President of South Africa and served until September 3, 1984.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marais_Viljoen)

1980        Jun 4, In northern California the body of Anna Menjivas was discovered in Mt. Tamalpais State Park. Her murder had not been connected with the "Trailside" slayings at the time. Investigators later learned she was a long-time friend of David Carpenter, who often let him drive her home from work.  In 1988 Carpenter was convicted of 4 killings in Marin County.
    (www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/carpenter.htm)(SFC, 2/24/10, p.A7)

1982        Jun 4, A 4-day storm began in New England. It deluged Connecticut with 14 inches of rain, breaking 23 dams and destroying two. Damages were estimated at close to $276 million.
    (SFC, 6/4/09, p.D10)
1982        Jun 4, Israel attacked targets in south Lebanon one day after the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London.
    (www.adl.org/israel/advocacy/glossary/lebanon_war.asp)

1983        Jun 4, In Chino Hills, Ca., Douglas and Peggy Ryen and their 10-year old daughter, Jessica, were killed in the master bedroom of their home. Christopher Hughes (11), a neighbor, was also killed. Joshua Ryen (8) survived despite serious wounds. Kevin Cooper, who escaped from Chino prison on June 2, was arrested 47 days later and was convicted for the murders in 1985 and faced execution. Cooper claimed he was innocent and called for DNA testing of the evidence in 2000. In 2003 an execution date of Feb 10, 2004, was set for Cooper. Cooper won a last minute reprieve on Feb 9 pending a re-examination of the case. In 2005 a federal judge upheld his death penalty. In 2016 Cooper's lawyers asked for a reprieve and new DNA testing.
    (www.savekevincooper.org/background.html)(SFC, 12/18/03, p.A21)(SFC, 2/11/04, p.A4)(SFC, 7/4/18, p.A8)

1984        Jun 4, DNA was successfully cloned from a quagga, an animal extinct since 1883.
    (www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2003/jun4.htm)

1985        Jun 4, The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling striking down an Alabama law providing for a daily "moment of silence" in public schools.
    (AP, 6/4/97)(http://tinyurl.com/2lqt4u)

1986        Jun 4, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former Navy intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty in Washington to spying for Israel. He was later sentenced a life prison term.
    (AP, 6/4/97)(WSJ, 1/28/98, p.A18)

1987        Jun 4, The US congressional Iran-Contra committees voted to grant limited immunity to former National Security Council aide Oliver L. North, following an appeal by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh to reject immunity.
    (AP, 6/4/97)

1988        Jun 4, US Secretary of State George Shultz flew to Jordan, where he met with King Hussein. Afterward, Shultz said the Jordanian monarch was reluctant to engage in peace talks with Israel unless Israel agreed to give up land on the West Bank.
    (AP, 6/4/98)

1989        Jun 4, "Jerome Robbins's Broadway" won best musical at the 43rd annual Tony Awards; "The Heidi Chronicles" by Wendy Wasserstein won best play.
    (AP, 6/4/99)
1989        Jun 4, In San Francisco thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate to protest the slaughter of students and other citizens at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In Chinese Tiananmen translates as Gate of Heavenly Peace.
    (SSFC, 6/1/14, DB p.46)
1989        Jun 4, In China hundreds of people died as Chinese army troops stormed Beijing to crush the pro-democracy movement. Hundreds of thousands of discontented Chinese took to the streets of Beijing, demanding more reform, but the military crushed the protests in the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Zhao Ziyang was ousted. The West and Japan cut off aid. Bao Tong was the only Communist Party official arrested in the Tiananmen Square uprising. He was released with ill-health in 1996. Han Dongfang, leader of China’s first independent trade union spent 22 months behind bars for his role in the pro-democracy uprising. Ren Wanding was also again jailed for giving speeches in the pro-democracy protests.   
    (WSJ 12/10/93)(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A6)(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A11)(SFC, 6/10/96, C2)(AP, 6/4/97)
1989        Jun 4, Poland held Eastern Europe's 1st somewhat free election in 40 years. The 2-part election (June 4 and 19) resulted in a land-slide victory of the opposition organized in the Citizens' Committee, which won all 161 seats available to it in the Sejm, and 99 out of 100 seats in the senate.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_Citizens'_Committee)
1989        Jun 4, A gas explosion in the Soviet Union engulfed two passing trains, killing 645.
    (AP, 6/4/97)

1990        Jun 4, Janet Adkins (54) of Portland, Ore., became the first person to use a suicide machine developed by Dr. Kevorkian. This began a national debate over the right to die.
    (SFC, 4/14/99, p.A3)(www.lectlaw.com/files/cas20.htm)
1990        Jun 4, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev closed out his US visit in northern California, where he held a reunion with former President Reagan and met with South Korean President Roh Tae-woo in San Francisco, and addressed students at Stanford University in Palo Alto.
    (AP, 6/4/00)

1991        Jun 4, President Bush tapped former Democratic national chairman Robert S. Strauss to be the new US ambassador to the Soviet Union.
    (AP, 6/4/01)
1991        Jun 4, The government of China announced the death of Jiang Qing (77), the widow of Mao Tse-tung, saying she had committed suicide on May 14th.
    (AP, 6/4/01)

1992        Jun 4, President Bush held a news conference in which he said he understood Americans' fascination with Ross Perot, but predicted that voters would eventually ask, "How are you going to do it?"
    (AP, 6/4/97)
1992        Jun 4, The U.S. Postal Service announced the results of a nationwide vote on the Elvis Presley stamp, saying more people preferred the "younger Elvis" design.
    (AP, 6/4/97)

1993        Jun 4, Rejecting allegations of "quota queen," Lani Guinier expressed regret President Clinton had dropped her nomination to head the Justice Department's civil rights division.
    (AP, 6/4/98)
1993        Jun 4, The UN Security Council agreed to send up to 10,000 more UN peacekeepers to six Bosnian cities to protect Muslim havens.
    (AP, 6/4/98)

1994        Jun 4, President Clinton and British Prime Minister John Major paid tribute to the lost airmen of World War II at the American Cemetery in Cambridge, England.
    (AP, 6/4/99)
1994        Jun 4, Gregory Scarpa, nicknamed The Grim Reaper, died in a Minnesota prison. He was a soldier for the Colombo crime family and an informant for the FBI.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Scarpa_Sr.)
1994        Jun 4, Toto Bissainthe (59), Haitian poet and singer, died.
    (www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/world/guidehaitid.shtml)

1995        Jun 4, At the Tony Awards, “Sunset Boulevard” won best Broadway musical while “Love! Valour! Compassion!” by Terrence McNally was chosen best play.
    (AP, 6/4/00)
1995        Jun 4, Sophie Winter (34), actress (She's a Good Fighter), died from a misdiagnosed extopic pregnancy.
    (http://tinyurl.com/83sc6)
1995        Jun 4, French General Bernard Janvier, supreme UN military commander in the former Yugoslavia, met with Bosnian Serb military commander, Ratko Mladic. He pleaded for the release of UN captives and offered to halt future NATO air attacks. Shortly after Yasushi Akashi publicly affirmed that the UN would abide by peacekeeping principles - shorthand for no more air attacks.
    (SFC, 6/7/96, p.A10)
1995        Jun 4, In Sri Lanka the Tigers blew up a ship chartered by the Int’l. Committee of the Red Cross.
    (SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)

1996        Jun 4, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, campaigning for re-election, indulged in a bit of onstage boogie at a pop concert for young voters.
    (AP, 6/4/97)
1996        Jun 4, US and French officials signed a secret agreement to share nuclear weapons information and facilitate joint work between scientists.
    (SFC, 6/15/96, p.A10)
1996        Jun 4, The Organization of American States criticized the US over the extension of the economic embargo against Cuba with 32 co-sponsors. The US was the sole dissenter.
    (SFC, 6/6/96, C2)
1996        Jun 4, NATO foreign ministers approved plans to shift focus toward intervention in small regional conflicts and away from containing Russia, its primary focus for 47 years.
    (WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A1)
1996         Jun 4, In Burundi three Swiss Red Cross workers were ambushed and killed while delivering supplies near the village of Mugina. The Tutsi-dominated Uprona Party denied any role and said the killings were the work of gangs of the Coalition for the Defense of Democracy, the main Hutu rebel group.
    (SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)(SFC, 6/6/96, p.C3)       
1996        Jun 4, The European Space Agency Ariane 5 rocket was destroyed when it went off course during take-off from Kourou, French Guiana. The $7 billion rocket had taken 10 years to develop and was to be capable of carrying 7.6 tons into orbit.
    (SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)
1996        Jun 4, A report on China focused on tens of millions of people suffering from iodine deficiency. The effects of the deficiency has led to stunted lives and intellects. Where goiter and cretinism are not visibly apparent, chronic mental and physical fatigue and some degree of mental impairment was widespread.
    (SFC, 6/4/96, p.A13)
1996        Jun 4, In Nigeria Kudirat Abiola, wife of imprisoned opposition leader Moshood Abiola, was shot and killed by 6 gunmen near her home in Lagos. In 2011 Maj. Hamza Al-Mustapha, right-hand man of dictator Sani Abacha, faced trial for ordering a security agent to kill Kudirat. Al-Mustapha denied taking part in her machine-gun killing, saying he was tortured into a false confession.
    (SFC, 6/5/96, p.C2)(AP, 8/9/11)

1997        Jun 4, At the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors urged the jury to sentence Timothy McVeigh to death, calling relatives of victims to testify about agonizing losses.
    (AP, 6/4/98)
1997        Jun 4, In Lubbock, Texas, Michael Rosales, a parole violator, beat and used kitchen tools to kill Mary Felder (67) during a robbery at her apartment. Rosales (35) was executed on April 16, 2009.
    (SFC, 4/16/09, p.A6)(www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=2917)
1997        Jun 4, The 53-nation Organization of African Unity unanimously condemned the coup in Sierra Leone. The 16-member Nigerian-led Economic Community of West African states pledged not to tolerate military coups on the continent a day after it approved the use of force to restore the government of Sierra Leone.
    (SFC, 6/5/97, p.C3)
1997        Jun 4, Brazil’s Senate approved a constitutional revision to allow office-holders to run for re-election. this will allow Pres. Cardoso to seek a 2nd term.
    (WSJ, 6/5/97, p.A1)
1997        Jun 4, China signed a $660 million deal to develop an Iraqi oil field.
    (WSJ, 6/5/97, p.A1)
1997        Jun 4, In France PM Lionel Jospin appointed women to 6 of 16 ministerial positions.
    (SFC, 6/5/97, p.C2)
1997        Jun 4, In Germany some 600,000 chemical union workers agreed to allow wage cuts by up to 10% by financially strapped companies. Record unemployment stood at 11% and the government asked unions for some flexibility.
    (SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1997        Jun 4, In Drammen, Norway, a car bomb destroyed the headquarters of the Bandido motorcycle gang. One passerby was killed and 4 people were injured.
    (SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A26)

1998        Jun 4, In Denver a federal judge sentenced Terry Nichols to life in prison without parole for conspiring in 1995 to bomb the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
    (SFC, 6/5/98, p.A1)(AP, 6/4/99)
1998        Jun 4, Americans aboard the shuttle Discovery arrived at the Russian space station Mir to pick up U.S. astronaut Andrew Thomas, who'd spent four months in orbit.
    (AP, 6/4/99)
1998        Jun 4, It was reported that Duke Univ. scientists reported that they were able to change sickled blood cells into normal cells using genetic therapy.
    (SFC, 6/5/98, p.A7)
1998        Jun 4, In Bluff, Utah, Robert Mason (26), one of 3 suspects in the May 29 killing of a Cortez, Colo., police officer, was found dead with a gunshot wound to his head.
    (SFC, 6/5/98, p.A3)
1998        Jun 4, A team of physicists from Japan reported that they had established that the subnuclear neutrino particles had mass.
    (SFC, 6/5/98, p.A1)
1998        Jun 4, Shirley Polykoff, the pioneering advertising woman who authored the “Does she... or doesn’t she” for Clairol hair dyes in 1956, died at age 90. She wrote the 1975 book “Does She... or Doesn’t She? And How She Die It.”
    (SFC, 6/9/98, p.A24)
1998        Jun 4, In Britain the House of Commons decided to get rid of its collapsible top hats, a tradition that dated from 19th century.
    (SFC, 6/5/98, p.D4)
1998        Jun 4, In Indonesia creditor banks unveiled a plan to restructure $80 billion of foreign debt owed by banks and corporations.
    (WSJ, 6/5/98, p.A1)
1998        Jun 4, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela agreed to cuts in oil production and exports for the 2nd time this year in order to raise prices.
    (WSJ, 6/5/98, p.A2)
1998        Jun 4, In Pristina, Serbia, the Kosovo Albanians withdrew from negotiations with Serbia due to the new Serbian offensive.
    (SFC, 6/5/98, p.D2)
1998        Jun 4, In Taiwan it was reported that an airborne virus had killed 26 children in the last 6 weeks. Another 132 were hospitalized and as many as 9,000 were infected. Efforts to fight the disease were being centralized. Enterovirus 71 soon claimed 7 more children.
    (WSJ, 6/5/98, p.A1)(SFC, 6/19/98, p.B4)

