Important Events From This day in History – 4 May

Today in History

• 1994 Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat sign a peace accord to ensure Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho

  The two leaders shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 with Shimon Peres. Rabin was assassinated a year later by a Jewish extremist.

• 1959 The Grammy is presented for the first time

  It is considered to be one of the most prestigious awards in the music industry. The first edition’s winners included Ella Fitzgerald, Henry Mancini, and Frank Sinatra.

• 1953 Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize

  The prestigious award was given to the American author for his novel The Old Man and the Sea. He also won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his story about a fisherman and his battle with a large marlin.

• 1904 The United States takes over the construction of the Panama Canal

  In 1881, French engineers began digging a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but they were forced to abandon the project after approximately 22,000 lives were lost due to accidents and disease.

• 1675 King Charles II of England commissions the Royal Observatory in Greenwich

  The observatory was built on the prime meridian. The mean solar time at this location is the basis for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).