4th January anniversaries

• Birth
  • 1809
  • France
  • "Birth of Louis Braille, French inventor of Braille, a writing and printingsystem for the blind and visually impaired"
• event
  • 1642
  • Great Britain
  • Charles I arrests parliamentarians and starts civil war
  • 1884
  • Great Britain
  • The socialist Fabian Society was founded in London
  • 1948
  • Burma gained its independence from Britain .
  • 1958
  • New Zealand
  • New Zealand explorer and mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary arrived at the South Pole – the first person to do so since Captain Scott in 1912.
  • 1958
  • Russian Federation
  • Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 returned to Earth after 3 months in orbit .
• Death
  • 1967
  • Great Britain
  • Donald Campbell dies attempting to break his world water speed record on Conniston Water – his body and Bluebird recovered in 2002