1999        Jun 4, Using a provision of the Constitution allowing him to bypass the Senate, Pres. Clinton bypassed Congress with a "recess appointment" for James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg, the first openly gay ambassador in US history.
    (SFC, 6/5/99, p.A1)(AP, 6/4/00)
1999        Jun 4, A federal judge in Portland ruled that AT&T must open its cable lines to competitors.
    (SFC, 6/5/99, p.A1)
1999        Jun 4, Senators Diane Feinstein of California and Harry Reid of Nevada announced the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act. The bill would authorized $300 million over 10 years to restore clarity and health to Lake Tahoe.
    (SFC, 6/5/99, p.A1)
1999        Jun 4, On the tenth anniversary of China’s crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests, tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong held a candlelight vigil.
    (AP, 6/4/00)
1999        Jun 4, The Deutsche Bank AG $9.8 billion acquisition of Bankers Trust, an American Bank, was finalized.
    (Econ, 5/19/07, SR p.10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankers_Trust)
1999        Jun 4, NATO commanders met with Yugoslav army officers in Macedonia to arrange for the withdrawal of some 40,000 Serbian troops from Kosovo.
    (SFC, 6/5/99, p.A1)
1999        Jun 4, Pope John Paul II traveled to Poland, the first stop on a 13-day visit to 20 cities. This was his 8th visit to Poland.
    (WSJ, 6/4/99, p.A1)
1999        Jun 4, In Colombia at least 2,000 people crossed the border into Venezuela to escape heavy fighting in northern Santander province.
    (SFC, 6/5/99, p.A12)
1999        Jun 4, In Turkey police killed 2 members of a radical group believed to be planning a rocket attack on the US Consulate in Istanbul.
    (SFC, 6/5/99, p.A12)

2000        Jun 4, The play “Copenhagen” by Michael Frayn won the best play Tony at the 54th annual Tony Awards in Manhattan. The dance-play “Contact” won for best new musical. “Kiss Me, Kate” won for best musical revival.
    (SFC, 6/5/00, p.D1)(AP, 6/4/01)
2000        Jun 4, Pres. Clinton and Pres. Putin agreed to each dispose 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium and to establish a military center in Moscow for US and Russian officers to share early warning data on missile and space launches. Clinton then answered questions from the public at the Ekho Moskvy radio station.
    (SFC, 6/5/00, p.A1,8)
2000        Jun 4, In NYC 150 people posed face-down flat nude beneath the Williamsburg Bridge for a photo shoot by Spencer Tunick.
    (SFC, 6/5/00, p.A7)
2000        Jun 4, NASA directed the $670 million, 17-ton, crippled Compton Gamma Ray Observatory into a suicide plunge into the Pacific Ocean in a controlled re-entry to avoid debris over populated areas.
    (SFC, 6/3/00, p.A6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_Gamma_Ray_Observatory)
2000        Jun 4, It was reported that IBM planned to build the “Blue Gene” computer over the next five years to model the way human proteins fold into shapes that give them unique biological properties.
    (SFEC, 6/4/00, p.A12)
2000        Jun 4, A 3-day meeting on trade of the 34-nation OAS, Organization of American States, began in Windsor, Canada. Police arrested 41 protesters.
    (SFEC, 6/4/00, p.A20)(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A9)
2000        Jun 4, In Indonesia a 7.3 earthquake hit Sumatra and over 100 people were killed with relentless aftershocks.
    (SFC, 6/5/00, p.A8)(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A13)
2000        Jun 4, In West Papua separatists made a declaration of independence from Indonesia. Thaha Alhamid read the declaration before thousands gathered in Jayapura. 500 West Papuans had gathered for a “congress” that resulted in the declaration.
    (SFC, 6/5/00, p.A8)(SFC, 7/7/00, p.A12)
2000        Jun 4, In Pakistan a new government tax caused protests and strikes. In Peshawar police broke up a rally with tear gas and batons. Small traders refused to open their shops and transport workers joined the strikes.
    (SFEC, 6/11/00, p.T10)
2000        Jun 4, In the Solomon Islands insurgents of the Malaita Eagle Force militia took Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa’alua hostage in Honiara. The Malaita Force was fighting the Isatabu force, which was trying to drive thousands of migrants from Malaita off of Guadalcanal.
    (SFC, 6/5/00, p.A9)

2001        Jun 4, Pres. Bush spoke in the Florida Everglades and underlined his request for $58 million in the 2002 budget for Everglades restoration.
    (SFC, 6/5/01, p.A3)
2001        Jun 4, It was reported that US Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld had virtually cut off all Pentagon contacts with the Chinese armed forces in displeasure over the spy plane incident. Rumsfeld announced that he had given limited permission to resume military-to-military contacts with China due to the progress in the resolution of the spy plane incident.
    (SFC, 6/4/01, p.A10)(SFC, 6/5/01, p.A12)
2001        Jun 4, Nevada lawmakers approved a bill to legalize Internet gambling and passed a medical marijuana measure.
    (WSJ, 6/5/01, p.A1)
2001        Jun 4, Hewlett-Packard agreed to pay $400 million to Pitney Bowes to settle a 6-year-old patent dispute over printer technology.
    (SFC, 6/5/01, p.C1)
2001        Jun 4, In India government troops battled Islamic rebels on 3 fronts and 23 people were killed. 4 civilians died when a grenade missed a paramilitary bunker and exploded at a crowded bus station.
    (SFC, 6/5/01, p.A14)
2001        Jun 4, As Israeli soldiers and Palestinians exchanged fire in Rafah, Hamas said that it would join the cease-fire.
    (SFC, 6/5/01, p.A12)
2001        Jun 4, In Nepal King Dipendra died 3 days after allegedly shooting the royal family and himself. Prince Gyanendra was named king.
    (SFC, 6/4/01, p.A8)(AP, 6/4/02)
2001        Jun 4, In Russia most of the production of vodka stopped due to the lack of government stamps, which were ordered to fight bootlegging and boost taxes.
    (WSJ, 6/5/01, p.A1)
2001        Jun 4, In Sri Lanka anti-terrorist commandos killed 14 Tamil Tiger rebels trying to infiltrate the Ampara district.
    (SFC, 6/5/01, p.A14)
2001        Jun 4, In Zimbabwe Chenjerai Hunzvi (Hitler Hunzvi), a leader of the war veterans, died at age 51. He had led the violent occupations of white-owned farms.
    (SFC, 6/5/01, p.A14)

2002        Jun 4, Pres. Bush said the CIA and FBI had failed to communicate adequately before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks; Congress began extraordinary closed-door hearings into intelligence lapses.
    (AP, 6/4/03)
2002        Jun 4, Pres. Bush said that he read the new EPA report on global warming, but still opposed the Kyoto treaty.
    (SFC, 6/5/02, p.A3)
2002        Jun 4, Members of Congress initiated an investigation to probe the “evolution of the international terrorist threat” back to 1986.
    (SFC, 6/5/02, p.A1)
2002        Jun 4, A NYC crime sweep arrested 17 alleged members of the Gambino family with charges that included extortion.
    (SFC, 6/5/02, p.A8)
2002        Jun 4, A panel of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops called for a zero-tolerance policy against priests who molest children in the future and a two-strikes-you're-out policy for those guilty of past abuse.
    (AP, 6/4/03)
2002        Jun 4, Japan ratified the Kyoto Protocol, aimed at cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases and urged the US and other countries to do so.
    (AP, 6/4/03)(SFC, 6/5/02, p.A3)
2002        Jun 4, New Zealand's prime minister apologized for mistakes her country made during its 48-year rule over the tiny South Pacific island chain of Samoa.
    (AP, 6/3/02)
2002        Jun 4, In Syria the Zayzoun Dam (b.1996) near Idlib burst and at least 20 people were killed. A 24 square-mile area was flooded and 3 villages submerged.
    (SFC, 6/7/02, p.A13)
2002        Jun 4, Turkish peacekeepers arrived in Afghanistan.
    (WSJ, 6/5/02, p.A1)

2003        Jun 4, Pres. Bush held meetings with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers, hoping to advance a Middle East peace plan after winning new support from top Arab leaders.
    (AP, 6/4/04)
2003        Jun 4, Martha Stewart stepped down as head of her media empire, hours after she was charged with a 9-count federal indictment in a stock trading scandal. Stewart was convicted in March, 2004, of lying about why she'd sold her shares of ImClone Systems stock in 2001, just before the stock price plunged.
    (SFC, 6/5/03, p.A1)(AP, 6/4/04)
2003        Jun 4, Palm Inc. said it would buy rival Handspring in a stock deal valued at $195 mil.
    (SFC, 6/5/03, p.B1)(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.B1)
2003        Jun 4, The Pews Ocean Commission said US waters are so stressed by pollution and overfishing that drastic federal intervention is required.
    (SFC, 6/5/03, p.A8)(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.A1)
2003        Jun 4, Corey Marques Jasmin (20), an airman at Travis Air Force Base, robbed an adult book store in Fairfield, Ca. Hours later he killed two homeless women, Otilia Carrington (48) and Ricksehlla Harrison (29). In 2008 a state appeals court upheld his life sentence without parole.
    (SFC, 9/27/08, p.B2)
2003        Jun 4, Delmar E. Brown (84), renowned fly fisherman, died in Watsonville, Ca. He invented the Del Brown Crab Fly and held a record-setting catch of a tarpon 15 times the test of his line.
    (SSFC, 6/8/03, p.A29)
2003        Jun 4, In Afghanistan 40 Taliban suspects were killed in one of the deadliest exchanges between Taliban and government troops since the hardline religious regime was overthrown in late 2001. 7 government soldiers also died in the nine hours of fighting in three villages north of Spinboldak, near the border with Pakistan.
    (AP, 6/5/03)
2003        Jun 4, In Jordan Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged to dismantle illegal settlements in Palestinian areas, while the new Palestinian leader renounced all terrorism against Israel. Both steps were sought by President Bush as he brought the two sides together in a bid to advance Middle East peace.
    (AP, 6/4/03)
2003        Jun 4, In Laos 2 European journalists and an American were arrested on murder charges. Belgian photojournalist Thierry Falise and French cameraman Vincent Reynaud were arrested with an American of Hmong origin for allegedly helping "bandits" kill a security official in the remote northeastern village of Khai.
    (AP, 6/11/03)
2003        Jun 4, In Nepal King Gyanendra appointed a pro-monarchist Wednesday as Nepal's new PM. Surya Bahadur Thapa replaces Lokendra Bahadur Chand, who resigned last week.
    (AP, 6/4/03)
2003        Jun 4, A UN-backed war crimes court indicted Liberian Pres. Charles Taylor, accusing him of "the greatest responsibility" in the vicious 10-year civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.
    (AP, 6/4/03)
2003        Jun 4, The Peruvian government failed to meet wage demands by striking teachers, who vowed to extend a 24-day walkout that triggered nationwide protests and prompted President Alejandro Toledo to declare a state of emergency.
    (AP, 6/5/03)
2003        Jun 4, The UN Security Council agreed to end a ban on the export of so-called "blood diamonds" from Sierra Leone because of government efforts to control the diamond industry.
    (AP, 6/4/03)
2003        Jun 4, Togo President Gen. Gnassingbe Eyadema, was declared winner of questioned presidential elections.
    (AP, 6/4/03)
2003        Jun 4, In Vietnam Truong Van Cam, reputed underworld boss, was found guilty of 7 crimes. 154 alleged associates included high-ranking government officials. He was sentenced to death the next day.
    (SFC, 6/5/03, p.A3)

2004        Jun 4, Pres. Bush nominated John Danforth, former Republican senator from Missouri, to be US ambassador to the UN.
    (SFC, 6/5/04, A3)
2004        Jun 4, Pope John Paul II met with President Bush and reminded him of the Vatican's opposition to the war in Iraq.
    (AP, 6/4/04)
2004        Jun 4, In Granby, Colo., Marvin Heemeyer, a muffler shop owner, tore through town in a plated bulldozer in anger over a zoning dispute, before shooting himself dead.
    (SFC, 6/5/04, A3)
2004        Jun 4, In southern Afghanistan U.S. troops and warplanes attacked Taliban rebels besieging a remote checkpoint. Eight militants were killed.
    (AP, 6/5/04)
2004        Jun 4, In Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva designated four new national forests to protect more than a million acres of rainforest.
    (AP, 6/4/04)
2004        Jun 4, In Colombia Francisco Galan, jailed leader of the ELN, was granted a 1-day parole to address the Senate. He denounced the problem of landmines and called for an end to the country’s violence.
    (Econ, 6/12/04, p.36)
2004        Jun 4, In Hong Kong tens of thousands of residents rallied on the 15th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.
    (AP, 6/5/04)
2004        Jun 4, American and Shiite militia forces agreed to withdraw from the holy cities of Najaf and Kufa and turn over security to Iraqi police. 5 Americans were killed and 5 wounded in 3 clashes in Sadr City. US combat deaths reached 601.
    (AP, 6/4/04)(SFC, 6/5/04, A1)
2004        Jun 4, The two Koreas agreed, after an all-night negotiating session, to try to ease tensions by, among other things, ending blaring propaganda efforts on their border.
    (AP, 6/4/04)
2004        Jun 4, Nigerian troops killed 17 armed bandits in oil-rich Delta state, as military operations intensified to disarm criminals engaged in oil theft and piracy in the Niger delta.
    (Reuters, 6/5/04)
2004        Jun 4, In central Russia a bomb hidden behind a kiosk exploded in a crowded market in Samara. 10 people were killed and 37 wounding.
    (AP, 6/5/04)
2004        Jun 4-6, The Shangri-La Dialogue, a regional security conference, was held in Singapore. It was organized by the London-based Int’l. Institute for Strategic Studies.
    (Econ, 6/12/04, p.37)

