Today in History: Fascist Hiranuma Kiichirō Becomes Prime Minister in Japan

January 4 is the 4nd day of the year according to the Gregorian calendar. There are 361 days left until the end of the year (362 in leap years).

Railways

• January 4, 1871 The official opening ceremony of the Yedikule Küçükçekmece line was held. The public showed great interest in the ceremony attended by the Grand Vizier. Some government offices have been suspended. Due to the opening of the first line of the Rumelia Railways, Baron Hirsch, the concessionaire, was awarded the Order of Mecidiye from the first rank.
• January 4, 1921 It was requested that the Ankara-Eskişehir line be completely allocated to military transport.

Events

• 1755 - The estuary froze.
• 1885 - The first successful appendectomy, Dr. Performed by William W. Grant to his patient, Mary Gartside.
• 1896 - Utah became the 45th state of the United States.
• 1911 – Babıali fire.
• 1918 - Russia recognizes Finland's independence.
• 1926 – Istanbulspor was founded by Kemal Halim Gürgen.
• 1932 - Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in India.
• 1939 - B.
• 1944 - Soviet soldiers cross the pre-war Polish border.
• 1948 – Burma gained its independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1951 – Chinese and North Korean troops occupy Seoul.
• 1962 – United States President John F. Kennedy announced that they would send more troops to Vietnam.
• 1967 – Batman-Iskenderun oil pipeline with a length of 490 kilometers was put into service.
• 1969 – The international convention on the abolition of all forms of racial discrimination was signed.
• 1976 – A 12-meter high “Trojan Horse” was built on the site of the ancient city of Troy in Çanakkale.
• 1986 – Construction of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in the Bosphorus began.
• 1987 – A passenger train from Washington to Boston collided with another train: 16 people were killed.
• 1990 – A passenger train collided with a freight train in Sind province of Pakistan: 307 people were killed and 700 injured.
• 2004 – The Loya Jirga (Great Assembly) in Afghanistan adopts the new constitution.
• 2004 – Mihail Saakashvili, one of the pioneers of the “Velvet Revolution” in Georgia, was elected president instead of Eduard Shevardnadze.
• 2004 - The spacecraft Spirit landed on Mars.
• 2006 - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fell into a coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. After the election victory of the new party Kadima on 28 March, Ehud Olmert formed the new government with Labor Party leader Amir Peretz and became prime minister.
• 2010 – Construction of Burj Khalifa was completed and it became the tallest skyscraper in the world.

Births

• 659 – Zeynelabidin, third Imam of Ismailiyya (d. 712)
• 1338 – Mohammed V, Emir of Granada (d.1391)
• 1341 – Wat Tyler, English revolutionary leader (d.1381)
• 1643 – Isaac Newton, English mathematician and founder of modern physics (d. 1727)
• 1710 – Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Italian musician (d. 1736)
• 1747 – Dominique Vivant Denon, French artist, painter, diplomat, and writer (d. 1825)
• 1785 – Jacob Grimm, German author (elder of the Brothers Grimm) (d. 1863)
• 1797 – Wilhelm Beer, German banker, astronomer, and businessman (d. 1850)
• 1809 – Louis Braille, French educator (invented the Braille alphabet commonly used by the blind and named after him) (d. 1852)
• 1847 – Niko Dadiani I, last Prince of the Principality of Megrelia (d. 1903)
• 1848 Katsura Tarō, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1913)
• 1851 – Bedrifelek Kadınefendi, II. Abdulhamid's second wife (d. 1930)
• 1853 – Şayan Kadınefendi, the third wife of Murad V (d. 1945)
• 1857 – Émile Cohl, French illustrator and animator (d. 1938)
• 1861 – Mehmet Vahideddin, last sultan of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1926)
• 1864 – George Albert Smith, Fellow of the British Royal Astronomical Society, inventor and pioneering film director (d. 1959)
• 1866 – Ernest Mangnall, English manager (d. 1932)
• 1873 – Avram Galanti, Turkish educator and politician from Bodrum (d. 1961)
• 1876 – Augustus John, English painter and graphic artist (d. 1961)
• 1882 Yoshijirō Umezu, Japanese soldier (d. 1949)
• 1894 – Evariste Lévi-Provençal, French medieval historian, orientalist, scholar of Arabic Language and Literature, and Islamic historian (d. 1956)
• 1896 – André Masson, French painter (d. 1987)
• 1900 – Ernesto Palacio, Argentine historian (d. 1979)
• 1900 – Nazlı Ecevit, Turkish painter (d. 1985)
• 1903 – Georg Elser, German carpenter (who unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Hitler) (d. 1945)
• 1905 – Aristid von Grosse, German-American chemist and academic (d. 1985)
• 1905 – Tore Keller, Swedish football player (d. 1988)
• 1915 – Marie-Louise von Franz, Swiss analytical psychologist and researcher (d. 1998)
• 1916 – Slim Gaillard, American jazz singer, pianist, and guitarist (d. 1991)
• 1918 – Étienne Dailly, French senator and lawyer (d. 1996)
• 1923 – Maurice Cazeneuve, French actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2016)
• 1924 – Charles Tone, American politician (d. 2018)
• 1925 – Abdullah Mujtabawi, Iranian freestyle wrestler (d. 2012)
• 1925 – Zigmas Zinkevičius, Lithuanian linguist and historian (d. 2018)
• 1926 – Margareta Niculescu, Romanian artist, puppeteer, teacher and theater director (d. 2018)
• 1927 – Sabite Tur Gülerman, Turkish singer (d. 1989)
• 1928 – Maurice Rigobert Marie-Sainte, bishop of Martinique (d. 2017)
• 1929 – Amitai Etzioni, German sociologist
• 1929 – Günter Schabowski, German politician (d. 2015)
• 1929 – Özcan President, Turkish linguist (d. 1997)
• 1931 – Coşkun Özarı, Turkish football player and coach (d. 2011)
• 1931 – Nora Iuga, Romanian poet, writer and translator
• 1932 - Carlos Saura, Spanish film director
• 1941 – George Pan Cosmatos, Greek-Italian film director (d. 2005)
• 1942 – John McLaughlin, English musician
• 1956 – Nur Yoldaş, Turkish pop music artist
• 1963 – Till Lindemann, German musician
• 1971 – Tayfun Güneyer, Turkish screenwriter and director
• 1978 – Marcello Bravo, Austrian dancer and porn star
• 1980 – Bobbi Eden, Dutch actress and pornographic actress
• 1980 – Öner Erkan, Turkish actor
• 1984 – İbrahim Akin, Turkish football player
• 1985 – Gokhan Gonul, Turkish football player
• 1987 – Marissa Coleman, American basketball player
• 1990 – Toni Kroos, German football player

