more events on May 4
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1970
Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.
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1961
13 civil rights activists, dubbed Freedom Riders, begin a bus trip through the South.
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1949
Graham Swift, British novelist (The Sweet Shop Owner, Out of this World).
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1942
The United States begins food rationing.
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The Battle of the Coral Sea commences.
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1939
Amos Oz, Israeli novelist (The Black Box, TheThird State).
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1930
Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British.
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1929
Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston), actress, later U.N. special ambassador.
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1928
Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet.
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1927
A balloon soars over 40,000 feet for the first time.
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1884
Agnes Fay Morgan, American nutritionist and biochemist.
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1874
Frank Conrad, electrical engineer and broadcasting pioneer.
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1864
Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s forces cross the Rapidan River and meet Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate army.
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1863
The Battle of Chancellorsville ends when Union Army retreats.
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1827
John Hanning Speke, English explorer.
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1825
Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist.
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1820
Joseph Whitaker, bookseller and publisher (Whitaker’s Almanac)
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1814
Napoleon Bonaparte disembarks at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.
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1796
Horace Mann, educator and author.
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1795
Thousands of rioters enter jails in Lyons, France, and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners.
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1776
Rhode Island declares independence from England.
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1715
A French manufacturer debuts the first folding umbrella.
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1626
American Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons.
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1471
In England, the Yorkists defeat the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury.