{"id":9762,"date":"2022-02-04T01:03:46","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T00:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=199078"},"modified":"2022-02-04T01:20:10","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T00:20:10","slug":"4-february-on-this-day-in-history","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/4-february-on-this-day-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"4 February: On this day in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Dominic Sandbrook\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 04 February 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

4 February 1555: Mary creates a Protestant martyr<\/h3>\n

John Rogers becomes the first person to be executed for heresy under the Catholic queen<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the morning of 4 February 1555, John Rogers was sleeping soundly in his cell at Newgate prison when the keeper\u2019s wife came for him. The son of a Birmingham spur-maker, educated at Cambridge, and a friend of the Protestant scholar William Tyndale, Rogers had long been an opponent of what he called \u201cpestilent popery, idolatry and superstition\u201d. But when the Catholic Mary Tudor<\/a> became queen in 1553, his preaching put him in danger.<\/p>\n

In January 1554 Rogers had been detained for denying the authority of the Church of Rome \u2013 a brave thing to do, given that Mary was now vigorously turning the clock back towards Catholicism. And now, more than a year later, his time had run out.<\/p>\n

That morning, dragged before the sheriffs, Rogers was asked to \u201crevoke his abominable doctrine\u201d. Fearless to the last, he stuck to his guns. \u201cThat which I have preached I will seal with my blood,\u201d he said. \u201cThou art a heretic,\u201d said the sheriff: \u201cI will never pray for thee.\u201d \u201cBut I will pray for you,\u201d Rogers replied calmly.<\/p>\n

Later that day he was taken to Smithfield, singing psalms as he went. On the way, his wife and 11 children were waiting; not even the sight of his family, though, could disturb his cool. Before a \u201cgreat number of people\u201d, according to Foxe\u2019s Book of Martyrs<\/em>, \u201che was burnt to ashes, washing his hands in the fame as he was burning\u2026 He constantly and cheerfully took his death with wonderful patience, in the defence and quarrel of the Gospel of Christ.\u201d He was just the first of Mary\u2019s victims. In the next three years, at least 280 more would follow. |\u00a0Read more about the reputation of \u2018Bloody Mary\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Julian Humphrys rounds up smaller anniversaries<\/h4>\n

4 February 211<\/h6>\n

Sixty five-year-old African-born Roman emperor Septimius Severus died at Eboracum (York) while preparing to lead a campaign against the Caledonians.<\/p>\n

4 February 1520<\/h6>\n

Mary Boleyn<\/a>, \u2018the other Boleyn Girl\u2019, married William Carey, courtier and a favourite of Henry VIII. She later became the king\u2019s mistress.<\/p>\n

4 February 1789<\/h6>\n

The 69 members of the electoral college unanimously elect George Washington<\/a> as the first president of the United States of America. He will be re-elected for a second term in office in 1792.<\/p>\n

4 February 1847\u00a0<\/h6>\n

Henri Dutrochet, the discoverer of osmosis, dies in Paris.<\/p>\n

4 February 1908<\/h6>\n

Birth of poet Julian Bell, son of Clive and Vanessa Bell and nephew of Virginia Woolf<\/a>. He will be killed in July 1937 while serving as an ambulance driver for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4 February 1912<\/h6>\n

Franz Reichelt was killed after jumping off the Eiffel Tower<\/a> to demonstrate the parachute suit he had invented. The parachute failed to open properly and Reichelt plummeted nearly 190 feet to his death.<\/p>\n

4 February 1913<\/h6>\n

Birth in Tuskegee, Alabama of African-American civil rights activist Rosa Parks<\/a>. In December 1955, she was arrested and fined after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger while travelling on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The incident led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by Martin Luther King Jr, and a year-long boycott of the city-owned bus company.<\/p>\n

A Supreme Court decision later overturned the ordinance under which Parks had been fined, and outlawed racial segregation on public transport.<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div> <\/section>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

4 February 1945: Stalin pushes Churchill to the margins at Yalta<\/h3>\n

The Soviet premier dominates a critical Allied summit<\/strong><\/p>\n

If we had spent 10 years on research,\u201d grumbled Winston Churchill<\/a>, \u201cwe could not have found a worse place in the world than Yalta.\u201d For on 4 February 1945, when Britain\u2019s unflagging prime minister arrived in the Crimean resort for a summit with Franklin D Roosevelt and Josef Stalin, he found it distinctly down-at-heel.<\/p>\n

The retreating Nazis had left much of the countryside burned and bleeding. Behind the elegant facades, the Crimean palaces were dusty and dilapidated.<\/p>\n