Explore 4 December

Explore 4 December: British India outlaws sati, the Council of Trent closes, the Bauhaus moves into its famous new home and China adopts its present constitution. Meet Thomas Carlyle, Edith Cavell and Rainer Maria Rilke, born on this date.

This day through time →9 verified events across 3 eras

⌛9Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙7Born
Today ✦6Lives
Remembered ◉2Firsts &
Discoveries ☆1Sporting
Moments ♫1Culture
Stories

Lord William Bentinck, governor-general of Bengal, engraved after a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

Image credit

Based on painting by Sir T. Lawrence (1769 – 1s830) · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1829

British India outlaws sati

On 4 December 1829 the governor-general of Bengal, Lord William Bentinck, and his council passed a regulation declaring sati, the burning or burying alive of Hindu widows with their dead husbands, illegal and punishable in the criminal courts. Anyone who helped with it could be tried for culpable homicide.

The reformer Ram Mohan Roy had campaigned against the practice for years, and Bentinck pressed the measure through against fierce opposition. It applied at first in the lands ruled directly by the East India Company.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: World History Commons (George Mason University): Sati, official documents, Lord William Cavendish Bentinck ↗

A painting of a session of the Council of Trent, in the Museo del Palazzo del Buonconsiglio, Trento.

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Laurom · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

1563

The Council of Trent closes

The Council of Trent, which the Catholic Church had opened in December 1545 in answer to the Protestant Reformation, held its last session on 3 and 4 December 1563 and was dissolved on the 4th, with 255 council fathers present.

Its final decrees dealt with indulgences, fasts and feast days, and asked the pope to prepare a new missal, breviary and catechism and a list of forbidden books. Confirmed by Pius IV early in 1564, the council’s work shaped Catholic teaching and practice for four centuries.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Council of Trent ↗

The Bauhaus building in Dessau, with its glass-walled workshop wing.

Image credit

JensKunstfreund · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

1926

The Bauhaus opens its building in Dessau

On 4 December 1926 the Bauhaus school of art and design opened its new building in Dessau, designed by its director Walter Gropius after the school was forced out of Weimar. More than 1,000 guests from Germany and abroad came, along with about 100 journalists.

With its white walls, reinforced concrete and three-storey glass curtain wall, the building became an emblem of modern architecture. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau: The Bauhaus Building ↗

The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where the National People’s Congress meets, in 2012.

Image credit

Zheng Zhou · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

1982

China adopts its present constitution

On 4 December 1982 the National People’s Congress, meeting in Beijing, adopted the fourth constitution of the People’s Republic of China, replacing the one of 1978. It set out the framework of the state in the era of reform that followed the death of Mao Zedong.

It has been amended several times since, in 1988, 1993, 1999, 2004 and 2018.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Government of the People’s Republic of China: Constitution of the People’s Republic of China ↗

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PEOPLE

Born Today

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Elliott & Fry · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1795

Thomas Carlyle

Scottish historian and essayist, author of The French Revolution: A History.

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The original uploader was Vivedatica at Dutch Wikipedia. · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1865

Edith Cavell

British nurse who helped Allied soldiers escape occupied Belgium and was executed by the Germans in 1915.

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Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1875

Rainer Maria Rilke

Bohemian-Austrian poet of the Duino Elegies and Letters to a Young Poet.

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Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

Born 1908

Alfred Hershey

American biologist whose experiment with Martha Chase helped show that DNA carries genetic information; Nobel Prize, 1969.

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bandura@stanford.edu · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1925

Albert Bandura

Canadian-American psychologist known for his work on learning by observation and self-efficacy.

Image credit

Gage Skidmore · CC BY-SA 3.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1949

Jeff Bridges

American actor, Academy Award winner for Crazy Heart.

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Vinod Divakaran / Doha Stadium Plus Qatar · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

Born 1963

Sergey Bubka

Ukrainian pole vaulter, the first to clear six metres, who set 35 world records.

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IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

Gemini 7 in orbit, photographed from Gemini 6 during their rendezvous.

Image credit

NASA · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1965

Gemini 7 begins two weeks in space

Frank Borman and Jim Lovell lifted off from Cape Canaveral aboard Gemini 7 on 4 December 1965. Their task was to show that people could live and work in weightlessness for 14 days, as long as a return trip to the Moon would take.

They splashed down on 18 December, setting an endurance record that stood until 1970. On the way, on 15 December, Gemini 6 flew up to meet them, in the first rendezvous between two crewed spacecraft.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA: Gemini VII ↗

The Unity node with members of the STS-88 crew at Kennedy Space Center, in 1997.

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NASA · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1998

Endeavour carries up the space station’s first American module

The space shuttle Endeavour made a night launch on 4 December 1998 on STS-88, the first shuttle mission to the International Space Station. In its cargo bay was Unity, the first American-built part of the station, a connecting node.

Two weeks earlier Russia had launched the first module, Zarya. The crew under Robert Cabana joined the two in orbit, and three spacewalks wired them together, the first step in assembling the station.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: NASA: 20 years ago, STS-88 adds Unity to ISS ↗

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SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

The Montreal Canadiens’ first team, 1909-10.

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Albert Dumas · Public domainResized and cropped for display.

1909

The Montreal Canadiens are founded

The Montreal Canadiens were founded on 4 December 1909 at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal, set up by the businessman J. Ambrose O’Brien as a French-Canadian team for the new National Hockey Association.

The club joined the National Hockey League when it was formed in 1917 and is now the oldest professional ice hockey team in the world. It has won the Stanley Cup more times than any other team.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia: Montreal Canadiens ↗

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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

Sun Studio at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, in 2009.

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dbking from Washington, DC · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.

1956

The ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ jams at Sun

On the afternoon of 4 December 1956 Elvis Presley dropped in at Sun Studio in Memphis, where he had begun his career, and found Carl Perkins recording with a new piano player, Jerry Lee Lewis. Johnny Cash joined them, and they sang gospel and country favourites around the piano.

Sam Phillips had the tape running and called a local reporter, whose story the next day named them the ‘Million Dollar Quartet’. The recordings were released decades later.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Graceland: Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet ↗

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LIVES REMEMBERED