2005        Jun 4, The White House downplayed a Pentagon report detailing incidents in which U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay prison desecrated the Quran, saying in a statement, "It is unfortunate that some have chosen to take out of context a few isolated incidents by a few individuals."
    (AP, 6/4/06)
2005        Jun 4, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said China is not a threat to the US but is building up its military without being threatened by any other country. The US commerce secretary warned China of a potential political backlash in Washington amid tensions over mounting Chinese trade surpluses, surging textile exports and rampant product piracy.
    (AP, 6/4/05)
2005        Jun 4, It was reported that Larry Ellison, head of Oracle Corp., planned to create a database and journal to track improvements in world health through a joint venture with Harvard that would be accompanied by as much as $115 million. In 2006 Ellison decided against the donation due to the resignation of Pres. Lawrence Summers.
    (SFC, 6/4/05, p.C1)(SFC, 6/28/06, p.C1)
2005        Jun 4, In Afghanistan Haji Sultan, division commander for the Taliban, was arrested with Mullah Mohammad Rahim, another senior Taliban official, in the western Farah province.
    (AP, 6/5/05)
2005        Jun 4, Australian officials said a senior Chinese diplomat has sought Australian government protection for himself and his family, claiming he faces persecution if he goes home. Analysts said Chen Yonglin's defection could muddy Canberra's relations with Beijing.
    (AP, 6/4/05)
2005        Jun 4, Thousands of opposition protesters chanted "Freedom!" and carried pictures of President Bush as they marched across Azerbaijan's capital, urging the government of this U.S. ally to step down and allow free parliamentary elections this year.
    (AP, 6/4/05)
2005        Jun 4, Bangladesh police arrested the 2nd wife of former president Hussain Mohammad Ershad (1982-1990), after he accused her of stealing money and threatening his life.
    (AP, 6/4/05)
2005        Jun 4, In Canada Bernard Landry resigned as leader of the Parti Quebecois.
    (CP, 6/5/05)
2005        Jun 4, Masked Chechen soldiers apparently avenging the killing of a woodcutter raided a tiny village, beat and killed residents and set homes afire. The raid in Borozdinovskaya pitted ethnic Chechens against ethnic Avars, marking the first serious conflict between the two groups. Villagers, failing to attract local authorities' attention to the abuses, abandoned their houses June 16 and fled to nearby Kizlyar in Dagestan.
    (AP, 6/26/05)
2005        Jun 4, It was reported that the death rate on China’s roads, according to the WHO, was 680 per day plus 45,000 injuries. American traffic deaths in contrast were at 115 per day.
    (Econ, 6/4/05, p.25)
2005        Jun 4, Justine Henin-Hardenne beat Mary Pierce 6-1, 6-1 to win the French Open women's singles title.
    (AP, 6/4/06)
2005        Jun 4, In Haiti police killed at least 4 people and burned 12 homes during raids against gang members in a slum filled with supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
    (AP, 6/5/05)
2005        Jun 4, Iraqi police arrested Mutlaq Mahmoud Mutlaq Abdullah, also known as Abu Raad, a key aide to the leader of the Mosul branch of the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group. A suicide car bomber blew himself up at an Iraqi police checkpoint on a main road connecting northern Mosul with the nearby city of Tal Afar, killing two officers and wounding four. Iraqi and US troops discovered 50 weapons and ammunition caches and a huge underground bunker west of the capital fitted out with air conditioning, a kitchen and showers.
    (AP, 6/5/05)
2005        Jun 4, In Northern Ireland Terence Davison (49), a reputed IRA veteran, was arraigned for the Jan 30 killing of Robert McCartney.
    (SSFC, 6/5/05, p.A3)
2005        Jun 4, In Laos after decades on the run, 170 women, children and old men of the Hmong ethnic minority, once part of a U.S.-backed secret army fighting communists, emerged from their jungle hideouts to surrender to the government.
    (AP, 6/4/05)
2005        Jun 4-2005 Jun 5, An overnight border raid by al-Qaida-linked insurgents in Mgheiti, a remote Mauritanian army post in the northern desert, sparked a gunbattle that killed 15 Mauritanian troops and nine attackers. Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat claimed responsibility for the attack.
    (AP, 6/5/05)(AP, 8/3/05)
2005        Jun 4, Hundreds of activists gathered in southern Nigeria to rally support for an opposition conference, backed by the Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, to end ethnic and political violence in Africa's most populous nation.
    (AP, 6/4/05)
2005        Jun 4, In Pakistan Gul Hassan, Islamic militant and member of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, was convicted and sentenced to death for planning two suicide attacks that killed 45 minority Shiite Muslims on May 7 and May 31, 2004, at mosques in Karachi.
    (AP, 6/4/05)

2006        Jun 4, The US military said dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees have abandoned a hunger strike, lowering the number of inmates refusing food to 18.
    (AP, 6/4/06)
2006        Jun 4, A suicide car bomb exploded in Kandahar city near a convoy carrying the governor of Afghanistan's Kandahar province, missing the apparent target but killing 3 civilians and injuring a dozen. In Farah province 4 policemen were killed. In Zabul province Afghan troops on a joint mission with soldiers from the US-led coalition killed around five Taliban fighters and arrested three more. In Helmand province troops with the US-led coalition and Afghan army clashed with a group of rebel fighters, five of whom were killed.
    (AP, 6/4/06)(AFP, 6/5/06)
2006        Jun 4-2006 Jun 5, In Afghanistan 17 suspected militants were killed in three operations. Two coalition soldiers were wounded in one of those battles.
    (AP, 6/7/06)
2006        Jun 4, The Czech republic faced weeks of uncertainty or even fresh elections after a deadlock between center-right and leftist parties in weekend general elections.
    (AP, 6/4/06)
2006        Jun 4, In East Timor gangs burned half a dozen buildings near the airport in Dili as residents pleaded for a permanent police presence in their neighborhoods to stop the violence.
    (AP, 6/4/06)
2006        Jun 4, Nikos Palaiokostas (46), one of the most wanted men in Greece, pulled off a daring jail break, landing a helicopter in the Korydallos prison yard to pick up his brother and another inmate before fleeing in a fog of smoke.
    (AP, 6/5/06)
2006        Jun 4, In India 9 people died in lightning strikes as the death toll from the early monsoon hit 118. Some 25,000 people were displaced by flooding.
    (AP, 6/4/06)
2006        Jun 4, Gunmen dragged passengers off 2 minibuses northeast of Baghdad and killed 21 people, including a dozen high school students. The attackers spared four Sunni Arabs in one the worst sectarian atrocities in recent weeks. A gunbattle broke out after Iraqi police surrounded a Sunni Arab mosque in the southern city of Basra, leaving at least 9 people dead.
    (AP, 6/4/06)(WSJ, 6/5/06, p.A1)
2006        Jun 4, In Nigeria 8 foreign oil workers, kidnapped on June 2, were released. Police declined to say whether a ransom was paid and did not say who was responsible for the hostage-taking.
    (AP, 6/4/06)
2006        Jun 4, The Hamas-led Palestinian government rejected a deadline to accept a proposal that implicitly recognizes Israel, saying President Mahmoud Abbas' plan for a referendum on the matter is illegal. Members of a new, unarmed security force loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas deployed in Jenin in a move that residents feared could provoke clashes with rival factions.
    (AP, 6/4/06)(Reuters, 6/4/06)
2006        Jun 4, Peruvians faced a choice in runoff presidential elections between former president Alan Garcia (57), and Ollanta Humala (43), a fiery political newcomer pledging to punish a corrupt political establishment. Garcia beat Humala, a nationalist backed by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, to regain control of the country 16 years after his first presidential term ended in economic ruin and rebel violence. Garcia’s American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party held only 36 of 120 seats in Congress.
    (AP, 6/4/06)(AP, 6/5/06)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.36)
2006        Jun 4, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Vietnam for a visit aimed at boosting security ties with a former foe that now shares American wariness about China's rising military might.
    (AP, 6/4/06)

2007        Jun 4, President Bush left on an eight-day European trip that included a Group of Eight (G8) summit in Germany.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2007        Jun 4, Two US military judges dismissed charges against a Guantanamo detainee accused of chauffeuring Osama bin Laden and another who allegedly killed a US soldier in Afghanistan. Salim Ahmed Hamdan of Yemen and Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was 15 when he was arrested on an Afghan battlefield, were the only two of the roughly 380 prisoners at Guantanamo charged with crimes under a reconstituted military trial system.
    (AP, 6/5/07)
2007        Jun 4, US Rep. William Jefferson, a Democrat from Louisiana, was indicted for graft involving Nigerian business schemes that netted him over $500,000 in bribes. Jefferson has maintained his innocence.
    (WSJ, 6/5/07, p.A1)(AP, 6/4/08)
2007        Jun 4, In California 9 Hmong leaders, Gen. Vang Pao, a former Laotian military general, and Harrison Jack, a former officer in the California National Guard, were arrested during a sweep by more than 200 federal, state and local agents for their alleged plot, hatched last winter, to overthrow the communist government of Laos. They were charged with violating the US federal Neutrality Act. In 2009 federal prosecutors in Sacramento, Ca., dismissed charges against Vang Pao.
    (AP, 6/5/07)(SFC, 5/12/09, p.A5)(SFC, 9/19/09, p.A1)
2007        Jun 4, A small plane from Milwaukee carrying a six-member organ transplant team and their cargo of donor organs to Michigan crashed in Lake Michigan with no survivors.
    (AP, 6/5/07)
2007        Jun 4, In Portage, Wisconsin, Tammie Garlin was killed. Felicia Garlin (15) and Michaela Clerc (20) had kicked her, then later that day carried her into the bathroom, where Clerc dropped her head on the floor. A roving band of suspected identity thieves buried her in the backyard and locked her bloody and beaten 11-year-old son in an upstairs closet. Authorities reached the house on June 14.
    (AP, 6/21/07)
2007        Jun 4, Jim Clark (84), sheriff and segregationist from Alabama, died. He turned back the 1965 civil rights march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge leaving 57 people injured. National revulsion led to the Voting Rights Act later that year.
    (Econ, 6/16/07, p.99)
2007        Jun 4, US Sen. Craig Thompson (74), 3-term Republican conservative from Wyoming, died of leukemia.
    (SFC, 6/5/07, p.A5)
2007        Jun 4, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iranian weapons have begun flowing into Afghanistan, but he and Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed involvement by Tehran cannot yet be proved. Six Taliban rebels were killed in a gunfight with Afghan and NATO-led troops in the eastern province of Paktia. Afghan forces sank a boat in the Helmand River carrying suspected Taliban fighters fleeing an attack, and more than 20 drowned. In a separate gunbattle and airstrikes killed an estimated two dozen militants. Roadside bombs killed two Afghan soldiers and wounded five in southern Afghanistan.
    (AP, 6/4/07)(AFP, 6/4/07)(AP, 6/5/07)
2007        Jun 4, Scientists said a frog with fluorescent purple markings and 12 kinds of dung beetles were among two dozen new species discovered in the remote plateaus of eastern Suriname.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, In Algeria Hassan Hattab, fugitive founder of the extremist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for setting up an armed terrorist group by a court in Tizi-Ouzou.
    (AFP, 6/6/07)
2007        Jun 4, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that rich nations should pay poorer countries to preserve their forests because the rich are responsible for most of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Police formally accused a brother of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of influence peddling after a nationwide crackdown on illegal gambling. About 600 Federal Police agents took part in the raids carrying 87 arrest warrants and another 50 search and seizure warrants in six states as part of Operation Razor, an investigation into fraudulent public works (www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/8320/54/).
    (AP, 6/4/07)(AP, 6/5/07)(www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/8320/54/)
2007        Jun 4, PM Tony Blair said the British government is to boost funding to help train Muslim imams at universities and to step up the promotion of moderate Islam.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, China promised to better control emissions of greenhouse gases, unveiling a national program to combat global warming, but rejected mandatory caps on emissions as unfair to countries still trying to catch up with the developed West. The government also said it will license no new Internet cafes this year while regulators carry out an industry-wide inspection, amid official concern that online material is harming young people.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, Cambodian and foreign judges began a weeklong meeting to confirm rules for the much-delayed genocide trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders, blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, In Colombia Rodrigo Granda, the highest-ranking jailed member of the country's main guerrilla group, was freed by the government as part of a wider prisoner release intended to help secure the freedom of 60 hostages, including three Americans, held by the guerrillas. There is no explanation for why these particular captives are to be freed. Police officer Guillermo Solorzano was seized by the FARC.
    (AP, 6/4/07)(AP, 12/23/10)
2007        Jun 4, In Germany hundreds of protesters clashed with police ahead of this week's G8 meeting, as anti-globalization activists challenged attempts by security officials to keep them away from the summit town of Heiligendamm. Nearly 1000 officers and protesters were already injured in clashes.
    (AP, 6/4/07)(WSJ, 6/4/07, p.A1)
2007        Jun 4, Emerging economic powers India and Brazil pledged to increase bilateral trade four-fold to 10 billion dollars in the next three years.
    (AFP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, The NY Times said US-led forces have control of fewer than one-third of Baghdad's neighborhoods despite thousands of extra troops nearly four months into a security crackdown. Insurgents posted a video claiming to have killed the 3 US soldiers who went missing May 12. The body of Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr. was later recovered; a year later Spc. Alex Jimenez and Pvt. Byron Fouty remained missing. Iraqi police said at least 6 people were killed and 14 were wounded in 3 separate bombings in Baghdad. At least 16 other people were killed or found dead in attacks elsewhere, including a pregnant woman who died in a mortar barrage targeting a US base in Fallujah.
    (AP, 6/4/07)(SFC, 6/5/07, p.A13)(AP, 6/4/08)
2007        Jun 4, Violence sparked by a two-week old confrontation between the Lebanese army and al-Qaida inspired militants spread to a second Palestinian refugee camp in the southern part of the country, killing two soldiers.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, Experts warned at a conference in Nepal's capital that Himalayan glaciers are retreating fast and could disappear within the next 50 years.
    (AFP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, Thousands of survivors of Europe's worst massacre since World War II filed a lawsuit against the UN and the Dutch government for their failure to protect civilians in the Srebrenica safe haven when Bosnian Serb forces overran it in 1995 and slaughtered some 8,000 men.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, Charles Taylor boycotted the start of his Liberia war-crimes trial at the Hague.
    (WSJ, 6/5/07, p.A1)
2007        Jun 4, The Nigerian police said military troops stormed a hideout in Ebonyi state and freed one of two Chinese workers abducted by unknown gunmen on Mar 17.
    (AFP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, Oman evacuated an island as Cyclone Gonu drew near the Persian Gulf.
    (WSJ, 6/5/07, p.A1)
2007        Jun 4, Pres. Musharraf signed a decree giving a government regulating agency stronger powers over the news media and the ability to rewrite regulations without recourse to Parliament. Hundreds of demonstrators chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf after the alleged blocking of three private television news channels by the Pakistani authorities. Police arrested Attaur Rehman and Faisal Bhatti in Kashmor, a town about 300 miles northeast of Karachi, in association with the 2002 murder of Daniel Pearl. Police later said the 2 men had been in custody since 2002.
    (SFC, 6/7/07, p.A4)(AFP, 6/4/07)(AP, 6/5/07)(WSJ, 6/13/07, p.A1)
2007        Jun 4, Senegal defended the low poll turnout used by critics to put a question mark on the legitimacy of weekend legislative elections, saying the west African nation had never had enthusiastic voters. A 17-party opposition grouping had called for an unprecedented boycott of the ballot, which looked set to be won by President Abdoulaye Wade's ruling party.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, In Somalia Ethiopian troops fired at a would-be suicide bomber speeding toward their base, blowing up the car and killing the bomber and a civilian standing nearby.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, The Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) said a study of mortality patterns in South Africa, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania and Senegal indicated Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis was reaching deep into elected governments.
    (Reuters, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, South African police fired stun grenades and made a dozen arrests as they cracked down on union hardliners who were preventing nurses from turning up for work at a hospital in Durban.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, The TED organization (Technology, Entertainment, Design) gathered in Tanzania for a 4 day session to discuss ideas for helping the poor of Africa.
    (Econ, 6/23/07, p.55)(www.ted.com/pages/view/id/49)
2007        Jun 4, Seven Turkish paramilitary police were killed when Kurdish militants attacked their headquarters in eastern Tunceli province.
    (AP, 6/4/07)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.58)
2007        Jun 4, The UN warned in a report that up to 12% of Arctic ice has turned to water in the past 30 years, an alarming fact that only accelerates global warming further.
    (AP, 6/4/07)
2007        Jun 4, In Venezuela thousands of university students, their hands painted white as a symbol of nonviolence returned to the streets of Caracas, keeping up a week of protests against President Hugo Chavez's decision to force a popular TV station off the air.
    (AP, 6/4/07)

