April 4

503 BC – Roman consul Agrippa Menenius Lanatus celebrates a triumph for a military victory over the Sabines. 190 – Dong Zhuo has his troops evacuate the capital Luoyang and burn it to the ground. 611 – Maya king Uneh Chan of Calakmul sacks rival city-state Palenque in southern Mexico. 801 – King Louis the Pious captures Barcelona from the Moors after a siege of several months. 1268 – A five-year Byzantine–Venetian peace treaty is concluded between Venetian envoys and Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos. 1423 – Death of the Venetian Doge Tommaso Mocenigo, under whose rule victories were achieved against the Kingdom of Hungary and against the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Gallipoli (1416). 1581 – Francis Drake is knighted by Queen Elizabeth I for completing a circumnavigation of the world. 1609 – Moriscos are expelled from the Kingdom of Valencia. 1660 – Declaration of Breda by King Charles II of Great Britain promises, among other things, a general pardon to all royalists and opponents of the monarchy for crimes committed during the English Civil War and the Interregnum. 1796 – Georges Cuvier delivers the first paleontological lecture. 1814 – Napoleon abdicates (conditionally) for the first time and names his son Napoleon II as Emperor of the French, followed by unconditional abdication two days later. 1818 – The United States Congress, affirming the Second Continental Congress, adopts the flag of the United States with 13 red and white stripes and one star for each state (20 at that time). 1841 – William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office, and setting the record for the briefest administration. Vice President John Tyler succeeds Harrison as President. 1860 – The declaration on the introduction of the Finnish markka as an official currency is read in different parts of the Grand Duchy of Finland. 1865 – American Civil War: A day after Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln visits the Confederate capital.