Human Saga

On August 4

No pivotal events are recorded on exactly August 4 in the Human Saga — here is the surrounding week in history.

This week in history (Aug 1 – Aug 7)

1857–1858 (rebellion); Government of India Act 2 August 1858Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the birth of the British RajPolitics & governance

The Indian Rebellion of 1857—known variously as the Sepoy Mutiny, the Great Rebellion, or India's First War of Independence—erupted on 10 May 1857 when sepoys of the East India Company's Bengal Army mutinied at Meerut, in part over the…

2 August 216 BCEBattle of Cannae: Hannibal annihilates a Roman armyMilitary & conflict

During the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who had invaded Italy by crossing the Alps, inflicted on Rome one of the worst defeats in its history near the village of Cannae in Apulia.

6 August 1806Dissolution of the Holy Roman EmpirePolitics & governance

On 6 August 1806, Francis II abdicated the imperial crown and released all member states and officials from their obligations, formally dissolving the Holy Roman Empire after roughly a thousand years.

On 7 August 1819 Simón Bolívar's patriot army, having crossed the flooded plains of the Orinoco and the freezing Andean pass of the Páramo de Pisba, routed a Spanish royalist force at the Boyacá bridge in present-day Colombia.

The South Pacific Forum, later renamed the Pacific Islands Forum, was established at an inaugural meeting held in Wellington, New Zealand, from 5 to 7 August 1971.

On 6 August 1985, eight member states of the South Pacific Forum signed the Treaty of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, creating the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone.

2 August 1935Government of India Act 1935Politics & governance

Receiving royal assent on 2 August 1935, the Government of India Act 1935 was the most extensive constitutional reform enacted by Britain for India before independence.

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