2008        Jun 4, In Arizona Travis Alexander (30) died at his home in Mesa after he was stabbed and shot in the head by his girlfriend Jodi Arias (28). Arias later pleaded self-defense.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Travis_Alexander)(SFC, 5/4/13, p.A6)
2008        Jun 4, California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought after two years of below-average rainfall, low snowmelt runoff and a court-ordered restriction on water transfers.
    (AP, 6/5/08)
2008        Jun 4, In New York Thomas Gioeli (Tommy Shots), said to be the acting boss of the Colombo organized crime family, was arrested along with 8 other suspected gangsters on federal charges of coast to coast Mafia crimes.
    (SFC, 6/5/08, p.A3)
2008        Jun 4, Google said it had signed a lease for 42 acres at Moffet Field, a former naval air station near Mountain View, Ca. The deal called for an initial annual rent of $3.7 million to the NASA Ames space agency.
    (SFC, 6/5/08, p.C1)
2008        Jun 4, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, called on Muslims to launch a holy war to break Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, in an audio recording posted on an Islamic militant Internet site.
    (AP, 6/5/08)
2008        Jun 4, In Afghanistan 2 suicide bombs killed 2 people and wounded several others near the Pakistan border.
    (SFC, 6/5/08, p.A3)
2008        Jun 4, In Algeria 2 simultaneous bombs in Bordj El Kiffan, a suburb of Algiers, killed a suicide bomber and injured six others. The blasts targeted a barracks and a seaside café.
    (AFP, 6/6/08)
2008        Jun 4, In Bangladesh more than 1,700 people were detained in the past 24 hours. That takes the number of detainees to more than 10,000 since May 30 in a drive to improve law and order before national elections planned for late this year.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, In Belgium riot police armed with shields and batons charged hundreds of protesting fishermen outside EU headquarters after a demonstration over high fuel prices turned violent.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, In Bosnia genocide charges were filed against Vaso Todorovic (40), a former Bosnian Serb police officer. He was accused of taking part in the 1995 massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims, Europe's worst slaughter since World War II.
    (www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20080604-0441-bosnia-warcrimes.html)
2008        Jun 4, British officials said an outbreak of the H7 strain of bird flu at a farm in central England is "highly pathogenic." All the chickens on the farm were slaughtered following detection of the virus in Banbury, Oxfordshire.
    (AFP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, Jonathan Routh (80), English prankster and former star of Candid Camera, died. His books included “The Good Loo Guide: Where to Go in London” (1965)
    (Econ, 6/21/08, p.105)(www.economicexpert.com/a/Jonathan:Routh.htm)
2008        Jun 4, In Canada angry autoworkers blockaded the entrance to General Motors of Canada headquarters in Oshawa, Ontario, one day after GM said it would shut its Oshawa truck plant as well as 2 plants in the US and one in Mexico.
    (Reuters, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, Chinese police blocked access to a school that collapsed in last month's massive earthquake, a day after breaking up a protest by parents of students who died in the disaster.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, In Haiti thousands of protesters, bearing photographs of victims and with fists thrust in the air, marched through Port-au-Prince to demand that officials crack down on a kidnapping scourge. UN police said more than 157 people have been kidnapped this year in Haiti, up 10 percent from last year.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, Indonesian police launched a major crackdown on Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a radical Islamist group blamed for a weekend attack on a rally for religious tolerance, arresting 59 including the outfit's firebrand leader.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, Iraq’s parliament approved a bill to combat oil smuggling. To become a law, the measure needs the signature of Iraq's three-member presidential council. A suicide truck bomber struck near the Baghdad home of an Iraqi police general, killing 16 people in the biggest such attack on the capital in months. A 2nd car bomb killed 7 people, including 3 police commandos, in the Jadriya neighborhood of Baghdad. Iraqi police said they uncovered a large weapons cache near Samarra. The US military said it detained nine suspects and destroyed two "terrorist safe houses" in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq across central and northern parts of the country. 3 US soldiers were shot dead in northern Tamim province.
    (AP, 6/4/08)(AP, 6/5/08)(SFC, 6/5/08, p.A3)
2008        Jun 4, The Israeli army says it has closed the Gaza fuel crossing after an errant rocket fired by militants wounded a Palestinian worker at the terminal.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, A Mexican court sentenced Mario Villanueva, a former Quintana Roo state governor (1993-1996), to 36 years in prison for fomenting drug trafficking, overturning an earlier ruling that had imposed six years on lesser charges. A husband and wife, both state police officers, were shot dead while leaving their home in Ciudad Juarez, the border city where drug gangs have stepped up attacks against security forces.
    (AP, 6/5/08)(AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, The rival parties in Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration announced a deal that will permit both sides to elect a new leader and keep their unlikely coalition running.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, Officials said Pakistan’s PM Yousuf Raza Gilani has moved suspend peace negotiations with tribal groups along the border with Afghanistan, until they agree to new conditions including the cessation of all activities in Afghanistan. In northwest Pakistan a bomb explosion ripped through a video shop in a business center, killing 3 people and wounding 3.
    (WSJ, 6/5/08, p.A8)(AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, Scientists issued warnings about the puffin’s future as the population of the orange-beaked seabird off Scotland's east coast has dropped by nearly a third in less than five years.
    (AP, 6/5/08)
2008        Jun 4, In Sri Lanka a bomb blast targeting a passenger train wounded 18 bystanders in Colombo in the latest attack on civilians in the island nation. Tamil Tigers reportedly killed 10 soldiers while security forces reportedly killed 35 rebels during the heavy clashes across the island's north. According to the defense ministry, 4,068 Tamil Tigers and 335 government troops have been killed since January.
    (AP, 6/4/08)(AFP, 6/5/08)
2008        Jun 4-2008 Jun 5, In South Sudan more than 20 people were killed, including soldiers and several children, in Ugandan rebel attacks near the border with Congo. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) guerrillas had targeted the villages of Nabanga and Yamba.
    (AFP, 6/7/08)
2008        Jun 4, Swiss pharmaceutical Novartis announced it had bought Protez Pharmaceuticals for $100 million (64.8 million euros), thus acquiring the rights to a new antibiotic.
    (AP, 6/4/08)
2008        Jun 4, An undetermined amount of fuel oil was released after the Greece-registered Syros slammed against the Malta-registered Sea Bird near Montevideo, Uruguay.
    (AP, 6/5/08)
2008        Jun 4, Zimbabwe police detained opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai after his convoy was stopped at a roadblock. The director of a national NGO association said Zimbabwe has ordered aid groups Save the Children UK, CARE International and ADRA to stop work in the country immediately due to alleged political interference.
    (AP, 6/4/08)(AFP, 6/4/08)(WSJ, 6/4/08, p.A1)

2009        Jun 4, Pres. Obama spoke in Cairo and touched on many themes Muslims wanted to hear in the highly anticipated speech broadcast live across much of the Middle East and elsewhere across the Muslim world. Muslims praised Obama's address as a positive shift in US attitude and tone. But hard-liners criticized it as style over substance and said it lacked concrete proposals to turn the words into action.
    (AP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, Angelo Mozilo, the man who rode the housing boom to build Countrywide Financial Corp. into a California colossus of high-risk mortgage lending, was charged with civil fraud and illegal insider trading by federal regulators who accuse him of deceiving shareholders and profiting on confidential information. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed civil fraud charges against two other former executives of Countrywide.
    (AP, 6/5/09)
2009        Jun 4, South Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered Gov. Mark Sanford to request $700 million in federal stimulus money, which was aimed primarily at struggling schools.
    (SFC, 6/5/09, p.A6)
2009        Jun 4, In Tennessee handguns will soon be allowed in bars and restaurants under a new law passed by state legislators who voted to override Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen's veto. The legislation takes effect July 14 and retains an existing ban on consuming alcohol while carrying a handgun. Restaurant owners can still opt to ban weapons from their establishments.
    (AP, 6/5/09)
2009        Jun 4, In Afghanistan insurgents killed three US soldiers in a bomb and small-arms attack on their vehicle in Kapisa province, considered a stronghold of insurgents loyal to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. A man was killed in Nangarhar by a bomb he was trying to plant inside a university faculty. Police found the body of Yeiya Mulaye Azhar, a candidate in the provincial elections in Wardak province. he had been kidnapped 11 days earlier.
    (AP, 6/4/09)(AP, 6/5/09)(SFC, 6/5/09, p.A2)
2009        Jun 4, Australia's Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon (47) stepped down after a series of scandals, in the first major embarrassment for PM Kevin Rudd. Fitzgibbon had been under pressure since March when he admitted not declaring to parliamentary authorities two trips to China paid for by wealthy businesswoman Helen Liu.
    (AP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, British naturalist Sir David Attenborough won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias social sciences prize for his "great contributions to the defense of life and conservation of our planet."
    (AP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, China aggressively deterred dissent in Beijing on the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square. But tens of thousands turned out for a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to mourn the many demonstrators who were killed.
    (AP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, Ethiopia charged 46 people, most of them ex-military, of plotting to assassinate government officials. Ethiopia also said it has undertaken military reconnaissance operations in Somalia, but is not planning to re-deploy.
    (AFP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, About 375 million voters across the 27-nation European Union began 4 days of voting, to appoint candidates to 736 seats on the assembly in the second-largest election in the world after India's. Voting began in Britain and the Netherlands.
    (AP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, In Germany the federal and state governments approved an €18 billion plan to create more university places, boost funding for research and cultivate a small group of elite institutions.
    (Econ, 6/27/09, p.57)
2009        Jun 4, Guatemala's anti-drug prosecutor said that thousands of bullets and grenades that were part of a Mexican drug cartel's weapons cache belong to the Guatemalan army. In the April weapons seizure, police also found eight anti-personnel mines, 11 M60 machine guns, bullet proof vests and two armored cars that investigators say belong to the Zetas, a group of assassins for Mexico's Gulf drug cartel.
    (AP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, In northern Iraq an American soldier was killed in a grenade attack in Tamim province. Another American soldier was killed in a grenade attack north of Baghdad.
    (AP, 6/4/09)(AP, 6/5/09)
2009        Jun 4, Mexican police found 11 bodies, most with their hands and feet cut off, inside an abandoned car in the border state of Sonora in violence attributed to drug traffickers battling for control of the region.
    (AP, 6/5/09)
2009        Jun 4, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua made a new offer of amnesty to militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta, after earlier rejection by armed opponents.
    (AFP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, Palestinian police killed two Hamas militants after the men opened fire at security forces who had surrounded their underground hideout in Qalqiliya. One officer was also killed in the operation, part of an intensifying crackdown on Islamic militants in this West Bank town.
    (AP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, Sri Lanka's navy seized a foreign-owned ship loaded with medical, food and other supplies for war-hit civilians, saying the vessel had entered its territorial waters illegally.
    (AFP, 6/4/09)
2009        Jun 4, David Carradine (72), star of TV series "Kung Fu" (1972-1975), was found dead in Thailand. At first suicide was suspected but a forensics expert said circumstances suggested that he may have died from autoerotic asphyxiation. His career had roared back to life when he played the assassin-turned-victim in Quentin Tarentino's "Kill Bill" (2003).
    (AP, 6/4/09)(SFC, 6/6/09, p.E3)
2009        Jun 4, Venezuelan prosecutors charged Guillermo Zuloaga (67), president of the anti-government television station Globovision, with usury. This ended a weeks-long investigation into his business activities that Zuloaga called politically motivated.
    (AP, 6/5/09)

