Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August 4
- 1704 - During the War of the Spanish Succession an Anglo-Dutch force seized Gibraltar, which has remained British territory to this day.
- 1735 - Freedom of the press: American writer John Peter Zenger was acquitted of seditious libel against the New York royal governor, on the basis that what he published was true.
- 1914 - World War I: Germany invaded Belgium; in response, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.
- 1944 - Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informant led the Gestapo to find and capture Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family.
- 1984 - The African republic Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso.