Template:On this day - February 4

Vicente Espinel

• 1043 – In the Taifa of Málaga (present-day Spain), Idris II is named king.
• 1493 – Christopher Columbus sets sail from the island of Hispaniola (which comprises present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) for Spain, returning from his first American voyage aboard the La Niña.
• 1616 – Juan de Silva, governor of the Philippines, sets out for Malacca (present-day Malaysia) with an expedition of 16 ships and 500 soldiers to put an end to the Dutch pirates who, allied with the Muslims, attack the possessions of the Iberian Union in Southeast Asia.
• 1624 – Death of Vicente Espinel, Spanish Golden Age priest, writer and musician (b. 1550).
• 1749 – Birth of Josefa Amar y Borbón, Spanish educator and writer (d. 1833).
• 1782 – The British troops that had seized the island of Menorca surrender to the attack of the Spanish-French army.
• 1797 – In the Viceroyalty of New Granada (present-day Ecuador), an earthquake of magnitude 8.2 on the Richter scale leaves at least 44,000 victims. The Villa del Villar Don Pardo (now Riobamba) is literally swallowed by the earth. Several nearby hills collapse and the geography of the region was altered.
• 1813 – In the Viceroyalty of New Granada (Colombia), the Cabildo of Valledupar opens a public session in which the Independence of Valledupar was proclaimed.
• 1860 – In Tetuan (Morocco), during the First Moroccan War, the Spanish Army defeats the Moroccan Armed Forces at the Battle of Tetuan.
• 1888 – In the Province of Huelva (Spain), one of the first popular revolts takes place against the exploitation of children and the environmental degradation caused by the Rio Tinto mines.
• 1893 – Death of Concepción Arenal, Spanish criminal lawyer and writer (b. 1820).
• 1899 – The Philippine–American War begins with the Battle of Manila between the First Philippine Republic and the United States.
• 1913 – In Bolívar Park in San Salvador, three men attack President Manuel E. Araujo with machetes during a concert; he will die five days later. The army immediately shot the hired killers, hindering the investigation into who masterminded the assassination.
• 1927 – In Mexico, the government lifts the ban on foreign clergy residing in the country, except for Spanish priests.
• 1937 – The Ministry of Justice of the Second Spanish Republic decrees equal civil rights for both sexes.
• 1962 – President Arturo Frondizi of Argentina breaks off diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba, and on the same day also bans the nomination of former president Juan Domingo Perón (in exile since 1955) as candidate for Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires.
• 1976 – An earthquake destroys 60% of the Republic of Guatemala in Central America, leaving 23,000 dead and more than a million affected.
• 1992 – In Venezuela, the failed coup d'état of February 1992 takes place, led by the army officers Hugo Chávez, Francisco Arias Cárdenas, Yoel Acosta Chirinos, Jesús Urdaneta and José Miguel Ortiz Contreras, members of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200.
• 2006 – In Madrid (Spain), the fourth terminal of Barajas Airport is inaugurated, raising its capacity to seventy million passengers a year.
• 2020 – Death of José Luis Cuerda, Spanish director, screenwriter and producer (b. 1947).