2010        Jun 4, Anamika Veeramani (14), an Indian-American from North Royalton, Ohio, won the 83rd Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC. She claimed a trophy and more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.
    (AP, 6/5/10)
2010        Jun 4, Mahmoud Reza Banki (33), an Ivy League-educated man whose family sent him millions of dollars from Iran, was convicted of violating the Iran trade embargo and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Banki, born in Tehran, faced up to 25 years in prison. He has been a US citizen since 1996.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, In Oregon Kyron Horman (7) was last seen at his Portland school. A criminal investigation was opened on June 13.
    (SFC, 6/14/10, p.A6)
2010        Jun 4, Workers for Bank of America Corp, one of the nation's largest employers, sued the company for allegedly failing to pay overtime and other wages.
    (Reuters, 6/5/10)
2010        Jun 4, Cadmium has been discovered in the painted design on "Shrek"-themed drinking glasses being sold nationwide at McDonald's, forcing the burger giant to recall 12 million of the cheap US-made collectibles while dramatically expanding contamination concerns about the toxic metal beyond imported children's jewelry.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, The Falcon 9, a SpaceX test rocket, blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its maiden voyage and reached orbit. Space Exploration Technologies was founded by Elon Musk, an Internet entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal. NASA hoped to use the rocket to haul cargo.
    (SFC, 6/4/10, p.A9)
2010        Jun 4, Richard Dunn (73), a longtime character actor who frequently collaborated with comics Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, died after being unconscious several days. He often appeared on "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup. Dunn also had bit parts on shows including "Nip/Tuck," "Weeds" and "House."
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, John Wooden (99), college basketball's gentlemanly Wizard of Westwood, died. He built one of the greatest dynasties in all of sports at UCLA and became one of the most revered coaches ever.
    (AP, 6/5/10)
2010        Jun 4, An Afghan national peace conference urged the government to take formal steps toward negotiating with insurgents, boosting President Hamid Karzai's plans to open talks with the Taliban. NATO forces said NATO and Afghan troops have killed Mullah Zergay, a top Taliban commander for Kandahar city, along with several of his guards last week. 2 British soldiers were killed in a gunbattle with insurgents in southern Helmand province. NATO aircraft pounded a target in Kunar province, killing 9 Taliban militants including 3 Pakistanis. Three insurgents were killed and four wounded in a gunbattle with Afghan forces in Ghazni province.
    (AP, 6/4/10)(AP, 6/5/10)
2010        Jun 4, Brazil’s Congress passed its “ficha limpa” (clean record) law. It barred candidates for eight years following a conviction for vote buying or misuse of public funds.
    (Econ, 9/28/13, SR p.15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficha_Limpa)
2010        Jun 4, Burundi's main Tutsi party followed five opposition parties in pulling out from the central African nation's June presidential poll, leaving serving leader Pierre Nkurunziza as the sole candidate.
    (AFP, 6/5/10)
2010        Jun 4, A University of Chile study, ordered up by the country's Supreme Court, said late dictator Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006) had amassed a fortune of $21 million, of which less than 10 percent was justified by his military salary.
    (AP, 6/5/10)
2010        Jun 4, France's Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux was convicted of making racist comments and ordered to pay compensation in a controversy that prompted calls for his resignation. He was also fined euro750 ($900) and ordered to pay euro2,000 ($2,400) to an anti-racism group.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, Tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents marked the bloody 1989 Tiananmen crackdown with a candle-lit vigil, as agitation against Beijing intensifies in the former British colony.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, Iran's top authority accused the pro-reform opposition of betraying the legacy of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as hundreds of thousands rallied to mark the 21st anniversary of the revolutionary leader's death.
    (Reuters, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, In Japan Naoto Kan (63), a straight-talking populist, was named the new prime minister. He faced a host of daunting tasks, from reviving the nation's stagnant economy to cutting back its ballooning national debt.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq announced they had ended their unilateral ceasefire with Turkey a day after Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani met Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and pledged "all efforts" to stop rising rebel violence.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, A Lebanese policeman died after he was critically wounded by a bomblet from a cluster bomb, one of millions dropped by Israel during a devastating 2006 war with Hezbollah.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, Robert Kelley, a former senior UN nuclear inspector, said secret documents and hundreds of photos smuggled out of Myanmar by an army defector indicate its military regime is trying to develop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, A Dutch court ordered 10 suspected Somali pirates to be extradited to Germany, where Hamburg prosecutors want to charge them with hijacking a German container ship.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, A senior Nigerian official said lead poisoning caused by illegal gold mining has killed 163 Nigerians, including 111 children, since March in several northern remote villages.
    (Reuters, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, A North Korean border guard shot and killed three Chinese citizens and wounded a fourth on the countries' border, apparently on suspicion they were crossing the border for illegal trade. China son lodged a formal diplomatic protest.
    (AP, 6/8/10)
2010        Jun 4, The Rachel Corrie activist ship kept its course for a June 5 arrival in Gaza as world anger simmered over Israel's deadly raid on an earlier blockade-busting bid.
    (AFP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, South Korea handed over a letter officially referring North Korea to the UN Security Council over the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, which left 46 sailors killed.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, In South Korea finance chiefs of the Group of 20 leading economies worked to craft an agenda for keeping the global recovery on track and fending off future crises, sidestepping conflicts to present a united show of support for Europe's $1 trillion bailout.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, Turkey’s Deputy PM Bulent Arinc said Turkey will reduce economic and defense ties with Israel, but bilateral cooperation will not be entirely frozen after the Gaza ship raid.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, Pope Benedict XVI began a pilgrimage to Cyprus bringing a message of peace to the region as Greek Cypriot leaders made a blistering attack on Turkey for its occupation of northern Cyprus.
    (AP, 6/4/10)
2010        Jun 4, In Zambia press freedom campaigner and newspaper publisher Fred M'membe was sentenced to four months imprisonment with hard labor. He was convicted of publishing critical comment on state maternity services after an editor faced pornography charges for e-mailing officials photos of the woman giving birth to illustrate the consequences of a health workers' strike. She was later acquitted.
    (AP, 6/5/10)
2010        Jun 4, Zimbabwe's first private daily newspaper hit the streets to break a state monopoly established years ago after President Robert Mugabe's government banned a pro-opposition newspaper over a registration dispute.
    (Reuters, 6/4/10)

2011        Jun 4, The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary project, begun 1921, was reported complete. It comprised 21 volumes of Akkadian, a Semitic language (with several dialects, including Assyrian) that endured for 2,500 years.
    (AP, 6/4/11)
2011            Jun 4, A newly released Gallup Poll showed that Americans continue to strongly identify with religious belief. According to the poll of more than 1000 respondents across the United States, nine out of ten (92%) expressed a belief in God, a percentage that has remained relatively stable over the past four decades. There were some regional differences: Only 86% of Easterners were believers, while in the South, 96% said they believed in God.  
            (Atlantic Monthly, 6/4/11)(http://tinyurl.com/64qhsuv)
2011        Jun 4, San Francisco firefighter Anthony Valerio (53) died of his injuries from the June 2 fire in Diamond Heights. He was the 2nd firefighter to die from the flashover.
    (SFC, 6/5/11, p.A1)
2011        Jun 4, Lawrence Eagleburger (b.1930), US diplomat, died. He served as US sec. of state for 5 months in 1992 following the resignation of James Baker III.
    (SFC, 6/5/11, p.D11)
2011                Jun 4, The death of longtime Disneyland performer Betty Taylor was announced on the Disneyland website. Ms. Taylor, age 91, played the role of Slue Foot Sue in the Golden Horseshoe Revue. A native of Seattle, she had been a dancer and stage performer before joining the cast of the long-running Disneyland production; she performed in the Revue for three decades. Ironically, her co-star, Wally Boag, died a day earlier.
            (AP, 6/5/11)
2011        Jun 4, In eastern Afghanistan a roadside bomb killed four NATO service members. In the east a female suicide bomber detonated her explosives near a coalition convoy, wounding three Afghan guards in Kunar province. In Nangahar province at least two Taliban gunmen shot to death a local counterterrorism official in the Khogyani district.
    (AP, 6/4/11)(AP, 6/5/11)
2011        Jun 4, Greenpeace said 18 of its members have climbed a 53,000-ton oil rig in the Arctic waters off Greenland to protest deepwater drilling by a Scottish oil company there. The activists demanded Cairn Energy release a plan for how to manage a potential oil spill. Police arrested 14 activists, while 4 remained on Leiv Eiriksson oil rig.
    (AP, 6/4/11)(SFC, 6/5/11, p.A4)
2011        Jun 4, Bangladesh opposition supporters set fire to at least six buses in Dhaka, on the eve of a nationwide anti-government strike. Opposition groups, led by former PM Khaleda Zia, were calling for a dawn-to-dusk general June 5 strike to protest government moves to amend the constitution.
    (AP, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, In southern Chile one of the volcanoes in the Caulle Cordon erupted violently, billowing smoke and ash high into the sky and prompting more than 3,500 people living nearby to evacuate.
    (AP, 6/5/11)
2011        Jun 4, In China the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crushing of the pro-democracy movement was entirely ignored by the state-controlled media. The square was open under heavy security. Activists said security forces had rounded up a number government critics ahead of the anniversary of the, adding to an already harsh crackdown on dissent.
    (AP, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, Colombia's army said it has killed Alirio Rojas Bocanegra, the security chief for Guillermo Leon Saenz, the head of the country's main rebel group. Saenz took over the top job in 2008.
    (AP, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, An Egyptian court convicted former finance minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali in absentia and sentenced him to 30 years in prison for profiteering and abusing state and private assets. Egypt's public prosecutor referred 48 people to trial for their involvement in deadly Muslim-Christian clashes last month. Hundreds of angry protesters pelted a Cairo police station overnight and torched an armored vehicle. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. Officials said they're investigating the death of bus driver Mohammed Nasr, who was beaten following a fight with a police officer. A truck driver drove through a checkpoint in the northern Sinai city of el-Arish, killing three soldiers and badly injuring a fourth as they slept in their tent.
    (Reuters, 6/4/11)(AFP, 6/4/11)(AP, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, Egypt shut its border crossing with Gaza for the first time since opening it on a routine basis last month. Angry Palestinians stormed the gates in protest. An Egyptian security source said the terminal was shut for maintenance and may reopen in a day.
    (Reuters, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, In India yoga guru Baba Ramdev started an indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi that critics say undermines the country's democratic institutions, but that he says will last until the government agrees "100 percent" to his long list of demands to root out endemic corruption. Tens of thousands of his followers also went on hunger strikes across India and in several cities in the United States, Europe and Africa.
    (AP, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, In Indonesia two suspected terrorists were killed during a gunbattle in a raid in Poso, Central Sulawesi province. The two were allegedly linked to the assailants who killed two police officers and wounded another last week in Palu.
    (AP, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, Italy-based Fiat offered $125 million to buy the Canadian government's stake in Chrysler Group LLC as it moved swiftly to strengthen its control of the US automaker.
    (Reuters, 6/4/11)   
2011        Jun 4, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported that Japan has frozen $4.4 billion in assets belonging to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi and his entourage under the terms of a UN Security Council resolution.
    (AFP, 6/4/11)   
2011        Jun 4, In Libya British Apache and French attack helicopters struck targets for the first time in NATO's campaign, hitting Moammar Gadhafi's troops near a key coastal oil city.
    (AP, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, Malaysian lawyers, politicians and activists lambasted the police, accusing them of abusing their power in chaining up and marking the bodies of 30 foreign women detained for alleged prostitution.
    (AP, 6/5/11)
2011        Jun 4, In Malaysia the "Obedient Wives Club" was launched. The new club said it can cure social ills such as prostitution and divorce by teaching women to be submissive and keep their men happy in the bedroom.
    (AP, 6/5/11)
2011        Jun 4, Mexican poet-turned-activist Javier Sicilia set off on a cross-country caravan with hundreds of fellow demonstrators to demand an end to drug-related bloodshed. Police raided the home of Jorge Hank Rhon (55), race track owner and former mayor of Tijuana. He was long rumored to be involved in money laundering and other criminal activities, faced charges after police raided his home and found 88 illegal weapons.
    (AP, 6/4/11)(Reuters, 6/5/11)(AP, 6/8/11)(SFC, 6/9/11, p.A2)
2011        Jun 4, In Syria more than 100,000 mourners turned out for the funerals of protesters killed by security forces in Hama. Authorities released Ali Abdullah, a leading opposition figure of the Damascus Declaration Group. He had been jailed since 2007.
    (AP, 6/4/11)
2011        Jun 4, Tunisia’s news said clashes between tribal factions killed 5 people with 90 others injured in the southwestern mining town of Metlaoui. Rumors had surfaced about changes in the recruitment policies of the region’s main employer.
    (SFC, 6/5/11, p.A4)
2011        Jun 4, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, wounded in an attack in his compound, was reported by al Arabiya television to have left for Saudi Arabia, but a Yemeni official and Saudi source denied he had gone. 10 tribesmen were killed and 35 injured in overnight fighting in the Hassaba neighborhood, headquarters of opposition Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar. Nearly 400 people have been killed since a popular uprising against Saleh began in January.
    (Reuters, 6/4/11)

