1347 English troops under Edward III conquer Calais, becomes strategic town for the English during Hundred Years' War.
1902 The Greenwich foot tunnel under the River Thames opens.
1914 US President Woodrow Wilson issues his "Proclamation of Neutrality" to keep the United States out of the war in Europe.
1944 Anne Frank is arrested in Amsterdam by German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who is never identified.
On 4th August 1868, the opening of the Bala and Dolgelly Railway completed the line across the north of Wales, thus connecting Ruabon, in the east, with Barmouth on the west coast.
Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (The Welsh Language Society) was established on 4th August 1962 at Pontarddulais. It was at least partly inspired by the annual BBC Wales Radio Lecture given in 1962 by Saunders Lewis, entitled ‘Tynged yr iaith’ (The fate of the language).
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain is a 1995 film released on 4th August, starring Hugh Grant. The film is based on a local legend of Taff's Well and nearby Garth Hill. Due to urbanisation, filming took place in Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and Llansilin in Mid Wales and is set in post World War I, 1917. Two English cartographers arrive at a village to measure its 'mountain', only to find that it can only be classified as a hill because it is just short of 1000 feet in height, which would have made it a mountain. The outraged villagers conspire to delay the cartographers' departure until an earth cairn is built on top of the hill to increase its height to over 1,000 feet.
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4 Aug 1962 The Rolling Stones played the first of 22 weekly shows at Ealing Jazz Club in Ealing, London. They were known as The Rollin' Stones during this period.
On this day in music – August 4, 1967 – Pink Floyd released their debut album, The Piper At the Gates of Dawn. The record launched Pink Floyd’s illustrious career and has been recognized as one of the most influential psychedelic rock albums of the 1960s. Recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios, it was the band’s only album to be penned primarily by founding member Syd Barrett.[/b]
