June 4 in History

Henry Ford test-drove his first automobile, the Quadricycle, through the streets of Detroit at 4 AM on June 4, 1896. The vehicle weighed 500 pounds, had four bicycle wheels, a two-cylinder ethanol engine producing four horsepower, and a tiller for steering. It had no brakes and no reverse gear. Ford had built it in a shed behind his home on Bagley Avenue while working as chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company. The shed door was too narrow for the finished vehicle, so Ford knocked out the door frame with an axe to get it outside. He sold the Quadricycle for $200 and used the money to build a second, improved vehicle. Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903. The Quadricycle is now in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

The U.S. Senate approved the 19th Amendment on June 4, 1919, by a vote of 56 to 25, and the House had passed it on May 21 by 304 to 89. The amendment, declaring that "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex," then went to the states for ratification. The campaign had lasted 72 years, from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention through decades of marches, hunger strikes, and imprisonment. Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify on August 18, 1920, by a single vote cast by 24-year-old legislator Harry Burn, whose mother had written to him: "Be a good boy and vote for ratification." Approximately 8 million women voted in the November 1920 presidential election.

Chinese military forces opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing on the night of June 3-4, 1989, after seven weeks of peaceful demonstrations that had drawn over a million participants at their peak. The People's Liberation Army deployed tanks and infantry armed with assault rifles against unarmed civilians. Casualty estimates range from several hundred to several thousand dead; the Chinese Red Cross initially reported 2,600 dead before retracting the figure under government pressure. The protests had begun in April as mourning for reformist leader Hu Yaobang and evolved into demands for democracy, press freedom, and accountability. The government imposed martial law on May 20. The iconic "Tank Man" photograph of a lone citizen blocking a column of tanks became one of the most recognizable images of the 20th century.

Brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier demonstrated the first public flight of a hot air balloon at Annonay, France, on June 4, 1783. The unmanned balloon, made of sackcloth lined with paper and inflated by burning straw and wool, rose to approximately 6,000 feet and traveled about a mile before landing. The Montgolfiers did not understand that hot air was the lifting agent; they believed they had discovered a new gas they called "Montgolfier gas." The first manned free flight followed on November 21, 1783, when Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes flew for 25 minutes over Paris. Just ten days later, Jacques Charles flew a hydrogen balloon, establishing the competing technology that eventually proved superior for long-distance flight.

Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to enact a minimum wage law on June 4, 1912, establishing a commission to set wage rates for women and children in specific industries. The law did not mandate a specific dollar amount but empowered the commission to investigate wages and publish findings that embarrassed employers paying below subsistence levels. The rates it recommended were roughly $7-8 per week for women. The law was not enforceable through penalties; it relied on public pressure. The federal minimum wage was not established until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set the rate at 25 cents per hour (about $5.25 in today's money). The Massachusetts law was part of the Progressive Era's broader effort to use government regulation to address the worst abuses of industrial capitalism.

Allied forces entered Rome on June 4, 1944, making it the first Axis capital to fall. The capture was overshadowed just two days later by the D-Day landings in Normandy, which dominated global headlines. General Mark Clark, commanding the US Fifth Army, controversially diverted forces toward Rome rather than cutting off the retreating German Tenth Army, allowing a large enemy force to escape and fight again. Clark was determined to enter Rome first and staged a photo opportunity at the city limits. Italian partisans had already secured many key locations before Allied troops arrived. The German army declared Rome an open city and withdrew without destroying its historic structures, unlike their scorched-earth retreats elsewhere in Italy.

Reinhard Heydrich, the highest-ranking Nazi official assassinated during World War II, died on June 4, 1942, from septicemia caused by wounds sustained in Operation Anthropoid eight days earlier. Czech and Slovak soldiers Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, trained by British SOE, had ambushed Heydrich's open-top Mercedes in Prague. Gabcik's Sten gun jammed; Kubis threw a modified anti-tank grenade that embedded horsehair upholstery fragments in Heydrich's spleen. Heydrich initially appeared to recover but died when the wound became infected. The Nazi reprisal was savage: the village of Lidice was razed, its 173 men executed, its women sent to Ravensbruck, and its children gassed at Chelmno. The village of Lezaky was similarly destroyed. The assassins were betrayed by a fellow agent and died in a firefight at a Prague church.