On January 4, 1809, Louis Braille is born in Coupvray, France. He would go on to develop the writing system for visually impaired readers that bears his name: braille.

Angered over a card game dispute, 16-year-old John Wesley Hardin shoots Benjamin Bradley dead in the street, likely on January 4, 1870.

German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, mastermind of an aggressive German military strategy that will soon be used, in modified form, at the start of the Great War, dies on this day in 1913 in Berlin.

Mary Sullivan is raped and strangled to death in her Boston apartment. The killer left a card reading “Happy New Year” leaning against her foot. Sullivan would turn out to be the last woman killed by the notorious Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, who had terrorized the city between 1962 and 1964, raping and killing 13 women.

Two trains collide in Sangi, Pakistan, on January 4, 1990, killing between 200 and 300 people and injuring an estimated 700 others. This was the worst rail accident to date in Pakistan.

On January 4, 1996, General Motors announces at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show it will build an electric car, dubbed the EV1, to be launched in the fall of that year.

On January 4, 2007, John Boehner handed the speaker of the House gavel over to Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic Representative from California. With the passing of the gavel, she became the first woman to hold the Speaker of the House position, as well as the only woman to get that close the presidency. After the Vice President, she was now second in line via the presidential order of succession. Pelosi became Speaker again in 2018.