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August 4th Major News Events

  1. 1892 The parents of Lizzie Borden found murdered at their home in Massachusetts
  2. 1941 Nazi Troops Within 50 miles of Kiev
  3. 1950 U.S.A. Polio Cases Increase
  4. 1989 Savings and Loan Crisis
  5. 2012 Michael Phelps Wins 18th Gold

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4 Aug, 1892 Lizzie Borden

1892 : The parents of Lizzie Borden (Andrew and Abby Borden) were found murdered at their home in Massachusetts. And although never found guilty the following rhyme is remembered even to this day:

Lizzie Borden took an ax,

And gave her mother forty whacks,

When she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.

4 Aug, 1932 U.S.A. Warren G. Harding

1932 : Warren G. Harding, former president of the United States, lay in a funeral train as people from all stations of life bared their heads and bowed. Some were in groups of hundreds, others in dozens. Military men were to escort Harding’s remains from the White House to Washington for the funeral. Harding’s remains were to lie in state at the White House. His successor was Calvin Coolidge.

4 Aug, 1941 Nazi Troops Within 50 miles of Kiev

1941 : Nazi troops marched within 50 miles of Kiev. Both Russians and Nazis reported catastrophic casualties in the 44 day battle. Hitler’s high commissioners boasted that 2,300 Soviets were dead, 71 tanks were captured, and 10,000 Russian soldiers were taken captive. Russia claimed that in a counteroffensive they killed 1,000 Nazis, and wrecked 100 tanks. Mussolini summed World War II up to his troops, “the line-up is now complete between the two worlds with Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo on one side and London, Washington, and Moscow, on the other.”

4 Aug, 1944 Anne Frank Captured

1944 : The Nazi Gestapo captures 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse.

100 years of price Change

100 Years Of Price Changes

We spent many hours researching cost of living information for each year and I created this page after being asked a number of times about why I did not include current prices alongside our cost of living information for each year and thought this was the easiest way to make the information available. includes Average Cost Of New Home, Average Wages, New Car cost, Gallon Of Gas and a 1lb Hamburger Meat, 1920 to 2023

4 Aug, 1950 U.S.A. Polio Cases Increase

1950 : Both Snyder and Abilene in Texas had a total of six polio cases involving children recently, which indicates and upswing in this disease. One child was so badly affected that she had to be on a respirator.

4 Aug, 1964 Three Civil Rights Workers Bodies Found

1964 : Three civil rights workers (Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney) were found buried in a partially constructed dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. after disappearing more than a month before, police are investigating if members of the Ku Klux Klan are responsible.

4 Aug, 1967 Nuclear Worries Over China

1967 : The world’s nuclear fears were aroused when China exploded an H-bomb on June 17th, 1966, under the presidency of Mao Tse-tung. An editorial a year later in The Ada Evening News focused on fear mongering about nuclear war and remembered the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima 22 years before the Chinese got the bomb.

4 Aug, 1972 Governor George Wallace

1972 : Arthur Bremer, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been found guilty of the shooting and attempted murder of White House hopeful Mr Wallace at a political rally in Laurel, Maryland on 15th May. He has been sentenced to 63 years in jail by a court in Maryland, USA. Mr Wallace, was paralyzed by the shots and three other people were injured in the incident.

4 Aug, 1972 Philippines Monsoon

August 4, 1972 : Floodwaters finally recede revealing total devastation and hundreds dead. During July in the monsoon season nearly 70 inches of rain fell causing several dikes to fail and less than a week later, a typhoon dropped even more rain on the already saturated region causing more dikes throughout the area to fail causing many hundreds of thousands of acres to flood and leaving many dead and many more homeless , following on Cholera and typhoid epidemics broke out and because most of the crops had also been damaged food also became scarce.

4 Aug, 1978 Lebanon Israeli Attack

1978 : An Israeli air attack on southern Lebanon occurred in retaliation for a Palestinian bombing of a Tel Aviv market place. The Israelis claimed that the Palestinian bomb contained nails and ball bearings, killing one and wounding 48. Israelis planes bombed a guerrilla headquarters in Dahar-a-Tutah.

4 Aug, 1989 Savings and Loan Crisis

1989 : The Savings and Loan crisis which involved more than 500 savings and loan associations led President George Herbert Bush to consider a $150 billion bail out in an unprecedented piece of legislature. The Ways and Means Committee Chairperson, Dan Rostenkowski and his partners, were opposed to the bill. If the bill passed, $75 million a year would go to the Justice Department to be the watch dog for institutional fraud. The reasons believed to cause the problems for the Savings and loan institutions included the issue of the new high-interest money-market funds, long term mortgages at low fixed interest rates (Interest Rates Year End Federal Reserve 10.50% from our 1989), and finally poor lending practices to to risky ventures.

