Portal:University of Oxford/On this day/May 4

Births

• 1715 – Richard Graves (Pembroke and All Souls), priest and poet
• 1777 – Richard Bourke (Christ Church), Governor of New South Wales 1831–1837
• 1822 – Sir Robert Peel, 3rd Baronet (Christ Church), politician
• 1826 – David Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie (Christ Church), peer
• 1835 – Alexander Baring, 4th Baron Ashburton (Christ Church), politician and landowner
• 1914 – Hilgard Muller, South African politician
• 1941 – George Will (Magdalen), American journalist and author
• 1948 – George Tupou V, King of Tonga 2006–2012
• 1967 – Anna Botting (St Edmund Hall), newsreader

Deaths

• 1626 – Arthur Lake (New College), Bishop of Bath and Wells 1616–1626
• 1678 – Abraham Woodhead (University), writer on Catholicism
• 1863 – Edward Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton (Brasenose), politician
• 1879 – William Froude (Oriel), hydrodynamicist and naval architect
• 1901 – Stanley Leighton (Balliol), lawyer and politician
• 1941 – Ramsay Muir (Balliol), historian and politician
• 1952 – Alan Garrett Anderson (Trinity), civil servant and shipowner
• 2008 – Richard Holme, Baron Holme of Cheltenham (St John's), politician

Other events

• 1415 – The theologian and former Master of Balliol John Wycliffe (died 1384) is declared a heretic by the Council of Constance, which orders his books to be burned and his body to be exhumed.

• 1979 – Margaret Thatcher (Somerville) becomes the British Prime Minister.