March 4

• March 4, 581
  Yang Jian, a Northern Zhou official, murders Zhou royalty and proclaims himself emperor Wen, beginning Sui Dynasty in reunited China after the period of Southern and Northern Dynasties
• March 4, 1152
  Frederick I Barbarossa is elected German King in Frankfurt
• March 4, 1193
  Saladin, a Kurdish sultan of Egypt and Syria, dies
• March 4, 1386
  Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, is crowned as King of Poland Władysław II by archbishop Bodzanta
• March 4, 1461
  Henry VI is deposed and the Duke of York is proclaimed King as Edward IV
• March 4, 1665
  English King Charles II declares war on Netherlands after the Dutch Smyrna fleet open fire on English warships near Dutch colonies, beginning the Second Anglo-Dutch War for control over the seas and trade routes
• March 4, 1681
  King Charles II grants William Penn royal charter for 48,000 square miles that later became Pennsylvania
• March 4, 1774
  William Herschel becomes the first to sight the Orion Nebula
• March 4, 1793
  George Washington is inaugurated as President for the second time talking the shortest speech with just 133 words
• March 4, 1797
  Vice-President John Adams, elected President on December 7, to replace George Washington, is inaugurated as second President of United States
• March 4, 1848
  Statuto Albertino, a Constitution of Kingdom of Sardinia, is proclaimed by King Charles Albert
• March 4, 1897
  William McKinley is inaugurated as the 25th President of the United States
• March 4, 1919
  Communist International, also known as the Third International, is established by 52 delegates present from 21 countries on the Founding Congress at the Kremlin, Moscow
• March 4, 1997
  U.S. President Bill Clinton bars federal funding for any research on human cloning
• March 4, 2000
  Sony Corporation releases the PlayStation 2 video game system in Japan, selling one million units on the first weekend