May 4
1471   In England, the Yorkists defeat the Landcastians at the battle of Tewkesbury.
1626   Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons.
1715   A French manufacturer debuts the first folding umbrella.
1776   Rhode Island declares independence from England.
1795   Thousands of rioters enter jails in Lyons, France, and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners.
1814   Napoleon Bonaparte disembarks at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.
1863   The Battle of Chancellorsville ends when Union Army retreats.
1864   Union General Ulysses S. Grant's forces cross the Rapidan River and meet Robert E. Lee's Confederate army.
1927   A balloon soars over 40,000 feet for the first time.
1930   Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British.
1942   The Battle of the Coral Sea commences.
1942   The United States begins food rationing.
1961   13 civil rights activists, dubbed Freedom Riders, begin a bus trip through the South.
1970   Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.

Born on May 4
1796   Horace Mann, educator and author.
1820   Joseph Whitaker, bookseller and publisher (Whitaker's Almanac)
1825   Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist.
1827   John Hanning Speke, English explorer.
1874   Frank Conrad, electrical engineer and broadcasting pioneer.
1884   Agnes Fay Morgan, American nutritionist and biochemist.
1928   Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet.
1929   Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten), actress, later U.N. special ambassador.
1939   Amos Oz, Israeli novelist (The Black Box, TheThird State).
1949   Graham Swift, British novelist (The Sweet Shop Owner, Out of this World).