Deaths

• 1309 – Angela of Foligno, Italian mystic and writer (b. 1248)
• 1761 – Stephen Hales, English physiologist, chemist, and inventor (b. 1677)
• 1782 – Ange-Jacques Gabriel, French architect (b. 1698)
• 1786 – Moses Mendelssohn, German philosopher (b. 1729)
• 1825 – Ferdinando I, King of Sicily (b. 1751)
• 1877 – Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (b. 1794)
• 1882 – John William Draper, American scientist, philosopher, physician, historian, chemist, and photographer (b. 1811)
• 1886 – Pyotr Tkachev, Russian writer, critic, and revolutionary (b. 1844)
• 1891 – Pierre de Decker, Belgian politician, statesman, and author (b. 1812)
• 1892 – James Redhouse, English linguist, translator, and lexicographer (b. 1811)
• 1896 – Henri Alfred Jacquemart, French sculptor (b. 1824)
• 1910 – Frederick Matthew Darley, 6th High Judge of New South Wales (b. 1830)
• 1913 – Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, German general (b. 1833)
• 1915 – Anton von Werner, German painter (b. 1843)
• 1919 – Georg von Hertling, German statesman and philosopher (b. 1843)
• 1920 – Benito Pérez Galdós, ‎Spanish writer and playwright‎ (b. 1843)
• 1924 – René Basset, French orientalist (b. 1855)
• 1927 – Süleyman Nazif, Turkish poet, writer and statesman (b. 1870)
• 1929 – Cemil Arıcan, Turkish politician (b. 1880)
• 1936 – James Churchward, British soldier, researcher, explorer, fish expert, mineralogist, and historian (b. 1851)
• 1941 – Henri Bergson, French philosopher and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1859)
• 1960 – Albert Camus, French writer, philosopher, and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
• 1961 – Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics (b. 1887)
• 1963 – Muzaffer Sarısözen, Turkish folklorist, Turkish folk music artist and compiler (b. 1899)
• 1965 – TS Eliot, US-British poet, playwright, and Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888)
• 1966 – Georges Theunis, 24th Prime Minister of Belgium (b. 1873)
• 1967 – Boris Kraigher, Slovenian communist partisan, former Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia (b. 1914)
• 1975 – Carlo Levi, Italian painter, writer, doctor, activist, and antifascist (b. 1902)
• 2000 – Spiros Markezinis, Greek politician (b. 1909)
• 2003 – Sabiha Gürayman, Turkish civil engineer and volleyball player (Turkey's first female civil engineer) (b. 1910)
• 2010 – Kemal Demir, Turkish physician, politician and President of the Red Crescent (b. 1921)
• 2013 – Şenay Yüzbaşıoğlu, Turkish pop music singer and songwriter (b. 1947)
• 2013 – Tony Lip, American actor (b. 1930)
• 2014 – Mrinal Das, Bangladeshi communist politician and trade unionist (b. 1948)
• 2014 – Sergey Kozlov, former Soviet and Russian football player and manager (b. 1960)
• 2015 – Pino Daniele, Italian singer, guitarist and songwriter (b. 1955)
• 2015 – Azizullah Ludin, politician, former Afghanistan Independent Election commission member (b. 1939)
• 2015 – Natalino Pescarolo, Italian Catholic Bishop (b. 1929)
• 2015 – Stuart Scott, American sportscaster and sports commentator (b. 1965)
• 2015 – René Vautier, French film director (b. 1928)
• 2016 – Tom Allin, English cricketer (b. 1987)
• 2016 – Stephen W. Bosworth, American academic and diplomat (b. 1939)
• 2016 – Michel Galabru, French actor (b. 1922)
• 2016 – Jorge Lepra, Uruguayan diplomat and politician (b. 1942)
• 2016 – Achim Mentzel, German musician and actor (b. 1946)
• 2016 – Maja Maranow, German actress (b. 1961)
• 2016 – Andres Rodríguez, Venezuelan businessman and horse rider (b. 1984)
• 2016 – Robert Stigwood, Australian filmmaker (b. 1934)