2012        Jun 4, In San Francisco Calvin Sneed (22), an alleged Los Angeles gang member, was shot to death near Candlestick Park. On June 9 police arrested Barry Gilton and Lupe Mercado, whose daughter (17) was being pimped by Sneed.
    (SFC, 6/14/12, p.A1)
2012        Jun 4, In New Mexico lightning sparked a fire in the Lincoln National Forest. By mid-June it had destroyed 224 homes and burned 59 sq. miles.
    (SSFC, 6/17/12, p.A10)
2012        Jun 4, Three Armenian soldiers were killed in clashes along its border with Azerbaijan.
    (SFC, 6/6/12, p.A4)
2012        Jun 4, Argentina declared British oil exploration off the Falklands "illegal" and immediately set about suing five companies for pursuing activities around the contested islands.
    (AFP, 6/4/12)
2012        Jun 4, A Bangladeshi court charged Mohammad Kamaruzzaman (60), a fifth member of the country's largest Islamic party, with alleged atrocities including genocide during the nation's 1971 independence war against Pakistan.
    (AFP, 6/4/12)
2012        Jun 4, In Cambodia Alexander Trofimov, who built a $300 million tourist resort in the country, was arrested at the house of an under-aged girl (11-12) outside of the capital Phnom Penh. Authorities planned to deport him shortly. Russian businessman Trofimov was arrested in 2007 facing 17 complaints of sexually abusing minors, the youngest just six years old. He was sentenced to 17 years, reduced on appeal to eight years. He was controversially freed early in December last year after receiving a royal pardon.
    (AFP, 6/5/12)
2012        Jun 4, Canadian murder suspect, Luka Rocco Magnotta, was caught at a cafe in Berlin, after evading police for days while he partied in Paris. He was deported back to Canada on June 18.
    (AP, 6/6/12)(Reuters, 6/19/12)
2012        Jun 4, In Denmark the Glostrup City Court handed down prison sentences to Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri, Munir Awad, Omar Abdalla Aboelazm, and Sabhi Ben Mohamed Zalouti. The 4 men, arrested on Dec 29 2010, had planned a shooting spree at the office of a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the prophet Muhammed were found guilty of terrorism and sentenced each to 12 years in prison.
    (AP, 6/4/12)
2012        Jun 4, In Iraq a suicide bomber detonated an explosive-rigged car outside Iraq's main religious affairs office for Shiite Muslims, shearing off the facade of the three-story building and killing at least 23 people in the deadliest single attack in the country in three months.
    (AP, 6/4/12)
2012        Jun 4, The Israeli military carried out air strikes on Gaza overnight, injuring one Palestinian, after a rocket was fired at southern Israel. Hundreds of young settlers began marching from a West Bank outpost to Jerusalem to protest over plans to raze five homes built on private Palestinian land in Ulpana.
    (AFP, 6/4/12)
2012        Jun 4, In Israel four Africans were taken to hospital with burns and smoke inhalation after someone tried to burn down a building housing 18 African migrants close to the Mahane Yehuda market.
    (AFP, 7/12/12)
2012        Jun 4, A Libyan military court handed stiff prison terms to 19 Ukrainians, three nationals from Belarus and two Russians accused of serving as mercenaries for ousted leader Moamer Kadhafi in Libya's conflict last year. One of the Russians, judged to have been the coordinator, was condemned to life imprisonment while the others were sentenced to 10 years' hard labor.
    (AFP, 6/4/12)
2012        Jun 4, A militia of Libyan ex-rebels entered Tripoli International airport with tanks and armored vehicles and completely blocked air traffic, a day after their leader Abu Ajila al-Habshi was arrested. By the evening authorities wrested back control of the airport.
    (AFP, 6/4/12)
2012        Jun 4, A north Malian Arab militia broke away from a meeting of fellow Arabs in Mauritania, declaring they would fight for the independence of Mali's troubled north. Arabs were meeting in Nouakchott to discuss ways to solve a crisis in Mali's north.
    (AFP, 6/5/12)
2012        Jun 4, In Mauritania workers at Kinross Gold’s Tasiast gold mine initiated an unlawful work stoppage, halting mining and processing activity at the Canadian-owned operation.
    (Reuters, 6/6/12)
2012        Jun 4, NATO concluded agreements with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to allow it to evacuate military equipment from Afghanistan and completely bypass Pakistan.
    (SFC, 6/5/12, p.A2)
2012        Jun 4, In Pakistan 2 US drone missiles killed 15 people in North Waziristan. Abu Yahya al-Libi, described by American officials as Al-Qaeda's second in command, was the target of the strike. US officials the next day said Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed in the strike.
    (AFP, 6/5/12)(SFC, 6/6/12, p.A3)
2012        Jun 4, In the Philippines 2 Chinese men were kidnapped, becoming the latest victims to be abducted in the country's troubled south.
    (AFP, 6/5/12)
2012        Jun 4, In Sudan government agents blocked distribution of the country's largest-circulation newspaper, the hardline anti-South Sudan daily Al Intibaha.
    (AFP, 6/5/12)
2012        Jun 4, In Syrian government forces attacked rebel strongholds in Idlib province and in and around Deir Ezzor as violence across the country claimed at least 35 lives. A Syrian opposition group, the Syrian Rebels Front, announced in Turkey that they are creating a new military structure consisting of 12,000 fighters to topple the regime.
    (AP, 6/5/12)(AFP, 6/5/12)(SFC, 6/4/12, p.A2)
2012        Jun 4, Turkish security officials said two security personnel were killed when they stepped on an improvised explosive device laid by PKK militants in the Lice district of Diyarbakir province. One of the men killed was the commander of Lice's military police force.
    (Reuters, 6/4/12)
2012        Jun 4, In Yemen two suicide bombers tried to hit army barracks and checkpoints to the east of Zinjibar in an attempt to stop the military from advancing in the south, killing four army-allied militiamen.
    (AP, 6/5/12)

2013        Jun 4, The US Internal Revenue Service was cited by a government watchdog for a $4.1 million training conference featuring luxury rooms and free drinks, even as conservative figures told Congress they had been abused for years while seeking tax-exempt status.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, FBI agents raided the offices of California state Sen. Ron Calderon. In November Al Jazeera America disclosed that Calderon was involved in a sting operation that linked him to bribery, phony jobs and influence peddling.
    (SFC, 11/2/13, p.A13)(http://tinyurl.com/mpd5eba)
2013        Jun 4, A Colorado judge accepted James Holmes’ a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity in the July 20, 2012, rampage that left 12 people dead.
    (SFC, 6/5/13, p.A6)
2013        Jun 4, The Nina, a classic 85-year-old wooden vessel with 7 people onboard, went missing while sailing from New Zealand to Australia. The boat originated from Panama City, Fl.
    (AP, 6/27/13)
2013        Jun 4, In New Mexico a 400-lb black bear attacked a bedridden woman (82) in Cimarron. Wildlife officers caught and killed the bear the next day.
    (SFC, 6/6/13, p.A8)
2013        Jun 4, Intel launched the latest version of Its Core processor, known as Haswell, at Computex Taipei.
    (Econ, 6/8/13, p.67)
2013        Jun 4, Hundreds of Afghans blocked a major highway south of Kabul, carrying 3 freshly dug-up bodies they claimed were victims of torture by US special forces and demanding the Americans be arrested. Violence erupted and two of the demonstrators were killed but the cause of their deaths was unclear. An Afghan family's car struck a bomb buried in a road in the country's west. The father and 3 children were killed. In Helmand province 6 people — 3 women and 3 men — were killed when a bomb planted inside one of their homes detonated.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, A report by a corruption watchdog group said some $750 million is missing from Angola's treasury from a deal with Russia facilitated by a Swiss bank and a shell company registered in Britain's Isle of Man. Russian and French arms dealers got away with $263 million, Angola's president reportedly stashed away more than $36 million, and three Angolan officials and a former Russian legislator got away with smaller amount. Another $400 million was unaccounted for.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, Argentina's Supreme Court suspended a freeze on the local assets of Chevron Corp. that had been ordered late last year following a suit by the winners of a $19 billion environmental judgment in Ecuador. Chevron and state energy company YPF were working out a deal to jointly develop the vast Vaca Muerta shale oil and natural gas reserves in southwestern Argentina.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, Brazil’s government scrapped a tax on foreign purchases of bonds, in order to encourage currency inflows and slow the weakening of its currency.
    (Econ, 6/8/13, p.39)
2013        Jun 4, Brazilian police said they have dismantled an international drug trafficking ring that for almost two years sent cocaine from Colombia and Bolivia to Portugal hidden in crates containing frozen fish.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, Britain and France made back-to-back announcements that the nerve gas sarin was used in Syria's conflict. A UN probe said it had "reasonable grounds" to suspect small-scale use of toxic chemicals in at least four attacks in March and April in Syria.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, Cuba began offering Internet access at more than 100 public access points. An hour of computer time cost about one-fifth the average monthly wage.
    (SFC, 6/5/13, p.A2)
2013        Jun 4, Ecuador's state oil company resumed pumping through the country's main pipeline, four days after it was damaged by a landslide. But crude spilled by the accident reached tributaries of the Amazon River and polluted drinking water for a regional capital far downstream.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, An Egyptian court convicted 43 nonprofit workers, including at least 16 Americans, of illegally using foreign funds to foment unrest in the country, sentencing them to up to five years in jail. Nonprofit pro-democracy groups have trained thousands of young Egyptians in political activism and organizing, an education that played a key part in the success of the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, The European Union said it is imposing anti-dumping levies on imports of Chinese solar panels. The 27-country bloc will impose a tariff of about 12% immediately. It will increase that to 47% starting in August.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, In Germany former Porsche CFO Holger Haerter was convicted of fraud after a court found he provided false information during the German sports car marker's failed 2009 attempt to take over Volkswagen AG.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, Flooding continued along the Danube and other southern European rivers. The death toll reached 10, including 7 in the Czech Rep.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, India’s police reported that an American tourist was gang-raped in the northern resort town of Manali. 3 men picked her up in a truck while she was hitchhiking, then drove to a secluded spot and raped her. Himachal Pradesh police on June 6 arrested 3 Nepalese men in connection to her rape.
    (AP, 6/5/13)(SFC, 6/7/13, p.A5)
2013        Jun 4, WWF Indonesia said killings of Sumatran elephants are on the rise, with 29 either shot or poisoned last year, including 14 in Aceh province. The report came 3 days after 2 dead Sumatran elephants were found near a paper plantation in Riau, allegedly poisoned by poachers.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, In Mali a man suspected of being an extremist ran for cover inside an abandoned house in the northern city of Kidal, and detonated an explosive vest inside the structure, killing only himself.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, In Myanmar at least 3 women from the Rohingya minority were shot dead in a clash with security officials over new housing arrangements.
    (AP, 6/5/13)
2013        Jun 4, In Syria mortar shells landed near the Russian Embassy in Damascus, killing one person. State news said government forces have pushed rebels out of a key district on the edge of Damascus.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, Turkey's deputy prime minister Bulent Arinc offered an apology for a violent crackdown on an environmental protest, in a bid to appease days of anti-government rallies across the country as hundreds of riot police deployed around the prime minister's office in Ankara.
    (AP, 6/4/13)
2013        Jun 4, Venezuelan officials said restrictions on the sale of 20 basic items including toilet paper and chicken subject to price controls are set to begin next week in Zulia, its most populous state.
    (AP, 6/4/13)

2014        Jun 4, US President Barack Obama endorsed Ukraine's president-elect Petro Poroshenko, offering Kiev financial and security help and saying he was the right choice to lead the country through its stand-off with Moscow. Obama spoke in Warsaw ahead of a G7 meeting in Brussels.
    (Reuters, 6/4/14)(AP, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, San Francisco’s transit system limped through a 3rd day of an operator sickout as 290 drivers called in sick. City officials moved to snuff out the protest by filing legal charges against the operator’s union, which denied responsibility. Scheduled buses and rail cars on duty climbed to 440 out of 600.
    (SFC, 6/5/14, p.A1)(SFC, 6/6/14, p.D7)
2014        Jun 4, NYC authorities staged early morning raids and arrested dozens of people in a crackdown on gang-related drugs and violence.
    (SFC, 6/5/14, p.A10)
2014        Jun 4, In northern Afghanistan a bomb placed in a thermos bottle detonated remotely at a market killed 3 civilians in Maymana, Faryab province.
    (AP, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, In Canada 3 police officers were killed late today and two more were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries in Moncton New Brunswick. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police mounted a massive hunt and soon arrested suspect Justin Bourque (24) in Moncton.
    (AP, 6/5/14)(Reuters, 6/6/14)
2014        Jun 4, China rejected an arbitration tribunal's ruling giving it six months to respond to a case filed by the Philippines over disputed waters, saying it has no plans to take part.
    (Reuters, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, In Hong Kong thousands gathered in a park to mark the 25th anniversary of the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protesters in China.
    (Econ, 7/6/14, p.49)
2014        Jun 4, The Liberia-flagged MT Fair Artemis lost contact with its owners off Ghana's capital Accra. The Greek tanker with 24 crew aboard was believed to have been hijacked.
    (AFP, 6/6/14)
2014        Jun 4, In Iraq back-to-back car bombs rocked the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, in the deadliest of a string of attacks across the country that left 17 people dead. Police in Mosul killed a man believed to be the 2nd ranking leader of ISIS and captured a trove of data on the group.
    (AP, 6/4/14)(Econ, 6/21/14, p.46)
2014        Jun 4, In Italy Venice Mayor Giorgio Orsoni and more than 30 other people were arrested in a sweeping corruption scandal in which politicians are accused of financing election campaigns with some 25 million euros ($34 million) in bribes from the consortium building underwater barriers to protect the lagoon city from flooding.
    (AP, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, In Libya gunmen killed a Swiss national working for the International Committee for the Red Cross when they intercepted his car in Sirte. Gunmen also fired a grenade the office of PM Ahmed Maiteeq. A suicide bomber exploded a Land Cruiser packed with explosives Gen. Khalifa Haftar's base in Benghazi killing 4 men from his force.
    (Reuters, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, Lithuania welcomed a preliminary decision by the European Union to accept the Baltic country's application to adopt the joint currency.
    (AP, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, In Mali authorities arrested army officer Lieutenant Mohamed Ouattara and a number of associates suspected of plotting against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
    (Reuters, 6/6/14)
2014        Jun 4, Montenegro authorities seized 250 kilograms of cocaine from South America in one of the biggest-ever drug busts in nation.
    (AP, 6/5/14)
2014        Jun 4, In Pakistan a suicide bomber blew himself up near a vehicle carrying military personnel, killing 2 officers, both lieutenant colonels, and 3 civilians near Islamabad.
    (AP, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, In Pakistan an 18-year-old woman "miraculously survived" after being shot and thrown into a canal by her father for marrying against the family's wishes in Hafizabad. The woman told police her two uncles looked on as her father shot her in the face, put her in a burlap sack and threw her into a canal.
    (AP, 6/7/14)
2014        Jun 4, Slovakia joined neighbor the Czech Republic in effectively ruling out hosting NATO units, when PM Robert Fico said he could not imagine there would be foreign soldiers on its territory.
    (Reuters, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, The UAE said the MERS coronavirus has killed 10 people and infected 68 in the United Arab Emirates since March 2013.
    (AFP, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, Ukraine said that 6 militants were killed and 3 Ukrainian servicemen were injured in 10 hours of fighting overnight at the National Guard base in Luhansk. Pro-Russian insurgents took over two government bases in battles around Luhansk, seizing quantities of ammunition and explosives from a border guards post and taking another installation after National Guard forces ran out of ammunition.
    (AP, 6/4/14)
2014        Jun 4, In Yemen a ceasefire between Shi'ite Muslim rebels and government forces went into effect, after fresh fighting and air strikes killed at least 20 people from both sides.
    (Reuters, 6/4/14)

