Dec 4 in History

1791 — The Observer, the world’s first Sunday newspaper, is first published in London.

1872 — The crewless American brigantine Mary Celeste is discovered drifting midway between the Azores and the coast of Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean by the Canadian brig Dei Gratia. The ship, which left New York on November 7 for Genoa, Italy, had been abandoned for nine days but is only slightly damaged. Her master Benjamin Briggs, his wife and daughter, and seven crew members are never accounted for.

1917 — The Finnish government, headed by Prime Minister PE Svinhufvud, presents a Declaration of Independence to parliament to establish the Republic of Finland. It is officially approved two days later and recognised by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on January 4 1918.

1918 — Following the new German government’s signing of the Armistice of 11 November 1918, bringing World War 1 to a close, President Woodrow Wilson sails for peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office. The Treaty of Versailles is signed on June 28 1919.

1933 — Horst Buchholz, German actor (“The Magnificent Seven”), is born in Berlin.

1948 — Chinese Civil War: The SS Kiangya, carrying Nationalist refugees from Shanghai, explodes in the Huangpu River most likely after hitting a mine left during World War 2. The manifest lists 2,150 passengers, but the death toll is thought to be between 2,750 and 3,920, with 700 survivors picked up by other vessels.

1949 — Jeff Bridges, American actor (seventime Oscar nominee, winner for “Crazy Heart” in 2009), is born in Los Angeles.

1971 — During a concert of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention at the Montreux Casino an audience member fires a flare gun into the ceiling, causing a fire that destroys the venue on the shoreline of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva that had been built for symphony orchestras in 1881.

1977 — Jean-Bédel Bokassa, second president of the Central African Republic since January 1 1966, crowns himself Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire in a lavish ceremony, styled on Napoleon’s coronation in 1804, that costs an estimated $30m. Bokassa is overthrown on September 21 1979 and the republic is restored under his predecessor David Dacko.

2015 — A firebomb is thrown into the El Sayad restaurant (located in a basement with no fire exits) in Cairo, Egypt, killing 17 people.