• 2016 – Sedat Üründül, Turkish civil engineer and contractor (b. 1919)
• 2017 – Hisham al-Otaibi, Kuwaiti minister and politician (b. 1946)
• 2017 – Heinz Billing, German physicist and computer engineer (b. 1914)
• 2017 – William J. Cason, American politician and lawyer (b. 1924)
• 2017 – Willie Evans, Black professional American football player (b. 1937)
• 2017 – Jordi Pagans i Monsalvatje, Spanish painter (b. 1932)
• 2017 – Ezio Pascutti, Italian football player and football manager (b. 1937)
• 2017 – Georges Prêtre, French conductor (b. 1924)
• 2017 – Anna Senkoro, Tanzanian politician (b. 1962)
• 2017 – Gabriel Tang, general, leader of South Sudanese rebel militia (b. 1960)
• 2017 – Anthony Tu Shihua, Chinese Catholic bishop (b. 1919)
• 2018 – Aharon Appelfeld, Israeli novelist and author (b. 1932)
• 2018 – Ulhas Bapat is an Indian santoor musician (b. 1950)
• 2018 – Brendan Byrne, American politician (b. 1924)
• 2018 – Johannes Brost, Swedish actor and comedian (b. 1946)
• 2018 – Lyli Herse, Former French female racing cyclist (b. 1928)
• 2018 – Senichi Hoshino, former Japanese baseball player and sports coach (b. 1947)
• 2018 – Vladimir Yankilevsky, Russian artist (b. 1938)
• 2019 – Ivan Bortnik, Soviet-Russian actor (b. 1939)
• 2019 – Harold Brown, American nuclear physicist (b. 1927)
• 2019 – John Burningham, English children's writer and illustrator (b. 1936)
• 2019 – Harold Demsetz, American economist (b. 1930)
• 2019 – Leo J. Dulacki, American soldier (b. 1918)
• 2019 – Turhan Erdoğan, Turkish academic and civil engineer (b. 1938)
• 2019 – Miguel Gallastegui, Spanish basque pelota (pelotari) athlete (b. 1918)
• 2019 – David Garman, English inventor and businessman (b. 1922)
• 2019 – Louisa Moritz, Cuban-American actress and lawyer (b. 1946)
• 2019 – Norman Snider, Canadian screenwriter and actor (b. 1945)
• 2020 – Oliver Batali Albino, South Sudanese politician (b. 1935)
• 2020 – Guy Arnold, British explorer, educator, journalist, north-south relations expert, travel and politics writer (b. 1932)
• 2020 – Russell Bannock, Canadian fighter pilot and author (b. 1919)
• 2020 – Herbert Binkert, German national football player and manager (b. 1923)
• 2020 – Tom Long, Australian actor (b. 1968)
• 2020 – Lorenza Mazzetti, Italian film director, novelist, painter and photographer (b. 1927)
• 2020 – Walter Ormeño, Peruvian former football player (b. 1926)
• 2021 – Tom Acker, American baseball player (b. 1930)
• 2021 – Anatoly Butenko, Ukrainian politician (b. 1938)
• 2021 – Sandra Hutchens, American public safety official and politician (b. 1955)
• 2021 – Franco Loi, Italian poet and essayist (b. 1930)
• 2021 – Laurent Mailhot, Canadian historian, author, professor, essayist, and literary critic (b. 1931)
• 2021 – John Muckler, Canadian professional former ice hockey player, coach, and manager (b. 1934)
• 2021 – Elias Rahbani, Lebanese musician, composer, lyricist, conductor (b. 1938)
• 2021 – Tanya Roberts, American actress, producer, and comedian (b. 1955)
• 2021 – MR Schunker, ex-admiral in the Indian Navy (b. 1924)
• 2021 – Gregory Sierra, American actor (b. 1937)
• 2021 – Martinus Veltman, Dutch theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics (b. 1931)
• 2022 – Javier Astúa, Costa Rican national football player and manager (b. 1968)
• 2022 – Joan Copeland, American actress (b. 1922)
• 2022 – William M. Ellinghaus, American entrepreneur and businessman (b. 1922)
• 2022 – Irma Mico, Austro-Hungarian-born French resistance fighter (b. 1914)
• 2022 – Stelios Serafidis, Greek former international football player (b. 1935)

Holidays and special occasions

• Myanmar National Day
• Memorial Day of Süleyman Nazif in Diyarbakır