2015        Jun 4, American officials said China-based hackers are suspected of breaking into the computer networks of the US government personnel office and stealing identifying information of at least 4 million federal workers. The attack was uncovered in April and had apparently been going on for several months. On July 9 the Obama administration said hackers stole Social Security numbers from more than 21 million people and snatched other sensitive information. On Sep 23 the Office of personnel Management said hackers also got the fingerprints of 5.6 million federal employees.
    (SFC, 6/5/15, p.A10)(Econ, 6/13/15, p.29)(SFC, 7/10/15, p.A7)(SFC, 9/24/15, p.A7)
2015        Jun 4, US government experts recommended approval for a pill, flibanserin made by Sprout Pharmaceuticals, to boost sexual desire in women.
    (SFC, 6/5/15, p.A7)
2015        Jun 4, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his 2nd bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
    (SFC, 6/5/15, p.A7)
2015        Jun 4, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber targeted a police checkpoint at the entrance of Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, killing at least 4 people.
    (AP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, Britain's newly elected government announced plans to sell off its remaining stake in Royal Mail and slash ministry budgets in a bid to cut £4.5 billion ($6.9 billion, 6.1 billion euros) from state debt this year.
    (AFP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, British police arrested four Polish drivers on suspicion of facilitating illegal immigration after 68 people were found inside lorries at Harwich International Port.
    (AFP, 6/5/15)
2015        Jun 4, Colombia and FARC rebels agreed on the terms of an 11-member Truth Commission as peace talks continued in Havana.
    (Econ, 7/4/15, p.28)
2015        Jun 4, In Germany more than 30,000 people in Munich demonstrated against a G7 summit starting at the weekend in Bavaria. Environmentalists, opposition parties and anti-globalization activists called the rally under the banner "Stop TTIP - Save the Climate - Fight Poverty".
    (AFP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, In Ghana an explosion hit a petrol station in Accra. Flooding swept stored fuel into a nearby fire, setting off a huge explosion at a gas station that killed over 150 people and set alight neighboring buildings. Local media said many people had died in various parts of Accra following two days of torrential rain.
    (Reuters, 6/4/15)(AFP, 6/5/15)(SFC, 6/5/15, p.A4)
2015        Jun 4, Greece said it is opting to bundle four payments due to the IMF this month into one payment on June 30.
    (SFC, 6/5/15, p.C3)
2015        Jun 4, In India a group of rebels using rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons ambushed a military convoy in Manipur state, killing at least 21 soldiers and wounding 14 others.
    (AP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, An Iraqi official said Islamic State militants have reduced the amount of water flowing to government-held areas in western Anbar province. UN officials urgently called for almost $498 million in donations to provide shelter, food, water and other life-saving services for the next six months to Iraqis displaced or affected by the fighting.
    (AP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, Israel and Saudi Arabia admitted at a conference in America that they have held a series of meetings over shared interests.
    (Econ, 6/13/15, p.47)
2015        Jun 4, Israeli warplanes struck multiple militant targets in the Gaza Strip early today in response to Palestinian rocket fire, but nobody was injured according to Palestinian security sources.
    (AFP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, Japan and the Philippines agreed to start talks on transferring Japanese military hardware and technology to the Southeast Asian country trying to upgrade its defenses.
    (AP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, In Libya 545 illegal migrants who had hoped to set off at dawn for a new life in Europe were arrested in Tripoli.
    (AFP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, Myanmar's armed forces discharged 51 child soldiers from its ranks, bringing the total number of discharges this year so far to 93.
    (Reuters, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, NATO said Russia was delivering sophisticated weaponry to rebels in eastern Ukraine, renewing long-standing accusations amid the worst upsurge in fighting in months between the Kiev government's forces and pro-Russian rebels.
    (Reuters, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, In northeastern Nigeria a suicide bomber struck in the main market in the city of Yola, killing 35 people. 10 more people died by the next day bringing the death toll to 45. A suicide bomber exploded a car at a checkpoint outside a military barracks and killed 8 soldiers in Maiduguri.
    (Reuters, 6/5/15)(SFC, 6/5/15, p.A2)
2015        Jun 4, North Korea accused the United States of targeting it with anthrax and asked the UN Security Council to investigate Washington's "biological warfare schemes. The US Pentagon recently said live anthrax samples, which can be used as a biological weapon, have been inadvertently sent to Australia, Canada, Britain, South Korea and laboratories in 19 US states and Washington, D.C.
    (Reuters, 6/12/15)
2015        Jun 4, In Portugal nurses in the public health system began a 48-hour walkout to protest pay cuts and working conditions disrupting services at hospitals and health centers.
    (AP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it has broken up a ring that was smuggling firearms into the country from Latvia. One Latvian citizen and eight Russians were arrested in the case.
    (AP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, South Korea confirmed a third death from MERS. 1,164 schools and kindergartens were reported to be temporarily shut down.
    (SFC, 6/5/15, p.A2)
2015        Jun 4, In Geneva, Switzerland, prosecutors said HSBC will pay 40 million Swiss francs ($43 million) to settle an investigation over allegations the bank helped rich clients avoid taxes.
    (AP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, In Syria Islamic State group jihadists, emboldened by a string of battlefield victories, advanced to the gates of Hasakeh after intense fighting with regime troops.
    (AFP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, Turkish government official said more than 3,300 Syrians have crossed into Turkey in the past two days fleeing fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish forces in northern Syria's Tel Abyad region.
    (AP, 6/4/15)
2015        Jun 4, In central Yemen warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition pounded rebel positions as air raids intensified amid attempts to revive UN-proposed talks in Switzerland.
    (AFP, 6/4/15)

2016        Jun 4, The United States and its allies conducted a total of 23 military strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
    (Reuters, 6/5/16)
2016        Jun 4, The US government said it has received information that terrorist groups are planning to carry out attacks against places where its citizens congregate in shopping areas in South Africa.
    (Reuters, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, Top US Navy Adm. John Richardson said the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman has begun launching airstrikes against the Islamic State group from the Mediterranean Sea.
    (AP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Indian PM Narendra Modi inaugurated a multi-million-dollar dam in western Afghanistan that will bring power and irrigation to vast tracts of the war-torn country. The Afghan-India Friendship Dam in Herat province, which borders Iran, was built with Indian aid at a cost of $300 million and was under construction for about a decade.
    (AP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, China said that it will ignore the decision of an international arbitration panel in a Philippine lawsuit against Beijing's sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled last year that it has jurisdiction over the case despite China's rejection.
    (AP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, In southwestern China a leisure boat capsized on Bailong Lake during strong winds, killing one child and leaving another 14 people missing in Sichuan province.
    (AP, 6/5/16)
2016        Jun 4, In France the Seine River peaked early today around Paris, hitting its highest level in nearly 35 years, almost 4.5 meters (15 feet) above average. Authorities warned it could take up to ten days for the river to return to normal.
    (AP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, In Hong Kong tens of thousands of people poured into Victoria Park to remember the victims of the Chinese military's bloody June 4, 1989, crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
    (AP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, In Iraq bombings targeting a police checkpoint, a restaurant and two markets killed 15 people and wounded more than 40 in and around Baghdad. Iraqi forces gained new ground from the Islamic State group in a key area west of the jihadist bastion of Fallujah.
    (AP, 6/4/16)(AFP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, In Myanmar over a thousand hardline Buddhists gathered on the outskirts of Yangon for the annual summit of their ulta-nationalist group, as the anti-Muslim network looks to stay relevant under Myanmar's new civilian leadership.
    (AFP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, Nigeria announced that it has seized more than $10.3 billion in looted cash and assets over the past year under Pres. Buhari’s anticorruption campaign.
    (SSFC, 6/5/16, p.A4)
2016        Jun 4, The Philippines' president elect Rodrigo Duterte urged the public to join his anti-crime crackdown, offering people huge bounties for killing drug dealers.
    (AFP, 6/5/16)
2016        Jun 4, In Poland two former presidents were at the front of tens of thousands of marchers in Warsaw to protest the right-wing government’s policies and mark 27 years since the ouster of communism. The march was led by Mateusz Kijowski (47), founder of the Committee for the Defense of Democracy (KOD).
    (SSFC, 6/5/16, p.A4)(Econ, 6/11/16, p.55)
2016        Jun 4, Russian news agencies reported that more than 40 people have been killed and around a hundred injured by Al Nusra militants shelling in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
    (Reuters, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Syrian army has crossed the boundary of Raqqa province, home to the de facto capital of Islamic State.
    (Reuters, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, Turkey’s military said cross-border shelling by the Turkish army and air strikes by US-led coalition aircraft have killed 14 Islamic State militants in Syria.
    (AP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, Turkish warplanes struck Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey and the army killed 27 fighters near its borders with Iraq and Iran.
    (Reuters, 6/5/16)
2016        Jun 4, UN and police officials said criminal gangs are plundering the Earth's natural resources faster than previously thought, with the value of environmental crimes estimated to be as high as $258 billion annually.
    (Reuters, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, Pope Francis scrapped his proposed tribunal to prosecute bishops who failed to protect their flocks from pedophile priests and instead established new legal procedures to remove them if the Vatican finds they were negligent.
    (AP, 6/4/16)
2016        Jun 4, The Vatican signed an agreement with Qatar to digitalize Vatican manuscripts relating to the Persian Gulf and other Islamic regions.
    (AP, 6/4/16)

2017        Jun 4, In Oregon a pro-Trump rally and counter-protest in Portland was marked by multiple arrests and clashes.
    (SFC, 6/4/17, p.A5)
2017        Jun 4, In Afghanistan at least six police officers were killed after two fellow police opened fire on them in southern Kandahar province. Hundreds of people continued to protest in Kabul demanding greater security and the ousting of Pres. Ashraf Ghani.
    (AP, 6/4/17)(SFC, 6/5/17, p.A2)
2017        Jun 4, A stranded Austrian mountain hiker and her would-be rescuer fell to their deaths when a line hoisting them into a police helicopter gave way, sending them and the woman's husband plunging into a gorge below. The husband was critically injured but survived the incident.
    (Reuters, 6/5/17)
2017        Jun 4, Bahrain shut down prominent independent newspaper the daily Al-Wasat "until further notice" over an article about unrest in Morocco, the latest move tightening expression in the Gulf nation as authorities wage a crackdown on dissent.
    (AP, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, In southern Bulgaria ten migrants were killed and seven were injured after a minivan transporting them overturned on a highway near the city of Pazardzhik. The Bulgarian driver (16) of the vehicle, who did not hold a driving license, was also killed.
    (Reuters, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, Cambodians voted in local elections. PM Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party retained its dominance in most regions, obtaining 51 percent of the total popular vote, but lost ground to its opponents.
    (AP, 6/4/17)(AP, 6/5/17)
2017        Jun 4, In Iraq Shi'ite paramilitaries captured the town of Baaj from Islamic State, further shrinking the northern region under jihadist control.
    (Reuters, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, In Libya seven of 35 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were found dead in an abandoned refrigerator truck near the Libyan capital.
    (AFP, 6/5/17)
2017        Jun 4, Mexico State held elections. Voters in the states of Coahuila and Nayarit also chose new governors. Polls gave the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of Pres. Enrique Pena Nieto a slight edge in the Mexico State campaign.
    (AP, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, Spanish novelist Juan Goytisolo (86), known for his experimental novels and political essays, died at his home in Morocco. In 2014 Goytisolo won Spain's most prestigious literary award, the Cervantes Prize.
    (AP, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, Pakistan said a two-day military operation has killed 12 militants in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.
    (AP, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, In the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said that he will not negotiate with militants aligned with the Islamic State group who are holding hostages in Marawi, and that he has ordered troops to kill the gunmen. Thousands of civilians hoping to flee the fighting remained trapped after a four-hour truce to evacuate residents was disrupted by gunfire. Only 134 were freed.
    (AP, 6/4/17)(Reuters, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, In Puerto Rico five inmates escaped from a high-security prison in the US territory's south coast. Four of the inmates had been found guilty of murder and were serving life in prison sentences. A fifth had been found guilty of kidnapping and weapons violations.
    (AP, 6/5/17)
2017        Jun 4, South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper reported that several independent sources had told it that the Gupta family had bought Pres. Jacob Zuma a retirement home for 330 million rand ($25 million) in an upmarket suburb of Dubai.
    (Reuters, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, Syrian government forces pounded parts of the southern city of Daraa with air strikes and artillery fire, one day after rebels attacked government positions in the southern city. At least 31 fighters have been killed in the clashes since late June 2. Syria's army seized the key town of Maskana, from the Islamic State group Aleppo province.
    (AP, 6/4/17)(AFP, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, In Syria US-backed militias seized the Baath Dam on the Euphrates river from Islamic State, their latest gain as they push towards Raqqa city.
    (Reuters, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, Turkey's state-run news reported that PM Binali Yildirim said the battle to capture the Islamic State group's Syrian bastion Raqa started late on June 2. He appeared to contradict comments a day earlier from the Kurdish-Arab alliance battling the jihadists that the push into the northern Syrian city would "begin in a few days".
    (AFP, 6/4/17)
2017        Jun 4, Turkish security forces killed eight militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in eastern Kars province.
    (Reuters, 6/4/17)

