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.