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This Day in History: September 4
Take a look at all of the important historical events that took place on September 4.
On this day, Sept. 4 ...
1888: George Eastman patents his roll-film camera and registers the Kodak trademark.
Also on this day:
- 1609: Henry Hudson first arrives at the island of Manhattan.
- 1781: Los Angeles is founded by Spanish settlers under the leadership of Governor Felipe de Neve.
- 1951: President Harry S. Truman addresses the nation from the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco in the first live, coast-to-coast television broadcast.
- 1957: Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus uses Arkansas National Guardsmen to prevent nine black students from entering all-white Central High School in Little Rock.
- 1957: Ford Motor Co. begins selling its ill-fated Edsel.
- 1969: The Food and Drug Administration issues a report calling birth control pills "safe," despite a slight risk of fatal blood-clotting disorders linked to the pills.
- 1972: U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz wins a then-record seventh gold medal at the Munich Summer Olympics.
- 1972: "The New Price Is Right," hosted by Bob Barker, premieres on CBS. (The game show later would drop the "New" from its title and expand from a half-hour to an hour.)
- 1987: A Soviet court convicts West German pilot Mathias Rust of charges stemming from his daring flight to Moscow's Red Square, and sentences him to four years in a labor camp.
- 1998: Google files for incorporation in California.
- 1999: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign a breakthrough land-for-security agreement during a ceremony in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
- 2006: "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, 44, dies after a stingray's barb pierced his chest.
- 2008: Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleads guilty to obstruction of justice in a sex scandal, forcing him out of office after months of defiantly holding onto his job.
- 2014: Joan Rivers dies at a New York hospital at age 81, a week after going into cardiac arrest in a doctor’s office during a routine medical procedure
- 2017: Texas emergency management officials say at least 60 deaths are attributed to Hurricane Harvey.
- 2018: The Senate Judiciary Committee begins confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
- 2018: Amazon becomes the second publicly-traded company to reach $1 trillion in market value, following closely behind Apple.
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