2018        Jun 4, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged China to disclose the details of people killed, detained or missing during the Chinese military's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square 29 years ago.
    (AP, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, The US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that a Colorado's Civil Rights Commission had violated a baker's rights to a fair and neutral assessment of his refusal to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
    (SFC, 6/5/18, p.A1)
2018        Jun 4, In Arizona Dwight Lamon Jones (56), suspected of shooting six people to death in recent days, fatally shot hmself as police tracked him down to an extended stay hotel in Scottsdale.
    (SFC, 6/5/18, p.A5)
2018        Jun 4, Dwight Clark (61), former San Francisco wide receiver, died months after announcing he had amyotrophic lateral schlerosis (ALS). He made "The Catch" in the 1982 NFC Championship that led the SF 49ers to their first Super Bowl title.
    (SFC, 6/5/18, p.A1)
2018        Jun 4, Shivam Patel (28) of Williamsburg, Va., was sentenced to five years in prison for passport fraud and making false statements in his application to join the US military. He had told an FBI undercover employee he wanted to commit jihad.
    (AP, 6/5/18)
2018        Jun 4, Discovery Inc. announced that it has signed a $2 billion agreement that gives it media rights to PGA Tour programming for its 220 markets outside the US. The 12-year deals starts next year and runs through 2030.
    (AP, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, In Afghanistan a motorcycle suicide bomber killed 14 people near a gathering of Muslim clerics in Kabul after they had issued a fatwa against suicide bombings, in the latest in a series of attacks to hit the capital.
    (Reuters, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation's largest bank, said it has agreed to pay a 700 million Australian dollar ($531 million) fine for failing to comply with measures to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing.
    (AP, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, London teenager Safaa Boular (18) was convicted of plotting an attack on the British Museum after failing in her ambition of becoming a jihadi bride in Syria. Her mother and sister admitted helping her, making the case Britain's first involving an all-female cell of Islamic State group-inspired plotters.
    (AP, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, Prosecutors said France's second-biggest bank Societe Generale has agreed to pay 500 million euros ($583 million) to settle inquiries in the US and France into its dealings with the regime of slain Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
    (AFP, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, French authorities evicted 973 migrants from a camp along the scenic Canal Saint-Martin and another, just a few days after clearing a similar number -- mainly Sudanese, Somalians and Eritreans -- from the sprawling Millenaire camp further up the canal.
    (AP, 6/7/18)
2018        Jun 4, A Greek lawyer representing eight Turkish servicemen who fled to Greece seeking asylum after the 2016 failed coup in Turkey says all his clients have been freed pending a ruling on their applications.
    (AP, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, In Guatemala a hot flow of mud, ash and gas swept down from the Fuego volcano, after a new explosion in the morning interrupted disaster workers pulling bodies from the brown sludge known as a pyroclastic flow that engulfed the village of El Rodeo. The national disaster agency raised the death toll to 69.
    (Reuters, 6/4/18)(SFC, 6/5/18, p.A2)
2018        Jun 4, Israel announced plans to deduct from tax funds it collects for the Palestinians to compensate Israelis living near the Gaza Strip who have fallen victim to a wave of arson attacks. Israeli troops killed a Palestinian attempting to cross into Israel from Gaza.
    (SFC, 6/5/18, p.A3)
2018        Jun 4, Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso apologized over the tampering by lower level officials with documents related to a government property sale linked to Akie Aber, the with PM Shinzo Abe. Taro Aso took a voluntary one-year salary cut after 20 officials were penalized for the tampering.
    (SFC, 6/5/18, p.A2)
2018        Jun 4, Jordanian PM Hani Mulki resigned after a wave of anti-austerity protests by citizens suffering from high unemployment and repeated prices hikes. King Abdullah appointed Omar al-Razzaz, a former World Bank economist, to form the new government after accepting Hani Mulki's resignation.
    (AFP, 6/4/18)(Reuters, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, Madagascar's President Hery Rajaonarimampianina appointed local International Labour Organization representative Christian Ntsay as prime minister. Olivier Mahafaly resigned the premiership earlier today to comply with a court ruling that ordered the formation of a consensus government to end a political crisis.
    (Reuters, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, Human Rights Watch accused Morocco's police of carrying out a weeks-long campaign of "repression" against protests in the northeastern city of Jerada, including mass arrests and alleged abuse in custody.
    (AFP, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, The Dutch government apologized and agreed to compensate military personnel who contracted illnesses including cancer after working with paint containing the toxic element chromium-6. The apology followed publication of a critical report into the use of paint containing chromium-6 by staff at five NATO storage depots in the Netherlands from 1984-2006.
    (AP, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, New Zealand former sex worker Catherine Healy (62) was awarded one of the nation's top honors when she became a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
    (AP, 6/6/18)
2018        Jun 4, In Niger three female suicide bombers killed 10 people at a mosque in the southeastern city of Diffa who had gathered after breaking the Ramadan fast.
    (Reuters, 6/5/18)
2018        Jun 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law counter-sanctions legislation that was drawn up by lawmakers in response to US sanctions imposed on Russia in April.
    (Reuters, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, A Russian court sentenced a Ukrainian journalist, Roman Sushchenko (49), to 12 years in jail after convicting him of spying for his native Ukraine. Sushchenko was detained in 2016 after he flew into Moscow from Paris where he worked as a correspondent for Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform.
    (Reuters, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, Syria told Lebanon it wants refugees to return to help rebuild the country, after Beirut expressed concern that Law 10, a new land redevelopment law, could discourage them from going home.
    (Reuters, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, Turkey and the United States endorsed a roadmap for the northern Syrian city of Manbij and underlined their mutual commitment to its implementation following a meeting of their foreign ministers in Washington.
    (Reuters, 6/4/18)
2018        Jun 4, UNESCO, the UN's cultural body, released its first ever guidelines on fighting anti-Semitism in education.
    (AP, 6/4/18)

2019        Jun 4, The Trump administration imposed major new travel restrictions on visits to Cuba by US citizens, including a ban on many forms of educational and recreational travel. Commercial airline flights appear to be unaffected and travel for university groups, academic research, journalism and professional meetings will continue to be allowed.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, US and Philippine officials discussed a new 3-year program to thwart efforts by Muslim extremists to recruit and mobilize followers in the country's south after a bloody siege by jihadists aligned with the Islamic State group.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, The US Federal Reserve signaled it was ready to cut interest rates to support the US economy against risks from trade conflicts.
    (AP, 6/5/19)
2019        Jun 4, US authorities arrested and deported Abdelhaleem Ashqar to Israel after misleading him about his need to report to an immigration office to process paperwork. A judge's order forced immigration authorities to reverse his deportation and bring him back from Israel before he ever got off the plane. Ashqar recently served 11 years in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating his relationship to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
    (AP, 6/8/19)
2019        Jun 4, US citizen Mikhy Farrera-Brochez, who leaked the names of more than 14,000 HIV-positive people in Singapore, was found guilty by a US court of illegally transferring personal data and threatening the Singapore government. He faced up to two years in prison on each of the two counts of sending threatening communications, and up to five years for possessing and transferring identity information.
    (AP, 6/6/19)
2019        Jun 4, A US scientist said Mount Everest and its surrounding peaks are increasingly polluted and warmer, and nearby glaciers are melting at an alarming rate that is likely to make it more dangerous for future climbers.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, It was reported that at least 50 people were shot in Chicago last weekend with at least ten killed.
    (SFC, 6/4/19, p.A4)
2019        Jun 4, In South Carolina a jury found Timothy Jones Jr. (37) guilty of the 2014 deaths of his five young children. On June 13 Jones was sentenced to death.
    (http://tinyurl.com/y2c3m98h)(SFC, 5/7/19, p.A4)(SFC, 6/14/19, p.A4)
2019        Jun 4, In Australia a man who was out on parole was arrested after fatally shooting four men and wounding a woman in an hour-long downtown rampage in the northern city of Darwin.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, Thousands took to the streets of central London to protest the visit of Donald Trump, with the infamous blimp of the US president once again flying outside the Houses of Parliament.
    (AFP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, Rights groups sounded a warning over the escalating crisis in western Cameroon, where separatists and government forces are locked in deadly combat.
    (AFP, 6/5/19)
2019        Jun 4, China imposed an information lockdown on the 30th anniversary of its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, China issued a travel warning for the US, saying Chinese visitors have been interrogated, interviewed and subjected to other forms of what it called harassment by US law enforcement agencies.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, It was reported that deadly Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo has surpassed 2,000 cases and is picking up speed.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, Cypriot authorities recovered the remains of a body stuffed in a suitcase at the bottom of a lake believed to be the sixth victim of a suspected serial killer. The suitcase is thought to contain the body of missing Filipina Maricar Valdez.
    (AFP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, In the Czech Rep. an estimated 120,000 protesters took to Prague's streets this evening to demand the resignation of PM Andrej Babis, one of the biggest protests since the end of communism in 1989.
    (Reuters, 6/5/19)
2019        Jun 4, Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno blocked the extradition to the United States of a New York man charged with trying to defraud Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg. Paul Ceglia spent nearly 3-1/2 years as a fugitive before being arrested in Ecuador last year. Ceglia, who is in jail, has requested asylum in Ecuador.
    (Reuters, 6/7/19)
2019        Jun 4, A French government report said France's weapons sales to Saudi Arabia rose 50 pct. in 2018 despite the government calling for an end to the "dirty war" in Yemen.
    (Reuters, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, In Ghana two Canadian women, charity volunteers aged 19 and 20, were kidnapped this evening in Kumasi, some 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Accra.
    (AFP, 6/6/19)
2019        Jun 4, Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong gathered to mark 30 years since China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, Hungarian rescuers said the death toll from the Danube River tour boat that collided with a large cruise ship grew to 10 after they recovered another body.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, In India hospitals across the desert state of Rajasthan reported a surge in heatstroke cases as fierce temperatures kept up for a fourth day across northern India.
    (AFP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, In Iraq a roadside bomb has exploded near an army patrol north of Baghdad, killing four security personnel and wounding four others in Tarmiya.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, In Mexico three synthetic drug labs producing an estimated $160 million worth of methamphetamine were dismantled in northwestern Sinaloa state.
    (AFP, 6/5/19)
2019        Jun 4, The Islamic State group claimed it was involved in an insurgent clash late today in Mozambique for the first time. An expert expressed doubt and police dismissed the claim outright.
    (AFP, 6/5/19)
2019        Jun 4, Muslim Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia, as well as Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, announced the first day of Eid, whereas Egypt, Syria, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and others said the Shawwal crescent moon was not visible across the country and won't start till tomorrow.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, Pakistan's PM Imran Khan said the powerful military has agreed in a rare move to cut its hefty budget for a year to help ease the South Asian country's "critical financial situation".
    (Reuters, 6/5/19)
2019        Jun 4, Russia's leading internet company, Yandex, said it's committed to data privacy as it responds to reports that the national intelligence agency is pressuring it into handing over encryption keys.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, South Africa's government announced that the economy dropped by the most in a decade in the first quarter of this year, hurting newly elected President Cyril Ramaphosa's efforts at growth and reforms.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, Spain's Supreme Court temporarily halted the government's plan to move the remains of Gen. Francisco Franco to a discreet tomb next week, because judges have yet to rule on appeals by the dictator's descendants.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, Scandinavian Airlines said it will stop selling duty-free goods on planes to reduce weight and save fuel as part of a wider range of measures to cut emissions.
    (AP, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, Sudan's protest movement called for fresh rallies and rejected the military rulers' election plan after more than 35 people were killed in what demonstrators called a "bloody massacre" by security forces. At least 40 bodies were pulled from the Nile River in Khartoum bringing the death toll since the violent dispersal of a sit-in outside the military's headquarters to 100.
    (AP, 6/4/19)(AP, 6/5/19)
2019        Jun 4, In Uganda five people died and dozens were missing after heavy rains triggered a series of landslides in eastern Uganda's mountainous Bududa district.
    (AFP, 6/5/19)
2019        Jun 4, The UN's World Food Program said fighters have set fire to thousands of acres of wheat and other crops in northwest Syria in a campaign that has turned food supplies in a "weapon of war" and forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee.
    (Reuters, 6/4/19)
2019        Jun 4, A prominent Venezuelan news website said it was ordered by the country's Supreme Court to pay some five million dollars in damages and interest to Diosdado Cabello, head of the all-powerful National Assembly. Cabello had taken the La Patilla site to court for putting up an article from the Spanish daily ABC -- published three years previously -- that accused him of having links to drug trafficking.
    (AFP, 6/5/19)

Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Go to June 5