4 Aug, 1999 ATM Usage Goes Down

1999 : The Bank News Network has discovered that there has been a drop in the usage of ATM machines. Angry consumers are annoyed by the service charges for ATM usage and there is a 2.9% decrease in ATM transactions. This is the first time in a decade that there has been a decrease. Debit card transactions, however, have increased 35%.

Born This Day In History August 4

Celebrating Birthdays Today

Louis Armstrong

Born: Louis Daniel Armstrong August 4 1901 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.

Born: July 6th 1971 Corona, Queens, New York City, U.S.

Known For : Louis Armstrong is best known as one the greats in jazz music, born in New Orleans he began playing in public after dropping out of school at 11 years old and by the time he was 14 was playing his cornet at night in a night club. Like many other Jazz musicians he moved to Chicago which was quickly becoming the center of Jazz in the United States. Over the next few years even during the great depression of the early thirties he still found work due to his unique style. In 1964 he recorded his biggest hit "Hello, Dolly!" which not only went to number 1 on the pop music chart but even dislodged the Beatles. His nickname was "Satchmo" ("satchel-mouth") because of his style of playing.


Barack Obama

Born: August 4, 1961, Honolulu, Hawaii

Known For : Barack Obama became the first African American US president, serving from 2009 to 2017. Prior to his terms in office, he was a member of the Illinois State Senate and a US Senator from Illinois. During his presidency, Obama advocated for several stimulus measures to combat the Great Recession and was successful in passing healthcare reform with the Affordable Care Act. During his two terms in office, same-sex marriage was effectively legalized and he began the process of normalizing relations with Cuba for the first time in over 50 years.


4 Aug, 2000 Queen Mother Celebrates 100 yrs old

2000 : Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother is celebrating her birthday and 100 years old. The Queen Mother and the rest of the royal family appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace where thousands of well wishers gather to wish her happy birthday.

4 Aug, 2005 Russian Mini Sub Ask For Help

2005 : A Russian mini-submarine carrying seven Russians became caught on a part of the Russian secret coastal defense installation in the Pacific Ocean. The men were rescued three days later with help from a British remote-controlled vehicle that cut away the undersea cables that had snarled the mini-sub.

4 Aug, 2006 U.S.A. Ford Recall

August 4, 2006 : A total of 1.2 million Ford vehicles such as Econoline vans had defective cruise control switches that could overheat and cause fires. Ford vehicles were recalled from the periods of 1994-1996. The Econoline vans were produced in Ohio. This recall has shaken the 103 year old Ford Motor Company.

4 Aug, 2006 Ukraine New Prime Minister

2006 : After a four month period of political deadlock, Viktor Yanukovych became Ukraine’s prime minister. The former leader had been forced out in 2004 believed in forming a closer bond with Russia and was elected by a clear majority of parliament.

4 Aug, 2008 United States Morgan Freeman

2008 : Morgan Freeman, the academy award winning actor, was involved in a serious car accident on this day. Freeman and a passenger were airlifted to a hospital in serious condition. The accident was not fatal, and despite having injuries Freeman was lucid and speaking when the emergency response arrived on the scene.

4 Aug, 2009 North Korea Clinton Diplomacy

2009 : Two American journalists (Euna Lee and Laura Ling), who had been arrested and imprisoned for illegal entry into North Korea earlier in the year are granted a pardon following a meeting between former president Clinton and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

4 Aug, 2011 Warren Jeffs Convicted in Texas

August 4, 2011 : Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was convicted of child sexual assault by a jury in Texas. Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints faced charges after police raided a compound in west Texas in 2008 in which many underage girls who had been forced into "spiritual marriages" were found pregnant. He was later sentenced to life in prison.

4 Aug, 2012 Michael Phelps Wins 18th Gold

2012 : Michael Phelps wins his eighteenth gold medal of his Olympic swimming career after winning the 4x100m medley relay with the US men's swim team. The win brought his total Olympic medals to twenty-two and of those eighteen are gold. This was his last Olympic event before he stated he would go into retirement. However, Phelps eventually decided not to retire and participated in the 2016 Rio Olympics where he won another 6 medals (5 gold, 1 silver).

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Baby Boomers raise families following 20 years of unrest (Great Depression and World War II) the peak of the Baby Boomer Years

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